Is Your Main Character Boring?

May 13th, 2009

It is a problem if your main character is boring, especially if you are writing an adventure story.

When I first started out, I was worried that my main character would be boring. I usually don’t have this problem. I am usually pretty good at creating characters that are not only interesting, but are realistic–characters you can ‘feel’. This time is no different, except there seems to be an annoyingly long ‘ramp up’ process to where my main character becomes interesting.

What kind of character should star in an adventure? This is an easy question to answer. A main character that is a shoe-in success for practically every adventure story is the plucky, good-hearted character with a destiny, a character that (if he or she only knew) is both powerful and fated to be an answer to some major problem that is part of the character’s world.

This main character is often a farm boy or a shepherd or a slave or a poor waif, but is actually a prince or wizard or prophesized savior of the world, and often the child of someone famous and powerful (and possibly evil). That’s a decent opening right there. Some people don’t like to do anything that is ‘unoriginal’ but when it comes to popular fiction, I say ‘don’t mess with story outlines that work!’

However, you can (and should) put an original spin on a tried and true trope.

The rags-to-riches story can get kind of dull if you see it repeated in the same old way every time. It is boring if it happens too predictably or too easily. If the character’s power is given to them rather than earned, for example, or if the character protests the whole way yet somehow ends up with a kingdom, the princess, and power no one would mess with.

This kind of story is a bit limp because it is utter wish fulfillment. A nobody becomes a Somebody through no effort of their own? Lazy. Why should that character conquer evil and get everything they want with no sacrifice?

I like the idea of a nobody becoming a Somebody, and I like the idea of conquering evil, but I wanted my character to work for it, and to choose it, and for it to go wrong in some way, particularly where ‘villains’ are concerned.

To have this make sense, I needed to take my character on a journey. She needed to start out as a passive, fulfilled character who loses everything and has to choose to become something quite different to achieve a destiny she’s not sure of. Unfortunately, I was little uncertain of the details of this journey, and so I wrote my character as a ‘blank’ when I started.

Oops.

It’s okay, though. It’s fixable. However, I will need to go back (after I have finished the first leg of the journey to see what she needs…) and make her fit her own story a little better. Rather than write a character who is ‘predestined’ to do what she’s going to do, I would rather her be ‘uniquely suited’ to the task. All the components are there. I just need to make certain parts shine.

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I Didn’t Hit My Manuscript Deadline

May 10th, 2009

I didn’t hit my personal deadline of finishing the manuscript for my first novel by my birthday. I didn’t even get close. I am still stuck in the middle section where my heroine’s life gets turned upside down.

I know WHY I didn’t hit my deadline. I was busy. I moved. I had to plan my own birthday party. I was depressed at being in my ‘late twenties’ already (lol). I bought eight fish and two kittens.

But the truth is that I didn’t really want to finish. I was feeling uninspired by some problems I was having in the story (all solvable with a little creativity and hard work) and the fact that no one is driving me to finish this. It is tough when you are your only motivator!

The kittens have been a wonderfully horrible distraction of course. I got them last weekend and the little dears have certainly kept me occupied. One of them chewed through my laptop charger in the first hour of taking up residence, forcing me to write at my desktop until I could replace it. This was perfectly acceptable except that the chair is rather uncomfortable, but I managed to write through the end of a chapter in that chair with both kittens sleeping on my lap. Not disturbing them was a challenge (but so worth it, as that was their first lap nap).

Anyway, I am ‘back at it’ again, and I actually have some new ideas that may help the story. Sometimes it is good to let things stew for a little bit, as long as a ‘little bit’ doesn’t drag out.

I won’t let it! I will finish!

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How Much Do Writers Write Each Day?

April 18th, 2009

I just moved. It took two weeks, during which I did very little writing. Sorry about that!

I love my new apartment, though. I now have an office and I’m pretty excited. Finally, a place to write after all the cafes are closed!

