Isn't Tweeting bad for writers? Just another way to procrastinate? Isn't it all simply inane, egotistical chatter?
Back in the early 1990s - that does sound a long time ago! - I was mainly writing about the visual arts, my novels, as yet, were unwritten. I attended a conference - something to do with critical writing in the arts - at which there was a session on this thing call The Internet. Someone said it had nothing to do with writing and, anyway, wasn't it just a purveyor of porn?
Less than ten years later, with my first novel about to come out and another on the way I found the Internet and email part of the writing life - research, sending edits back and forth to publishers etc.Well, Twitter's been here a while now and I've been using it in a modest way for a couple of years. For me, I find it an incredibly useful way of picking up 'industry' information, chatting to other writers, finding out about books and events I might have missed. Of course you can waste a lot of time on it but, equally, you could spend all morning sharpening pencils.That's your choice.
I would urge every writer to at least consider Twitter and how it might work for them. The more working writers tweeting the stronger that community grows.
Scriptwriter Jason Arnopp has looked at Twitter from a writer's perspective and come up with his 10 Reasons Why Twitter is Great For Writers. It's an excellent list as he embeds tweeting into the writing life.
And where did I come across this article? Why, on Twitter, of course.
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