Twittequette Rant

Today I'm over at From The Write Angle, ranting talking about some Twittequette Tips regarding DMs on Twitter. I hope you'll pop on over and join the conversation!

I don't rant very often, but this topic is one of my personal pet peeves.

Make me feel better about the rant, what's one thing that drives you batty and you'd like to rant about?

To Unfollow or Not?

I'm over at From the Write Angle today talking about Twittequette (Twitter Etiquette). I enjoy the Twitter-verse because it's a no pressure way to make connections with lots of interesting people and to learn a ton. Plus it's fun!

But some people don't seem to understand the unwritten rules and they drive me bonkers ... at least until I unfollow them. My biggest pet peeve is the self promo fanatics. They never tweet about anything or anyone else.

And it's not just on Twitter, I've seen it with a few (very few) bloggers as well. They only talk about themselves and their products. It's probably the same with folks on FB (which I still haven't joined!) and the other social media forums. People don't change their personalities despite the change in venues!

I actually don't unfollow lightly, and I've only done it on Twitter. I know some people unfollow blogs as well, but I tend to just not revisit.

What's your unfollow style? What are some of the reasons you unfollow people?

Tweet Responsibly

I'm over at From the Write Angle today talking about the Opera Disease. If you click over, you'll see how it's connected to tweeting responsibly!

In my opinion, tweeting responsibly means following a few guidelines:

• be friendly & interact with other people
• ask questions
• offer answers to questions
• reply to people when they speak to you or RT your tweet
• RT tweets you enjoy - but don't go nuts here! Do other stuff as well
• for the most part, it's okay to jump into conversations
• constantly selling and promoting your own links irritates everyone
• only tweeting links (with no words) irritates everyone
• auto-responding to a follow with an auto-tweet irritates everyone

Okay, maybe the last 3 only irritate me. Maybe.

Anything you'd like to add to the list? Do you get irritated too?

Word Sprints

I'm over at From the Write Angle today with my final (probably) post on Twitter hashtags for writers. One of the tags I mention is #nano. As most of you know NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month where a bunch of crazy writers (like me!) attempt to write a 50k first draft in 30 days.

As part of NaNo, there are word sprints to help you maintain the pace. If you follow @NaNoWordSprints, you'll see there's almost always a word sprint going on. Word sprints are timed 'races' where you try to get as many words time during the time limit - anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour from what I've seen. There are no prizes in this race - well, except a boost to your word count.

I don't always announce that I'm joining a sprint on twitter, but I often race along with the other writers. It's fun to see how the word counts match up.

Those in charge of the sprint will often throw in a dare or a challenge - things to add into your scene. Lost sock. Karaoke. Someone is killed on or by roller skates. Or maybe the dare will be to add in a challenge word - like alien or debris.

I rarely take up the dares because they don't usually work for my story, but they often make me smile. Last year one of the challenges was to add in a wild animal. My character was driving through the mountains and that dare added in a great scene about a run in with a moose. So, sometimes they do work out well. Regardless of the dare, the sprints are fun!

Have you ever tried word sprints? Do they work for you too?

(If you have time, I'd love to have you join the discussion over at From the Write Angle!)

Twitter Hashtags Part 2

I'm over at From the Write Angle today talking more about Twitter Hashtags that are useful for writers.

I remember joining twitter and signing up for a blog one afternoon a couple of summers ago. I had NO idea what I was doing on either front. Fun times! Eventually I made sense of blogging - tweeting took me a little longer. TweetDeck & TweetChat helped me enormously. Do you use either of those applications? How do you make sense of tweeting?

I'm thinking there will be one more post in November in the series. Any tags you think would be useful to share? Hope you'll pop on over and visit!

Hashtags

I'm over at From the Write Angle today talking about 3 Twitter hashtags I think most writers (especially aspiring writers) will find helpful. I hope you'll pop on over to join the conversation and tell me your favourite writers' hashtag! See you there!

Things I Don't Understand...

... people I don't know/follow on Twitter who send me only a link. Do they really think I'm stupid enough to click on it?

... people who circle me on Google+ when they have no interest in writing. My very limited profile mentions I'm a writer. Actually that's all it mentions - I'm a writer & I'm female. All the people in my circles are interested in writing or books. I'm not interested in accounting. Or international business. Or banking trends. Or military/political/religious organizations. And (huge surprise) I'm not going to circle you back to have bigger numbers.

... obsessions with numbers

... people who circle/follow me, but who don't speak the same language I do

... where summer has gone

... people who tweet about themselves in the 3rd person

... why my parsley won't grow back

... how the dust bunnies multiply so quickly. What ARE they doing in those corners?

... why slashing and burning all those redundant phrases in my ms makes me giddy with joy

... why it's so much fun to follow these characters on their journeys

How about you? Any things you don't understand? Any answers?

#askYAeditor

@EgmontGal (Elizabeth Law) hosted an impromptu chat last night in the Twitter-verse. She is a self-proclaimed children's and YA book fanatic and publisher at Egmont USA. The hashtag for the chat was #askYAeditor and it was totally fascinating.

