Not Tweetworthy (the first in an occasional series)

I constantly think thoughts. Obvious, right? It's kinda hard not to. I am not unique.

Some of those thoughts send my fingers dashing toward Twitter to inform the world of my quirky insight, my spot of humor, or my share-worthy pain. But what happens when a random thought just doesn't translate into a well-crafted tweet? Until yesterday, I was stumped.

I had some mildly interesting things to say, but no place to say them. The next best thing to sharing them with the world, in my mind, was to at least write them down for myself. In retrospect, it's been a strange and eye-opening experiment. I'd like to share my random un-tweet-worthy thoughts with y'all. I also plan to continue my experiment, and will share my results on occasion. Likely that means I'll be sharing them when I don't have anything else to blog about for more than a few days in a row.

Enjoy the crumbs of my overactive imagination!

Carl Approves This Message.

• Why are the Thompson Twins three people?
• I bet there is a fireplace app for cell phones that fills the screen with tiny flames. It might be more effective to just set the phone on fire.
   
• I was in the mood for cheese, but the only cheese in the house was either unnaturally orange squares or unnaturally orange glop. I went with the glop, because CORN CHIPS.
   
• Eva Longoria called me today. It was a recording for a state ballot question. But now I can say that Eva Longoria called me today, and not be lying about it.
   
• The thing about NCIS that bothers me the most is that their coffee cups are always empty. You can tell because they SOUND empty when they put them down, yet they keep pretending to drink. At least put some water in there. Something!
   
• How the hell did Wang Chung get stuck in my head?
   
• You know it's getting bad when you stop muting the political ads and start heckling them, and not in your "inside voice."
   
• Addendum to the above: The name of my next band is Reckless Agenda.
   
• WHY do I keep getting robo calls that begin, "If you are a senior citizen..."? I SWEAR I AM 38 DAMN YEARS OLD! I do not need whatever the hell you are selling!
   
• I think I've developed an ellipsis problem...

OH! And I actually have Progress to report on the Progress-o-Meter! Yes! Despite using my brain to think up the dubious brilliance above, I still had time to write a bunch of new words! Woo hoo! And I'm headed back to the WIP right now, so...Look out crazy bad guys, my MC's are hot on your tails.

Words: 58,072
Pages: 181

How Twitter has improved my writing

Since it took me three tries to type the title of this post, because I kept writing IMRPOVED instead of IMPROVED, this post will not be about my typing skills. I swear, I am a decent typist. No, this post will focus on a very specific benefit I've gained from using Twitter.

I credit Twitter with a major revelation in my writing. Yes, in proper novel writing. STOP GIVING ME THAT LOOK.

No, not that look, you ickle goatie.

Close, but no cigar, fennec fox.

Yup. That's it. Stunned disbelief mixed with possible psychosis. You should get that checked out.

 

I originally found my lovely critique partners through a contest we all entered, but we started swapping manuscripts after spending some time chatting on Twitter. While they have been the MOST beneficial thing I've ever done for my writing, we all learn little things every day that can make us better writers. One of those things was a very slow lesson learned from tweeting. I swear.

It's hard to distill something pithy, interesting, and complex down into 140 characters (or even fewer if your tweet is an @ reply or includes a photo or link). Sure, sometimes I will sit there tweaking the words around so it fits. Sometimes I'll commit crimes against English to fit everything in. And sometimes I'll give up completely and send several tweets in a row. Believe it or not, there are lessons to be learned from that frustrating exercise.

Think of your favorite joke, something funny you saw, or an exchange you had with a friend that left you both giggling. Now fit the essence of that into a tweet. I'll give you a minute.

It's hard, right? But you can do it. Just think about it and say it using the smallest number of words possible. To do that, you have to find the BEST words. And that's how it's helped my writing.

Granted, most of that help doesn't start paying dividends until I get to the editing. First drafts are gonna be first-drafty. Long and windy, and filled with poor word choices. When I edit now, I use some of the same skills I practice on Twitter, making sentences tighter, taking out unnecessary words.

Do you tweet? If so, tweet at me sometime. If not, you might want to give it a try. There are a berjillion writers, agents, and editors online who not only know how to construct an excellent 140 character thought, but who comprise one of the most entertaining and congenial groups in all the Internets. And it might help tighten up your writing, too.

There. Now I've justified the ridiculous amount of time I spend on Twitter. Well, maybe not. But I tried. :D

The Dangers of Re-re-re-re-re-reading

No, the title is not a typo. I don't think I included enough Re's, though. I'm reading Running Down the Dragon for the eleventy-seventh time, and I'm STILL finding things that I want to change. How can this be?

I've rewritten, edited, had critiques, edited some more, revised, tinkered, and edited again. How can there be anything left to change at this point? I'm not sure if ANY of the words are still in the same place they were when I first wrote them down.

Luckily for me, some of the changes are simple typos. I can't believe there are STILL typos in this thing, but there they are!

Some of the changes are shuffling a word or a sentence around. I just restructured the opening paragraph yesterday. I didn't really change much, but I did make the opening stronger. Silly little things like this are the bulk of the changes.

Finally, there are the subtle FEELINGS I want to add. I'll be reading along, and think, "That character should have done something or said something to show their feelings." And at this point I started to feel like an obsessive nutter.

How many edits should it take before I stop trying to find ways to add subtle nuance to the plot?

I stopped reading last night and really thought about that question. I could spend the rest of my life making this one single novel absolutely perfect. I could spend years putting every change I could imagine into the plot, into the characters, into the dialogue. But then what would I have? I'd have a perfect novel that nobody would ever read. Because I never let it go.

You know what? I think I'm okay with letting this one go now.

I'm sure that if it ever sells, the agent/editor/publisher will have something to say about it. I will diligently apply any edits they suggest. Other than that, I declare, by the power vested in me by having written the damned thing, THIS NOVEL IS COMPLETE! CARL GIVES HIS STAMP OF APPROVAL.*

This is Carl. He lives on my bed. He approves, so it's all good.

Now to finish reading it so the edits can begin on the second volume of Thalia's story.

*Note: From now on, when something is settled and final, Carl will offer his stamp of approval. I dare you to prove Carl wrong, since he's a Psychotic Beaver. There's no changing his mind.