Writers and Twitter

Writers are the original "remote workers." They inherently know what it feels like to work/live in a sensory deprivation chamber--at least until spouse/kids arrive home in the evening. Twitter and other forums provide some semblance of stimulus and interaction.

I think most people understand the huge difference between authors promoting their work and bashing people over the head with it.

#Thank #you #I'm #lonely #too. Long live us faulted humans!

Amen to all of it. Especially the part about being lonely. I'd go nuts without my Twitter.

Brilliant! Thanks for this. I'm twittering it.

Oh my god! You mean we're meant to have a shower?

PS: I'd buy the cowboy book as well! You've got to write it now.

Well said! (And I wouldn't have got to read this if I didn't follow Twitter...)

"- We are lonely. We are impossibly lonely. Up in the attic, eating toast and wondering when we should have a shower and trying to remember what wearing shoes felt like. We therefore like to chat to people."

Oh, I feel much better now. I thought it was just me who was turning into a recluse...

You asked one important question, 'What would Shakespeare do?' When he was knocking about there only were six other playwrights and barely any literate people in the country, and it was The Renaissance, so, no smiley faces, just Botticelli and the Black Death and Edmund Spenser to joust with. In a sense self-publicity was practically the same thing as writing poetry.

What would he do NOW? What, if he had to write repulsive, banal, horrifically undignified messages or letters to get published in the first place? Sound like a blonde bimbo just to pass muster, to be polite, to conform to debased parlance even if what he had was God on Earth? He would shoot himself. He, quite possibly, already has (his contemporary equivalent), but we will never know.

I also think Shakespeare would've had difficulties writing at all, since his method was to take various reprehensible characters, or noble ones, and give them souls and idiom beyond their capacities - to imagine and endow beyond their limits, or limits of expression - I think, confronted on a daily basis with the evidence of a dead-end humanity, and in particular made to witness its degradation in literary terms; forced to see that really, depth and passion simply does not apply and he cannot create it for us, in our name; his soul - even his - would despair.

It takes innocence to write like that. And it is not death or cruelty or sadism or insanity or even corruption that destroys innocence: it is the constant etiolation of one's spirit in the face of perpetual, remorseless vapidity.

There may be other reasons why Shakespeare is not here, but they'll all miss the point of his weeping horror that to create at all, with his level of faith and desire, is no longer possible.

I felt very queasy about posting good reviews until someone pointed out that it's also a plug for the blogger/reviewer. Didn't feel quite so shameless after that.

Top post. The hot coal/bucket of ice thing is perfect. It doesn't need to go anywhere else.

Great article! I was LMAO!

Just keep making us think and laugh, Matt! And I'll follow you.

I would totally buy that cowboy book. Just sayin'... :-D

Another excellent post sir. Although you forgot to mention that once in a while, we writers need someone to rant at and Twitter is the ideal tool!

Feedback is essential, whether you're an author, illustrator, publisher or blogger - and if an author, illustrator or publisher retweets one of our reviews or says thank you if we've said nice things about them on Twitter, it's nice to have that connection and feedback. Don't understand at all where the "monster" bit comes in but (sigh) The Internet (shrug)

You seem like a very level-headed writer with a good approach, and an obsession for the actual writing. Anything taken to the extreme draws fire, I think, eventually, and the author in question above retweeted every single positive comment to the point that - if he was actually conversing on Twitter with anyone - you'd not know it without researching his feed to find the posts.

I'm more likely to post a tweet about a good review of my work than to retweet something someone said - because I figure MOSTLY the people already following me will see it, and MOSTLY they already have at least a passing interest (if they actually exist).

Good article.

-DNW

I like authors self-publicising it makes them much more real to us than the standard picture on the cover of each book. If their comments/tweets are as funny and informative as yours then even better.

This is all so painfully true - especially the bit about being up in the attic eating toast (or biscuits in my case). And if people don't like what you tweet, they always have an option...

Amen!
Also - you have toast? An attic?! Muttermutter *holeintheroad* muttermutter.
Would just add, I don't think the BUY MY BOOK NOW! promo's sell a single copy; and, post more non-brags than brags.

Some writers have to do the whole marketing/publicity thing themselves if they are not with the "monster" publishers. Twitter/FB are very valuable where that is the case.