It’s true. I was completely skeptical that any form of social media could improve any part of my life in any way. I wasn’t even on facebook (a big part of that was my fear of being stalked by my students). So this post is a bit of an ode to my love for twitter. Make your face of disgust now ye doubters…then read on!
Reasons why I love twitter:
1. There is an incredible community of YA writers on twitter. And for the most part they are open and friendly even if they don’t know you. (Provided you don’t act like a total bonehead stalker -that could be another post.)
2. Twitter is communication without commitment. I’m sure not everyone feels this way about facebook, but to me facebook is much more showy. See how pretty my garden is. Look at how great my vacation was. Check out how cute my kid is. I’m sure I’m going to get push back on this, and I know not everyone is lucky enough to have family close by who can see their great vacation/garden/kid whenever they want…but my point is it’s very calculated and very staged. Twitter, in its 140 character glory, is very improvisational, silly, casual, cranky, and true to life. Okay, not everyone on Twitter is like this, but the people I like to follow are.
3. Twitter helps me write. Really. Twitter keeps me sitting at my computer longer. It gives me short breaks; just enough time to recharge and go back to whatever I’m working on. The key word here is short. It’s not a long email, or 185 vacation photos. It’s just a quick thought, a great shared quote, maybe a link to save for later.
Back to facebook. I don’t post that frequently on fb. Maybe it’s my own hang up, but fb makes me feel like I’m in high school again and I might not be pretty or cool enough to say the right thing. But I do tweet quite a bit. So if you can’t get enough of my personal charm and wisdom feel free to follow @sashikaufman. You won’t regret it.
(And of course this will be linked to my fb page. Help, help, I’m drowning in irony and hypocrisy!)
Ideas In Things 