Tech & the Twitter...

Or should that be "the Twitter" (Twittah...?) as they say over here in the UK?

I enjoy social networking.  I have a FB author page, a Twitter profile for me as an author, and this blog. (If you can't click the links, you can also see them in my right side-bar..."like" or "follow," pretty please?)  And anything to consolidate that crap together or make it easier is a good thing.  For example, when I post a blog entry, I have it set up so my FB page automatically makes a post.  Another example: when I post anything on FB, it's linked to my Twitter account, so it tweets for me.  Easy-peasy.  

And FB is my favorite to use of all those because of the fun interaction I get to do with the people who have "liked" my page, but I do love me some Twitter on occasion.  The problem is that Twitter's actual website doesn't have the best interface.  You have to click on a million different things to see stuff, like your mentions (where other people have mentioned your screen-name and tweeted you) or your direct (private) messages, and a ton of other stuff.  And don't even get me started on their lump updating.  I prefer real-time!

A while ago, maybe a year or two, there was an awesome Twitter app/client called Tweetdeck.  It somehow managed to consolidate all the things you'd want to do on Twitter, including real-time updating, in one easy-to-use program.  And the interface was super easy. 

The problem?  Twitter bought it and, pardon the phrase, promptly fucked it up royally.  Everything we liked about it was gone. And when I say "we," I mean myself and a ton of other users who jumped ship to find another app that worked as well.  I sought recommendations from friends, other people on Twitter, everyone...and no dice.  I tried a ton of them, and though some were pretty good, I kept comparing them to the old Tweetdeck.  

This would have been me if I could have found the old Tweetdeck's house. 

Even worse was that Twitter had stopped updating the old version of Tweetdeck, so it didn't even work anymore.  Though you could download the old program from multiple sources online, it used outdated support and wasn't the same.  Last week, out of desperation, I decided to give the new Tweetdeck another try, and lo and behold, the people at Twitter had literally JUST redesigned it.  It doesn't suck anymore, and it's actually very close to how the old Tweetdeck operated.  

So now I'm a happy camper, or at least happier, and am enjoying tweeting much more than I did before.  I realize this kind of sounds like an ad for it, but I was just so excited to find a Twitter client that I liked (again) that I wanted to share.

Do YOU have a favorite Twitter app or client for your computer or mobile device?  Does it update other social networks?  Tell me!

xoxo Sarah

Titles and Such...

What's this?  A post?  Yes!  I have returned.  Sorry for my absence, even though it was only about a week.  I needed a sanity break to get myself back together after the A-Z Challenge, and I also wanted to take some time to get back into the mind of Jack, my protagonist in The Curse.  Want to know a little more?  Click above on "Novellas and Short Stories."  I'll add more in the future.  Our home is also on the market, as if I needed MORE stress.

Anyway, back to what I wanted to talk about.  Just so you know, I'll probably post something on this again when I actually have something ready to publish, but a little Amazon link recently found its way over to me on Facebook, and I couldn't stop smiling when I read the title.

Go the F**k to Sleep.


Yes, this is real.  Click on the title above for the link to the awesomeness.

A friend posted a link to this not-yet published "children's" book (I use the term very, very loosely, because it should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense that it's meant for the parents, not the kid) that's available for pre-order.  And, even though I don't have kids, just based on the title alone, I may be tempted to buy it.

What makes the title good?  Well, it's unexpected, for one. No one expects profanity in a "children's" book, much less the "F" word.  It also plays on the mildly taboo factor that, *gasp*, child-rearing isn't all bunnies, unicorns, rainbows and feetie pajamas.  No, sometimes parents want to have some time to themselves, and all they want is for their kid to, well, you know...this.  Just based on the title, I want to know more.  What the hell did this guy even write about?  Are the tigers on the cover going to wake up and eat the kid for breakfast?  Just from looking at the cover, I'm all kinds of curious.

Oh, and I tweeted the link out on Twitter late last week, and everyone who commented loved the title.  One writer even tweeted back that she (I'm paraphrasing), "Has said that title every single night for the past few years."  

My erotic novella is tentatively titled The Curse, but I have already resigned myself to the fact that it will likely be retitled if accepted for publication somewhere, likely by someone who knows better what will help the book sell, and hopefully to be given an awesome title like this one.  And what I mean by that is one that will grab your attention and make you want to buy the book, sight unseen (or pages unflipped.)  

Thoughts on titles? The book? Life in general? Want to buy a house?  Tell me!

xoxo Sarah

"W" is for Words With Friends

Seriously?  She's writing an A-Z challenge entry about an iPhone/Android app?

Yep.

Bear with me.

Words With Friends.  After watching people tweet for the past month or so and keep mentioning this app, I had to see what it was.  From what I could gather, it was basically Scrabble, but you could play with anyone online.  I was right; you can even link the game to your Facebook profile and find friends to play with that way, too.

As a kid, I really enjoyed playing Scrabble.  Everything about it was awesome for someone who loved to read and write: I could show off my impressive vocabulary, expand said vocabulary, and even show up the adults around me.  

I think the only thing I hated was how the tiles would always be off-center whenever anyone bumped the board, setting off the OCD anal retentiveness in me that insisted that I played better when they were lined up.  This unfortunate aspect of playing was corrected in later versions of the game where the board had a grid-like pattern of ridges on it to hold the tiles in place.

Obviously you don't have to worry about your tiles being knocked all over the place with Words With Friends, but all the positives apply. As a writer, it's fun to see what you can make from the random letters you're given.  Will it be a simple word?  Something no one knows the meaning of?  For the record, the game doesn't accept proper nouns or gibberish words, and will tell you it's not valid if you try.  Strategy, too.  Will you try for more points using a small word to hit that triple word score, or use up more letters to get new ones on a longer one?

