Chatting is equally applicable to friends and strangers, and is customarily performed in a relaxed and leisurely manner.
But almost all of this changes when it comes to a Twitter chat, and you are one of the chat hosts.
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.