The trick is to get writing and keep writing each day.

I am currently sitting with my writers’ group in Shoreline listening to everyone talk about their writing habits for “getting things done.” Everyone has a different thing that works for them. Some people write 6 hours on Saturday and 6 on Sunday. Some people write an hour after work during the week. Some people write a page a day. It really just depends.

I write as much as I can. I think about writing everyday. I don’t always work on my book, but I am always working on something. I find that on a weekend, if I have the time and if I am focused, I can write for 6 hours or more at a time (until I have to break for food). On weekdays I write for about two hours. 1500 words or three pages double spaced is a good day’s work. I often spend a little time editing before I start writing, but sometimes that can drag on and be hazardous to my productivity. I write best when I go to a cafe or library between 6 and 9pm on weekdays.

I also have spurts of disciplined writing and non-disciplined writing. Lately, I haven’t been that disciplined where my book is concerned, in part because of upheavals like changes in my job and in my residence, and in part because I have been stuck, uninspired, or frustrated that my characters won’t do what I want them to do. But I have been writing. I just wrote something else instead.

I won’t finish my novel by my birthday at this rate. I now hope to finish by June. My new motivator? A writer’s conference. Also, since I now have the space, I shall reward myself by getting kittens.

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Three Cardinal POV Sins Writers Should Avoid

March 28th, 2009

A man just approached me in a cafe and asked a perplexing question.

I was working on my book. He asked me (I’m paraphrasing) “whether I was writing in the scene or writing around the scene.”

I don’t know this man. I have never seen him before in my life. It took me a second to understand what he was talking about.

In retrospect, I think he was trying to flirt with me (I just got a cute haricut!) but I thought he was asking a genuine question. I was expecting something a stranger might say like “where’s the nearest bus stop from here?” but apparently this fellow had been staring over my shoulder and guessed that I was writing fiction because he saw quotes.

FYI: Please don’t read over my shoulder. I mean it. It makes me self-conscious. I generally choose a corner so this can’t happen, but the cafe was fuller than usual today.

As the question came out of left field, it took me awhile to understand what he was talking about. He gestured to the room when he said “scene” so my first thought was that he supposed I was writing about the cafe and jotting down what people were saying around me. I assured him I was not doing this. He came back with “No. no. I mean, you are writing fiction, right? I saw the quotes. Are you writing from the character or from above?” He made hand gestures.

Ah. He wanted to know what POV I was writing in. I told him it was the character. He nodded sagely, sensed my discomfort at the intrusion, and departed.

And now a mini lesson on POV (Point of View)!

POV is the perspective you are writing from when you tell a story.

Most writers develop an inclination for a particular POV. I can do different sorts, but my preference is Third Person Limited. In third person limited, you tell the story from one character’s perspective at a time (you can switch between clear-cut scenes or chapters, but not paragraph to paragraph). To break it down, Third Person means I use the character’s given name rather than “I” (”I” is First Person). Limited means I get inside one character’s head and stay there.

When writing Third Person Limited correctly (lots of people do it incorrectly), you can’t see into the heads of other characters and you can’t give the reader information the character doesn’t know. Writing from an “overhead” perspective (sharing information about the thoughts of multiple characters at once or about the world or story beyond the character’s knowledge) is called “omnicient”.

Three Cardinal Sins in POV

I will only share three cardinal sins for Point of View, but there are lots.

1. Jumping between limited POVs in the same scene.

This is bad writing. Careless writers do it. Lazy writers do it. Mostly it is done by writers who don’t understand POV. It is an amateur’s mistake. And I know you’ve seen it before. I know you’ve seen stories like this published. You’ve probably even seen popular authors get away with it–at least in certain genres. But just because lots of people do it doesn’t make it a good idea. Sorry. It is confusing for readers. Do you want your story to be confusing? I don’t.

