Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Twitterpated

Twitter this and twitter that... What's the point?

Well, up until now, I wasn't sure. I, for one, am not interested in who is walking the dog and who is eating toast with jam. But in a recent blog post on Reading, Writing, & Stuff That Makes Me Crazy, Marianne Arkins explains how she used Twitter to not only chat with people, but to draw attention to her blog. Clever!

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, Twitter is a messaging system in which people can post very brief messages on what they are doing. But a clever few have turned this strange new communication tool into works of art. Sort of.

Some Twitterers give out information, for example, entries of free fiction that has been posted on the Internet. But others actually post full-fledged fiction Twitters. Well, at least as full-fledged as fiction can be in 120 characters.

For me, I decided to post 120 character book reviews on my Twitter account (which you can view here.) And since 120 characters seems awfully short, I've decided that I could actually make my reviews rhyme. I've always admired the poet Ogden Nash whose famous couplets (such as, "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker") were both clever and insightful. And while I don't claim to be either clever or insightful, I can at least write a rhyming couplet.

Today's book review is "Duma Key" by Stephen King:

Duma Key was not for me/its lengthy plot was scary - not!

So thus, the birth of the Book Review 120 is born.

3 comments:

Marianne Arkins said...

Just for grins, I checked stats this a.m. -- and referrals from Twitter are higher than any another one place. It's time consuming and labor intensive, but if it works, I'm happy!

Elle Scott said...

What stat counter do you use? It would be nice to know where the referrals for page views are coming from.

Thanks again for your great idea!

Jennifer said...

I use twitter for random bits that I feel like telling people, but that aren't long enough for a blog post. And I also have a lot of Twitter followers (some of which are published authors and some of which are literary agents), so I link to all my new blog posts and things.

I like the book review idea. Pretty smart. :)

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