So what kinds of advice did she give out? Lots. Here's what she sees as trendy in the YA market right now:

• sexy, action packed fantasy.
• funny, humourous works
• horror - really scary stuff
• mysteries
• romance in everything - teens are walking hormones!
• contemporary stories
• summer before college stories
• maximum age of protag is 17 or 18
• near future stories
• including parents - maybe spotlighting positive dad/daughter relationship

What's not?

• trying for 'hip' dialogue
• mash-ups
• names: Grace, Caleb & Calllum (too many of them)
• college aged kids

 What's on the fence?

• dystopian - so many great ones right now & coming out soon, she worries market is saturated
• steampunk is interesting, but not yet BIG (maybe I'll be in time for the trend to take off!)
• centaurs, angels, and... mollusks (trust me - you had to be there!)

If you write YA and didn't catch it, try searching the hashtag. It won't give you the whole chat (at least I don't think it will), but you'll get some awesome information! Ms. Law is one of those amazingly helpful people in the publishing world who enjoy sharing information. She chatted for hours, answered a bazillion questions and eventually broke Twitter -- or at least tweeted so much she went over her limit and Twitter cut her off! I didn't know such a thing was possible. Chats like this are reasons I enjoy the Twitter-verse :)

Thanks to Ms Law - and thanks to the pedicure that prompted the chat in the first place!

Am I Stalking you Properly?

Seriously. Sort of :)

I have a few followers whose photos don't link to their blogs or websites. A few of these fine folks I can link to if they leave a comment. I have no idea why I can link to things from the name, but not link to things from the photo. *sigh* I do wonder sometimes how Blogger really feels about me.

I think I have most or all of your blogs on my blog roll. That's what I use to check out your blogs, so if I don't have you on my list, PLEASE let me know.

I'm also on Twitter as @jemifraser. Maybe not the most exciting @name in the Twitterverse, but I'm usually easy to find :) If we haven't linked up on there, please leave me your Twitty name. I'm not the most consistent Tweeter (Twit???) in the T'verse, but I do tend to pop on for a little bit most days.

I have a few more thank yous to catch up on.

VR Barkowski awarded me the Stylish Blogger Award. Love the graphic on this one! Makes me feel under-dressed in my comfy pjs & no socks.

Nicole Ducleroir at One Significant Moment at a Time and Shelley Sly at Stories in the Ordinary both awarded me the Awesome Sauce Award. Makes me want to go whip up a pot full of awesome!

If you haven't checked out these ladies and their wonderful blogs, do it as soon as you can. Hurry! The longer you wait, the more you're missing!

I wanted to do the whole Carbon-Neutral Blog thing on Earth Day, but without a computer, it was too hard. So as of now, I'm fulfilling the conditions. I chose the pretty pink leaf because it matches the blog :) Please check out this link to find out how to make your blog carbon neutral. These nice folks will plant a tree in order to combat the energy required to run your blog. We also planted several trees here on Earth Day. Hopefully you managed to do your thing to make this planet a little better and a little brighter. It's so important to make every effort we can. We have to make up for all of the destruction our species has caused. Education is the key - the more we know, the more we can do.

So, can you tell I'm in catch-up mode? That was a pretty eclectic blog post :) Don't forget to check the blog roll to see how my stalking is coming along! :) The easiest way to do this is to use the Edit button on your tool bar. Click on the Find on This Page link - then type in your blog name. If you don't show up, please let me know!

Gender Games

I'm back! I've had computer woes for most of the past seven days, so have been offline pretty much all of that time. It's good to be back :)

I was just floating in and out of the #yalitchat over on Twitter. For those of you who haven't participated, it's a rollercoaster ride on Twitter with a whole bunch of great folks who are interested in YA (young adult) writing.

Tonight's topic swerved around a bit, and one of the topics that popped up was gender. Specifically, if authors ever wrote outside their gender, and why or why not.

I enjoy writing from both the male and female perspective. Probably because most of my writing has a romantic side to it, I tend to have two main characters - one male, one female. I write from each mc's pov in separate scenes.

A friend pointed out a website called The Gender Genie http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php that analyzes a piece of writing and tells you which gender appears to have written that section. I've checked out several sections and am happy to report that each mc shows up as the correct gender :)

I think I'm comfortable writing from the male pov because I've always had great male friends, and of course there are my great relationships with my hubby, son, dad and other family members. Plus as a teacher, I get to know boys pretty well!

How about you? Do you write exclusively from the pov of your own gender or do you switch it up a bit?

Tweetchat in the Twitter-verse

I ventured into that alternate reality, the Twitter-verse this weekend. I joined Twitter earlier this month, around the same time I started blogging. New and exciting endeavours all the way around :)

My learning curve in the Twitter-verse has been steep at times, with a few bumps along the road. Honestly it was a little overwhelming at first - with a touch of "Am I Crazy?" thrown in. But, I'm learning!

My latest achievement is learning about Tweetchats. Thanks to fellow Twitterer, Inkyelbows, I found out there are live chats for writers on Twitter. So I followed her handy-dandy, easy to follow link and instructions (http://www.inkygirl.com/twitter-chats-for-writers/), and found myself in the chatroom.

What a rollercoaster ride! Comments fly back and forth with amazing speed. Some people can multi-task like I've never seen. There were so many interesting comments and contributers! I mostly lurked this time, but I'm already looking forward to the next time.

How many of you have entered the Twitter-verse? Will I see you in a TweetChat?