A random post calls for a random picture. This is Kirstie's cat, Libby.
I saw an ad on several social media sites that will allow the service to post status updates for you. Why? Wouldn’t it be better to simply stay silent for days at a time rather than have some kind of auto-generated nonsense posted for you?
I’m one of these people who has to exercise self control lest I post too much or too often. Of course, it helps that I flip back and forth between the blog, twitter, facebook, and now Google Plus.
I’ve also seen ads for applications that will link all your social media sites, saving you the trouble of going through all of them yourself every time you have something to say.
I admit I’m tempted. When I write a blog post or add a story post to UnderLoch & Key I always go to all the social media sites I use and post a link. It can get tedious, especially when I have to log out of my personal profile on facebook so I can log in as my author page (Hmm… I think there’s a way to link those… I’ll have to look into it.)
But I don’t think I want to do that. You see, I have very different connections on facebook, twitter, G+, and Goodreads. I don’t even usually advertise my Goodreads updates, although I try to keep it up to date (I have to add in the two faith-based romances I just read.) Twitter tends to be a raunchy bunch, but in a good way. They’re not there to gross each other out, just to celebrate the fact that so many of us write about (LeGasp!) sex. G+ is still relatively small, and I have a lot of writing contacts on there, as well as a growing number of SyFy people. Facebook remains my most loyal fanbase.
When I needed some humorous euphemisms for penis, of course I turned to twitter. Yes, my facebook friends probably would have come through for me, but there would also be a large number of them who might have been offended. Not angry-offended, just that’s not really appropriate offended. There are young teenagers on my facebook list too. When I post my SyFy Question of the Day, that’s always a hit on facebook, though it’s starting to kind-of work on G+. It flops on twitter.
So, instead of me beating the porcupine into submission, I’m gently feeling my way around the social media and seeing what works. It’s organic… no matter what the developers intended, no matter what I want to work, the reading public has a mind of its own. Sometimes things surprise me, like how popular a question about Roller-Derby might be to my SyFy Q of the Day fans. Sometimes I try something, like a blog post with a drinking game about RWA11, and it flops horribly.
I’m still working on ROW80. In fact, it’s going rather well this week! But I’ve also decided that, although the OCD part of me desperately wants facts, figures, and statistics about just how much writing I’m doing, the mere fact of generating those statistics is too time-consuming. Unfortunately for me, that means a deliberate effort in quashing my desire to measure everything, but I’ve learned to live with the OCD and I can do this.
I did do 1,965 words on WIP2 last night over the course of two #1k1hr sessions, and I’m damn proud of that! And I sent the first few pages of WIP1 to Roni Loren for a crit. Oh, and I wrote a story about bacon…
It’s a good thing I’m pre-published. I’d hate to be trying to figure all this out while facing a publishing deadline!
The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-l0
AmyBeth Inverness 
Nice progress on the WiP! I agree that working out exactly how many words you’ve written is time-consuming, but at the same time, I have to check my word-count just to get that gratifying “Ooh, look how many words I’ve written today” feeling lol
On my first ROW80 update, I sectioned out how many words I did in the fiction side of this blog (Under Loch & Key) and how many words I did on the bloggedy blog side (The Inverness Press) as well as how many words I did on either WiP1 or WiP2.
OMG! OK, I love statistics, and that first week I saw that I was doing more than I thought I was, but it was a rather time consuming post.
I think I’ll stick with the more generic word count on the WiPs, and note that “I also did several blog posts”
It’ll keep me from losing my mind lol!
That would be interesting about linking up all social media…but I agree, I have very different crowds depending on what I’m on from the blog to facebook to twitter. It would really only help me a TINY bit.
I came across your blog via Gay YA and wanted to let you know about something that might interest you or your readers: http://letsgetbeyondtolerance.blogspot.com/2011/05/living-beyond-tolerance-scholarship.html
-Lauren
I keep meaning to sign up for a social networking aggregator like Tweet Deck because of the time saving factor. That’s a really tempting carrot. But I never thought about the different “flavors” of my friends on these different sites. That’s worth a second thought. Maybe just use Tweet Deck some of the time?
Congrats on hanging in there with ROW80. I like that you counted blog posts as word count. Well written blogs really are practice, after all. Like a musician playing scales.
Some people find that they have most of the same friends across the various social media, but I’ve noticed that’s not true for me. On facebook, I started that LONG before I got serious about my writing, and a lot of the friends I have there are simply ordinary people who play the same games I do. Then there’s all the personal friends, or people I know in real life such as a large chunk of my High School classmates.
I started on twitter because Paul Teutul Junior (American Chopper) didn’t have a facebook page, but he did tweet. Then, looking at the website for an agency I liked, I discovered a list of agents and authors on twitter, and I dove in. G+ is now a conglomeration of both, although with the idea that anyone can circle anyone, it’s easier to find someone by random coincidence (commenting on a mutual friend’s post) and then either keep them or lose them depending on what you find after you circle them.
I hope my blog someday qualifies as a “Well written blog”. At the moment it’s more of a place for me to reach out and say what I feel, or post random short stories. It’s much more fun to write knowing that someone out there might actually read it!