Me with Texas writer Sydney Young (L) and 2018 PitchWars mentor Carrie Callaghan (R) at the 2019 Historical Novel Society writers’ conference
So it was with #HFChitChat—the idea of a recurring Twitter chat and online community for writers of historical fiction.
Back at the start of September, on Twitter, someone posted a tweet encouraging people to list five movies that best represent their tastes and personality.
Like many people, I’m sure, I have a love-hate relationship with social media.
F**king Twitter!I love the concept of Twitter – of microblogging in general. I love the way those who are Twitter-savvy are able to use it to meet new people, remain connected to friends and fans, and obtain information that’s of value and of interest to them.
I just don’t seemed able to do any of those things myself.
Or in Twitter parlance: #IDon’tGetIt.
It is, at face value, actually quite simple: an online venue in which one expresses him-/herself in 140 characters, follows the expressions of others, and categorizes his/her own expressions with hashtags for ease of allowing others to follow him/her.
Indeed, Twitter’s liberal use of symbology – #, @, RT, MT, and links beginning with bit.ly or ow.ly or foreshortened forms of other familiar websites (e.g. amzn, goo.gl, wp) – gives it less the air of a web service and more that of a futuristic language.
And who doesn’t think it’s cool to be bi-/tri-/multilingual?
I get all that.
I also get that Twitter’s a great way to keep up with news, which is the primary reason I joined up in the first place.
Only….
What I don’t understand is how some people manage to actually get said news.
Because there is just so much of it.