2. Switching POV when writing in 1st person–anywhere in the same book OR series.

Seriously, don’t do this. I don’t care if you indicate at the beginning of a book or section that it is happening. I don’t care if Stephanie Meyers did it and made millions. It is confusing. It is awful. It is actually upsetting. You get comfortable with knowing a story from one person’s POV–then all of a sudden it changes. Ick. Yuck. When authors do this, it throws the reader out. The reader is abruptly aware that a writer is manipulating them. It throws the story into “THIS IS FICTION! IT IS NOT REAL!” zone. Don’t do it.

3. Switching between 1st person and 3rd person in the same book or series.

Don’t do this either. For the same reason as cardinal POV sin number 2. 1st Person is sacred. It has firm rules. It is great in that it can really make a story feel real, but it is supposed to be limited to that ONE person’s story. One. Period. If you choose to write ANY part of your book in 1st person, then you have strapped yourself to telling the whole story in 1st person. Do it if it makes sense. If you want more versatility, don’t do it.

I could go on, but I will stop here for now!

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Posted in Fiction Writing, Writing A First Novel | 2 Comments »

Business Writing 101 - Know Thy Purpose

March 10th, 2009

If I had only one post to say one thing about business writing, it would be this:

Business writing serves a purpose.

The purpose should be clearly defined, whether it be to sell a product to consumers, to communicate the differentiated value of a product to investors, to make processes more efficient for employees, to encourage attendance at a community event, etc. Notice that defining purpose requires also the knowing the intended audience. We do–and should–speak differently to different people.

It is amazing to me how easily “purpose” is forgotten. I am a versatile writer, one who can switch between persuasive and informative, casual and professional, emotive and instructive, depending on what is needed. This means I need to know what is needed! I apply style, syntax, diction, and other writing tools differently to serve different business purposes. It is shocking to me–shocking!–how often I am asked to write something without being told what the piece is for.

For example, I have been asked to write the business proposal of an entrepreneur who didn’t have a business plan and couldn’t describe why anyone should invest in his idea. I have been asked to “add text” to a white paper without being told it was going to be made into sales collateral. I have been asked to write “content” for a blog without being directed as to what content to write, what sort of voice that blog was supposed to have, or who its audience was meant to be.

The solution is to ask clarifying questions. The projects I took turned out great, but not without a generous amount of back-and-forth. And I didn’t take all the projects. If you are dealing with a client who can’t answer questions about what they want, or becomes testy at having to do so, then it might be worth considering NOT doing that particular gig. I say this only because people who don’t know what they want are often unhappy with what they get, and then you’ll be unhappy too.

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Post Length: Blog Above the Fold - Shorter is Better

March 3rd, 2009

I haven’t been blogging as much as I should. Worse, the blog entries I do make are too long. When I blog, I try to do a good job being clear, organized, researched, and thorough–it is just the way I write. But that doesn’t mean I can’t also be pithy.

Here’s the cardinal rule: Keep it short. The best blog posts are within 250-300 words.

If you can, write above the fold. Above the fold is what you can read on your screen without scrolling. SEOs use this to refer to the best SERP results, but it has other applications. (The term originates from newspapers. The idea is to place the most eye-catching story in the top half of the front page.)

Keeping blog posts “above the fold” means keeping it pithy. People online have the attention span of gnats. “Clicking” out from a post is easy, so help readers get to the end. Also, short posts allow for more posts, which is good for search engines. From a craft standpoint, learning how to condense your work will make you a better writer. Being brief while retaining quality takes real skill.

Also, shorter posts get more comments.

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Why I Cut 75 Pages From My Manuscript

February 23rd, 2009

Yesterday, I deleted seventy-five pages of my manuscript-in-progress. Why did I do it?

Those 75 pages weren’t helping the story.

They may have been well written. They may have been enjoyable to read. They may have contained stunning lyrical prose or deep insights into the complexity of human nature.

But they weren’t helping the story.