I love the connection aspect of it.  You can play with people you haven't seen in forever, or who don't live anywhere near you.  I have four games going on now, including one with a lovely writer friend who lives in Australia.  How amazing is that?  My husband compared it to when people used to play chess over the mail, sending their moves to each other.  I think that's an apt comparison, especially if you only check the game once or twice a day.

Do you play Words With Friends or Scrabble?  What are your favorite parts?

xoxo Sarah

"I" is for Internet

For my "I" post for the A-Z Blogging Challenge, I am paying homage to something I have a love/hate relationship with.

The internet.

There's a quote floating around (and an accurate one, at that) that says, "Writing is 3% talent and 97% not being distracted by the internet."  I would give credit for whoever said it, but I've seen it on Twitter from about fifteen different people, so too bad.

But it's true.  The internet is a funny thing.  It's a powerful writing tool.  I can do research, look up publishing houses and agent information, find pictures for inspiration for my characters, find a geographical location for a setting, and get the correct spelling of words I should already know.

I can also screw around on Facebook, window shop on Amazon, sell my crap on eBay, download music on iTunes, check what Kim Kardashian is up to on Perez Hilton, look up awesome pictures to use for my blog posts (c'mon, you guys have seen the hilarity), and tweet until my fingers fall off.

Yeah.

That leads to a very productive day.

*snort*

Of course I do all those things...but, I've learned that sometimes I need to remove myself.  I will often pack my work up, laptop and all, and head to the nice library in the neighboring town.  Sure, they have free WiFi, but having to keep it to a dull roar minimizes my urge to watch silly videos on YouTube and actually get writing done.  Because, quite frankly, if I didn't have some measure of self-control, I'd never get anything completed.  And my goal is to be a professional writer, not a professional internet surfer; though, if there was money in that, I might give it a shot.

I know some of you are wondering why I don't use a typewriter or hand-write more things.  The answer is that I like instant gratification, and little patience for typewriters.  Also, if you've seen my handwriting, you'd probably insist that I not be allowed to use a pen ever again.  My husband tells me I need a translator, and recently I've taken to re-tracing notes I've made to figure out what some of the words are supposed to be.  It's faster for me to use a computer, trust me on that one.

What is your strategy to avoid the distraction of the internet?

xoxo Sarah

"B" is for Blog

Sorry for the lame title for this post, but continuing on with the A-Z Blogging Challenge, I wanted to do an entry on what I'm doing right now.

Literally.

Blogging.

It boggles my mind.

I have a blog...

And people are reading it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, cat. I'm shocked, too.

I've been blogging about my experiences as an aspiring author for less than a month, and it still seems strange to me.  I never thought I'd have a blog.  None of my hobbies are so incredibly fascinating that I needed to share them with everyone: I like to read; exercise; spend time with my husband, friends, and cats; shop.  And it seemed like all the good blog ideas were either too much trouble or already taken - I wasn't about to maroon myself on a deserted island that magically had WiFi and talk about my sunburn, and though I love to cook, I didn't have an urge to work my way through Julia Child's cookbook over the course of a year...

Anyway, it wasn't until I made the conscious decision to get myself published that I realized I had no idea how to market myself, and when I did start to give it some thought, it became clear that I didn't even know where to begin.  Part of it was that I wasn't thinking like a 21st century author.  My brain was still stuck in the literary dark ages.  Obviously, back in the day, Charles Dickens wouldn't be posting YouTube book trailers for A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist on his blog and Facebook, then taking to his Twitter account and tweeting the links so a wide a range of people could see them.  If the "greats" didn't use this newfangled "blog" thing, what good would it do me?

I had to see it in action.

The whole blogging process didn't even begin to seem like a good idea until some friends I'd met in the writing community (the lovely Jennifer DeLucy and Laura Kaye, among others) began finishing their own manuscripts and chronicling their journeys to publication on their own blogs.  I found myself reading them, and, more importantly, I found myself identifying with a lot of what they were posting about.

It was then that it hit me: Blogging would allow me to find others like myself who were in similar situations.  Other newbie word-smiths who were struggling to make their word counts, send queries to agents and publishers, getting rejections, receiving acceptances...I could learn from them, and they could learn from me.  The realization that blogging could be something other than an elaborate online diary overcame me with the fierce intensity of teenage girls chasing after Justin Bieber.


This, I could do.

Blogging about my own experiences as a fledgling writer could help me reach out to others and give them access to me as well, not to mention gaining some perspective on what was happening in my own writer-world.  I can't imagine that Charles Dickens had a large group of fellow authors he could contact and learn from, and not only because life expectancy was pretty low at the time. Distance, lack of an invention called the "telephone" (which wouldn't be around until the late 1870's), and language barriers...I'll bet Dickens had to deal with all that, just to find some like-minded souls.  Even though he lived abroad for a while and even visited America, for all intents and purposes, if a writer wasn't in England within a reasonable distance from him, he wasn't going to meet them.

I'd like to imagine that he would have blogged.

Still, I dug my heels in and didn't start one until recently.  Why?  I don't really know.  But now my eyes are open, and I'm prepared to embrace blogging for the amazing tool that it is: a record of struggles, highlights, connections, kudos, rants, promotion and information.

Because I wanted to keep this entry relatively short, I did want to mention that blogging is also a wonderful medium to use to connect to people who might be interested in your work...either future readers, agents, or even publishers.  Not to mention Twitter, Facebook, and websites, but perhaps we'll save those for another day.

xoxo Sarah