Writing: Adventures of a social media illiterate technophobe.

frustrated

In a fit of spasmodic enthusiasm I joined a variety of social media stuff I have not an inkling about. I’m convincing myself I can be social media savvy and cool as the hipster 20 somethings who wear plaid skinny pants and large amounts of multicolored medical gauze wrapped around their necks, forever engrossed in their expensive tablet-phone-camera gadget thingy.

hipster

Okay maybe I don’t wanna look like that.

But I would like to be savvy. You know just because I am at that point of life where I realize I have no idea where the past 17 years of my life went since the birth of offspring numero uno. It’s like waking up from a coma and thinking you are still twenty something because you were a little while ago. And I realize I am still stuck in the technology of the nineties ie: I can turn on a computer if I can locate the on button.

smash comp

Being a wannabe author  writer you are advised to have a platform. Agent websites will tell you in their extremely detailed instructions of do’s and don’ts that you need to have a substantial following. They don’t want to be bothered by some person who nobody knows. And nobody wants to know a person who Agents don’t want to be bothered about. What?

I joined Tumblr (against Teenager1’s advice), Delicious, Quora, and Hootesuite. I was already on Facebook (the only one easy enough to use), Twittter (where I tweet into strangely empty nothingness) and Google+ (but I didn’t know it!) I am also on Agent Query Connect, where I feel more at home. But I haven’t visited in a century because I haven’t managed to figure out a way to completely forego sleep.

t

According to Teenager 1 parents really should not be on Tumblr. It is for hip, emo, intellectual, whatever kids. Parents should stick to ‘mainstream’ stuff like Facebook, where they can post endless pictures of what they cooked the night before or how much snow they had to shovel from the driveway. I persisted however and I can now navigate my way around to find blogs that interest me. I also managed to hook up WordPress and Tumblr so that my posts appear there. Woohoo! I think by the end of this year I will actually manage to have at least two followers there. Hey you, follow me dammit!

delicious

The only thing I found Delicious useful for was bookmarking the endless amount of pages I use to research what I am writing about. These days? Politics and conspiracy theories. Did you know our existence is only a simulation? Delicious is pretty easy to use.

existence

Quora is too much information at the same time for my aluminum and fluoride ridden brain. You can ask any question (you have to see the stuff people ask!) and people from all corners of the Earth will answer you. I get all my answers from Agent Query Connect. But Quora is interesting if you have loads of time and nothing better to do than be intellectual. When I have loads of time I clean out the litter box. And brush my hair.

Frosty windows 024

“Fat Kitty needs to poop. Clean that litter box woman!”

Hootesuite is very handy because it organizes all the stuff you’ve entangled yourself in. I suspect the packages must be really good because what they are offering for free is quite useful and not that hard to use. It only took me a couple of weeks hours to figure out how to link all my social stuff up and be able to post from there. But I like posting to WordPress directly because I couldn’t manage to get pictures into the post from Hootesuite. I must be doing something wrong. If you have any idea let me know.

One piece of advice, if you are a dinosaur like me, use a nickname rather than your real name just in case you are scared to press buttons. I was, and for some reason whenever I press a button to test something out, I can never find out how to edit/delete it. Why can’t edit/delete buttons be big enough to find without a magnifying glass? Or a map. That way you won’t be embarrassed by a dumb post like “This is a test. I am uncool a newbie loser and this is my first post. Idiot Technophobe trying to learn lol.” Teenagers. Extreme facepalms.

uncool mom

The point is you have to invest a lot of time. Which really bugs the heck out of me because I want to get that novel written. The Young Adult world needs a Conspiracy Thriller that involves real people in the real world. There are too many witches, faeries, and demon slayers out there.

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Having Doubts

I was reading through ‘when in doubt’ quotes because I am in doubt. When I am not procrastinating, I am busy being in doubt. I found some enlightening advice and I thought you could use it.

“When in doubt, don’t.”  Benjamin Franklin

“When in doubt, do it.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

“When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout.” Laurence J. Peter

“When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.”
Cynthia Heimel

I found all this extremely helpful. Especially running around in circles and screaming, it relieves the tension and gives the kids a good laugh. And if you think you are making a fool of yourself, act like an intellectual so you seem ‘brilliantly creative’ to everyone else.

Seriously though doubt is so hard to deal with, all the advice says ‘just write’ and keep writing. As Dory would say “just keep swimming”.

 

But how do you convince yourself? Sometimes I just want to lock my laptop up and throw away the key. Just forget about the whole thing. Sometimes I just sit there and cry while I eat plenty of chocolate. I am not good enough, there are too many people already writing, I don’t have a Master’s degree in English Literature, I don’t post enough on my blog, I don’t have any articles or short stories published in any of the ‘big’ magazines, I am not a member of any affiliation for writers, I don’t have time, I do have time but I can’t do it, I have too much housework, I will end up not giving the kids enough time and they will end up disturbed juvenile delinquents, the kitchen floor needs to be mopped. The thing that is behind everything is doubt that I just can’t write at all. And I thought it was just me, but apparently even published writers have their doubts: How to Conquer Self Doubt and Just Write

And if that inspires you enough then you might want to try writing a short story for this competition: Young Adult Fiction Competition

They extended the deadline, so if you stop doubting and get writing you can make the dead line. Good luck.

(All Images from Google Images)
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