Any serious writer needs to be able to viciously gut their work. Of course there are times when cutting pages isn’t appropriate, such as at the beginning of the story when you’re not sure what helps the story and what doesn’t, but there other are times when it is absolutely necessary.

No matter how much it hurts.

Many writers have trouble cutting their work, or even rewriting it. It is understandable. You work hard on that material. Often, you don’t see anything wrong with it. You may even really like it. It might contain your favorite passage, but you honestly have to ask yourself “is it helping the story?” If not, get rid of it.

The part I cut was the middle section, which was all about my main character adapting to a new situation and forming relationships with new characters. It was the section that was giving me writer’s block. While writing it, I kept thinking “this is interesting, and I like these people, but nothing is happening.” Nothing happening is bad for a story. I wrote through it anyway (at the expense of my blog) only to determine after having done so that the entire section was absurdly superfluous.

The pages I cut are not a waste however. I learned a lot about my world and characters in writing those pages. I have a better understanding of my characters’ motivations and how they relate to each other. This is great, because having written those pages will make the rewrite of that section both better and shorter. In fact, it may not have been possible to write this section correctly without having first written it incorrectly.

After discarding all 75 pages (yes, even the parts that I really liked), I re-outlined the story. It was amazing how much easier this was to do! I had struggled with the outline previously, but now have a much firmer grasp of what is important to the story. Outlining was a breeze the second time, and the story is much snappier.

Of course, I still hope some of the “choice” paragraphs in the 75 page dump will make it back into the story on the rewrite…

Interested in the story? Read my query letter-style synopsis

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Top Five Tips For Writers to Super Charge Their Productivity

February 5th, 2009

Last post I wrote about the one and only proven way to beat writer’s block. This time I will share some tips as to how writers can super charge their productivity.

There are writers out there whose productivity absolutely astonishes the writing world. I won’t hazard to guess the secret of these individuals as I am sure they vary to some degree, but I can offer writers some general tips that are sure to increase productivity no matter who you are!

Many writers feel satisfied about writing at a snail’s pace. Some writers call it a success if they sneak in an “occasional” writer’s day. Others tell themselves they “can’t” do more than they’re doing. Chances are, you can do better–a lot better–even if you don’t have much time. For writers who are struggling, here is advice from an aspiring author:

1. Write every day

Write everyday. Not every weekend. Not every Wednesday. Not every day you have nothing else to do. Write EVERY DAY. Writers get good at their craft by writing, and just like any skill, it grows sharper with use and rustier when you are out of practice. It’s almost like a muscle, so think of it like training. The more you write the easier you will find writing and the better your writing will be. Over time, you will realize that you are also writing more and doing it faster.

2. Schedule a time and place to write

Everyone has their own writing process, but I find that I write best when I have scheduled a time and place to write and I obey that schedule. My ideal location is among other writers in an occupied but not overcrowded public place. Barring that, I’ll write by myself in a coffee shop. Barring that, I will write at home, but I will still schedule time to do it.

I don’t need a lot of scheduled time to write. I used to think I needed large chunks of uninterrupted hours to get any writing done. This is because it takes a bit of time to a hit a place I like to call “groove” in which I start to write fluidly and well. I still believe uninterrupted chunks of time help, but I have found that if I use ALL the tips in this blog post, I can get a surprising amount of real work accomplished in 30 minutes and sometimes less.

3. Kill distractions

I like to write in a public place because I find public places to be LESS distracting than being at home. If I am with other writers–not friends necessarily, but other people who are working–I am even more motivated. When I’m at home, I am often sitting on my couch within easy reach of the refrigerator, the TV remote, my bed, my phone, the mail, and a dozen other distracting things. However, it is different for different people. If a public place has too much going on for you, find a place where you can focus and get rid of anything that interrupts that focus. Seriously throw those things out of the room. It’s just you and the page! Most importantly? Kill the internet connection. Turn off your BlackBerry, iPhone, or other hand held mobile device. Despite what you may think, you really don’t need it, not even to do “research”.

