Thursday 30 April 2009 Tweet, but Not Tweet Enough

Let me get one thing in here straight off – I’m really not sure how I feel about the micro-stalking, social-notworking, inanity-feed that is Twitter. I remain open to being convinced, as I’m sure it has its uses, but do we really need to know what Stephen Fry is doing right at this exact moment in time? Maybe we do, I don’t know.

(Apologies here to any Twitter users. Ignore me, I'm just being flippant).

Still, being the shameless word whore that I am (or trying to be, at least) that didn’t stop me from wanting to join the bandwagon when Tweet the Meat reared its head on Duotrope. Writing flash fiction is great, same with micro and drabbles, so how could I resist a 140 characters or less challenge?

I hastily put a tale together and, if I’m honest, was quite pleased with the result. It was grim and bleak, just the way I like it. Unfortunately, it didn’t make the grade, but not to worry, I’ve already got a new piece for the next submission period theme of ‘Wet’. Again, how could I resist?

It wasn’t all bad news though; those 25 rejected words have formed the basis of a new story that’s currently twisting and turning into some sort of shape inside my head.

So, maybe I am a fan of Twitter after all. Expect to see my Tweet feed appear in a sidebar to the right sometime soon. Although, I’m not exactly sure what I’d tweet about; most of what I do doesn’t really interest me that much, let alone the rest of the world.

Assuming there still is a populated world in the next few months, obviously. I sneezed into my face mask 3 times in quick succession this morning and am generally feeling a little funky. No doubt, this time next week I’ll be a gibbering fool chained to a hospital bed and dosed up on Tamiflu.

3 comments:

Michael Stone said...

I don't think tweeting is for me, but the challenge of writing 25 word stories has a certain appeal. Thanks for the heads-up.

Rebecca Nazar said...

I don't get Twitter. I'm old, I guess. My life is a snore. Did you read the stats on Tweet the Meat? Check it out. They received 111 submissions--crazy. There were 14 with decapitated babies or something like that--sick. I don't know if I'll submit again; it chews up time and a distraction from longer work that really plumps up the writing credits.

Good luck and stay well. There are some confirmed cases here. Yikes.

L.R. Bonehill said...

Michael – Hope you have better luck than I did.

Rebecca – No, I don’t really get Twitter either. I think I must be missing something. Like Michael, it’s the challenge of a really compact story that appeals more than anything. Think I’ll go for a 3 strikes and out approach.

Yikes, indeed. We have suspected cases here, as well as an awful lot of scaremongering.