4. Count the words you write each day

To keep yourself honest, you have to have a goal FOR EVERY WORK SESSION. It’s all well and good to want to finish a book or a scene or a script by a certain date, but how are you going to keep yourself productive during that hour or so that you have scehduled for writing?

Assuming you are on a first draft (revisions are a different process) word count is not a bad way to go. Remember that you can always revise later. In the meantime, keeping track of your word count is like making a scratch in the wall. If you write 500 words your first day, you can go for 700 your second, and a 1000 after that, and 2000 after that, etc. Or, conversely, you can try to hit the same number each day and then stop. When I did NanoWrimo in November 2008, I wrote the required 1700 words each day and didn’t push beyond that unless I knew I had a special engagement or something the next day that would cut into my productivity.

Don’t get caught up in whether or not what you are writing is “good.” No first draft is ever as “good” as it can be. Finish first. Worry about prettiness later.

5. Keep a calendar

When you make your daily writing goals, reward yourself. You can reward yourself any way you like of course, but one stimulating way to do this is to keep a writing calendar. For each day you actually sit down and get writing done, reward yourself by marking the day. You can draw a big X through it, color it in, outline it, write your word count in the space (that one is really helpful) or anything else you like. As you get some momentum going, you will really look forward to filling in the day because your calendar will become a pretty line of Xs, colors, word counts, etc. If you are a decorative or artsy-type person, you can also buy stickers for the days you write, or color them according to some kind of pattern. This method can be fun because you’ll think things like “today is purple; I really want to fill in a purple square.” The longer your unbroken line gets, the prettier the pattern and the less you will want to break it.

Remember, a successful writer is a prolific writer. Nobody wants to publish a one-hit wonder, and a faster, more productive writer has more time to write!

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The One Proven Way to Beat Writer’s Block

January 27th, 2009

Writer’s Block is a mysterious, almost mystical ailment that affects writers. It has struck every writer I know at least once. It strikes grad school students suffering through the hashing out that final term essay. It strikes professional copywriters sweating over something as small (but significant) as a tag line. It consistently strikes writers engaged in a long projects, such as a novel, screenplay, or an ongoing blog or column.

There’s only one known method for beating writer’s block that has ever worked for me, but first, a little information:

What is Writer’s Block?

Described briefly, writer’s block is the blockage that occurs when writers are unable to put down words, or unable to put down words they like. There are three types I am aware of:

1. Being unable to put down ideas (staring at the cursor, sometimes for hours, while writing nothing)
2. Being unable to find the words to convey ideas (always researching and looking in the dictionary or thesaurus)
3. Writing ideas that seem terrible to you so you constantly throw away, revise, or start new projects (like a hamster running in a wheel).

For some, writer’s block degenerates to a procrastination problem where writing is not even attempted. Writers suffering from severe writer’s block meander throughout the day (or week, or month, or year) thinking about the writing they are not doing and justifying to themselves how they are unable to find time, motivation, or materials to do it.

(Note: There IS a case to be made for taking breaks from writing. There is also a case to be made for not writing a particular work for a time. However, if you have something you know you want to write and your problem is just not being able to do it, then you are suffering from writer’s block.)

Writer’s block is soul killing for a writer. It makes a writer feel lazy and unproductive. It makes them feel uncreative and uninspired. Overtime, it can damage confidence, credibility, productivity, and profitability.

Why Writer’s Experience Writer’s Block

Writers experience writer’s block for a variety of reasons. Sometimes there are serious life issues that put writing on hold, but most of the time the problem is fixable. Writers complain about being abandoned by their muse, about being too busy, about not being able to find the right words, about being “bogged” down or “thrown off” their routine, and a variety of other things, but most of these are excuses. When viewed from a distance (be honest now) the “phenomenon” of writer’s block, despite varying circumstances, has the same face:

Lack of confidence

Writer’s block happens when writers stop writing. The reason writers stop writing is because they don’t trust themselves. This lack of self-trust can take multiple forms depending on the writer, but it is all the same thing: Writers don’t trust that they are good enough writers, that they can make the time to write, that they don’t have new enough ideas, that they don’t have the right style, that they don’t have the right words, that they can’t meet the deadlines, that no one will like their work, etc.

Writer’s block can happen to anyone. It affects the most successful, productive, and confident of writers as well as the inexperienced, developing, and unsure writers. In fact, writers with a lot of confidence can suffer more from self doubt than inexperienced writers simply because the expectation they hold for themselves (and others for them) is so much higher. Confident writers panic at the thought of not writing perfectly. This panic can lead to time wasters: unnecessary research, reorganization, restrategization, advice-seeking, break taking, blog reading (ahem), or any activity other than writing.

I froze up recently because I heard too much about word count in a conversation at a writers’ group. My writing tends to err toward LONG, detailed, and developed from the get-go. I already know this, but of course I wanted it to be perfect and I realized I couldn’t possibly finish the story I was telling in the word count allotted for a first novel (120k tops). As a result, I found myself unable to move a scene forward. However, the solution to this is actually pretty simple.

I need to finish the scene, and then the rest of the story, and worry about word count later. Regardless of how long it turns out to be, the story needs to be complete. THEN I can revise or entirely rewrite it to be shorter. This is very doable. I was a whiz at writing overlong college essays and trimming them to the proper page requirement. It’s a lot of work, but I’ve always enjoyed the revision process. It stimulates the logical, organized, business part of my brain when the creative part is all tuckered out. You just have to be pragmatic enough about your own work to feel no qualms about hacking it to pieces once it’s “finished.”

For those writers out there who find themselves getting choked up on their work due to this (issues of “perfection”) or any other kind of Writer’s Block, I have this to say: The first draft, no matter how good you are as a writer or how conceptually brilliant or outlined the idea, will NEVER be perfect. Never. Creative writing is a process.

The one proven solution to defeating writer’s block is to WRITE.

Think about it metaphorically: “blockage” is a good description. Writer’s block is like a clogged drain. There are two ways to get rid of a clog–to open up the innards of the piping and remove the gunk, or to flush it down and out with a strong dissolvant.

Writing works the same way, and both solutions require writing. “Removing the gunk” might mean changing direction in your story (or whatever you are writing) by DEFYING all the prep work you did and trying something else, such as writing a scene from a new point of view, or taking the story in a different direction than you intended. “Flushing” is the process of forcing yourself to just write onward.

Only one thing is for sure: sitting around waiting for “inspiration” isn’t going to finish your novel. Inspiration comes and goes. No matter how you look at it, you eventually have to WRITE through a block.

Fortunately, there are some tips and “treatments” to make this more likely to happen. If you find yourself doing your damnest, but are still being routinely defeated by that impish blinking cursor, stay tuned for my next blog post: Top five methods to help super charge your productivity.

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Posted in Fiction Writing, Uncategorized, Writing A First Novel | 2 Comments »

Twitter Popularity Surges as Microblogging Goes Global - What it Means for Writers

January 22nd, 2009

I first heard of Twitter through a colleague who proclaimed it to be the next big thing in Social Media almost a year ago. I took it with a grain of salt as this same colleague says something similar about every social media application that cries to be heard (happens frequently, as we both work in SEO and social media), many of which have since flared and died. But Twitter has surprised and surpassed expectations on many levels, and this (and applications like it) could be important to writers.

I decided to make a post on it after reading a Tweet from @aaronnewman linking me to an article on CNN (“Who will be masters of the ever-expanding ‘Twitterverse’?”) that praises Twitter’s expansion in popularity across the globe.

I got into Twitter because it is a hangout for journalists, SEOs and prominent bloggers, some of whom I work with and many of whom I wanted to get to know better for professional reasons (also, because you guys are cool–shout out to @chrisbrogan, @problogger, @copyblogger and the rest of the people I follow). SEOs and bloggers have particular reasons to love Twitter that have nothing to do with the application’s purported function: to microblog about “what you are doing”.

Twitter has the following unique features:

  1. It’s an authentic voice
  2. Great way to network
  3. It’s not that much to read
  4. Links links links links
  5. Conduct polls and surveys


I don’t know very many Twitter lovers who use Twitter to answer the question “what are you doing?” People do mention where they are (especially if they’re going on a trip or attending a conference) and occasionally use the service to muse aloud, ask rhetorical questions, or note surprising observations (e.g. I saw two homeless men arguing about who was first to beg on the same curb yesterday–very tweetable), but very few people use it to say “I am doing this…now I’m doing this…now I am doing this.”

Mostly, it is used for one of two things: promotion or spread of information.

Twitter’s success is a bit of surprise given that a lot of great social media ideas fail. Social media users are a bit like a swarm of locusts. The leaders find something juicy and introduce enough of their friends to make it fun, but when the party gets too big, resources become corrupt, “real” friends become scarce, and that feeling of being part of an “exclusive club” peters out, they scatter to new fields (social media competitors or the newest innovation creating a buzz), taking their followers with them and leaving the original application dry, empty, and bereft of life (and profit).

But who am I kidding? I work in social media, but I am not a social media leader. Being a social media butterfly is exhausting. Every time someone tells me to get on the latest social media bus, I have to give up something else to make time for it. There are just too many applications in social media. It can be a full time job, and I have to admit that I prefer RL friends and productivity. Social media applications I “stick with” are those where my friends hang out already or those that have something professional to offer as a resource. For me, Twitter provides both. It is an easy way to converse with and meet people in my field who live nowhere near me as well as yak with my friends and coworkers. And then there’s the links links links.

Why do I mention Twitter in a writing blog?

It should be obvious. Too many writers are not interested in marketing their work, but you HAVE to be. Don’t leave it to your publisher. After all that work to get published, don’t let your beautiful book go into the half-off pile because you didn’t TRY to promote it. Don’t assume the content will speak for itself! Don’t assume someone else will sell it for you! Of course the content is important (if you have a bad book or a bad blog no one can help you…) but that is only part of the process. The other part is GETTING THE WORD OUT.

With applications like Twitter, it’s not even a headache! If you have a blog, website, online magazine, published book, or are in some other way in need of LINKS and READERS, Twitter can be your best friend. That is, after all, how I found @grammargirl. So don’t be bashful. If you have something meaningful to share, SHARE IT. Remember: no one will love or care or work as hard for your success as you do. (However, don’t become a Twitter Zombie; unauthentic = bad–Thanks for the tweet, @Jillwhalen!)

In the CNN article that @aaronnewman linked me to (using Twitter), the CEO of OneHourTranslation, Yaron Kaufman, who developed Twitrans, which provides free translation of tweets, was quoted saying the following:

“We think that Twitter is much more than just a cool idea,” says CEO Yaron Kaufman. “We think it will influence the way people communicate with each other. It makes the world smaller and flatter, and we are sure Twitrans will contribute to this important change.”

The concept that a “smaller and flatter” world is somehow desirable makes me laugh a bit, as it comes off (unintentionally, we hope) as “enclosed and shallow” but it’s clear what was meant. Twitter is idyllic as an Internet application. It is the essence of what the Internet stands for because of its simple power to connect people. Yaron Kaufman might be exaggerating a bit with the implication that an application like Twitter can change the world (to be smaller and flatter?) but social media applications like Twitter are changing things. As communication expands, the world evolves at an increasingly rapid rate.

That includes writing and the publishing industry.

Don’t you think?

You can follow me @amymstewart.

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