Monday, January 11, 2010

Tell Me It's Not the Dark Side

I did something today I had virtually promised myself that I wouldn't ever do...I joined Twitter.

I know, I know ~ it's so passe that it's almost old-fashioned by now, right? Everybody's on twitter!

My main reasons for not joining before now are easy enough to share. I spend a lot of my waking time on the computer, doing the things I need to do...lesson planning, reading, writing, teaching. Almost all of work-from-home (which is increasing all the time!) is computer centered. I'm in good email contact with family and friends, and I've been on Facebook for a while now, trying to not spend too much time there but enjoying the opportunities it gives me to connect with far-flung folks I love and miss.

And as of today, I've been blogging here for four years!

Twitter just felt like "one more thing." And the temptation to "tweet" (a word I hear has already gone out of vogue...I am just so behind the times!) about my life will be, I suspect, a strong one. What writer doesn't love the notion of crafting little capsules of language about one's life? A chance to move myself into haiku-mode every day!

I've had motivations to join before now. Epinions did a promotion last year where those who tweeted their reviews got entered into a drawing to win an iPod. I should have done it, if nothing else so I could have tried to win one for my dear husband who would so love to be "up" on all sorts of technology, especially musical technology. I resisted then mostly because of time...I just didn't want to put the time into posting all those little urls. Plus I was worried I'd get sucked into the vortex.

I succumbed now because I have a chance to win books by Eugene Peterson. Yes, you knew books would be involved in this temptation somewhere, didn't you? And I don't have to tweet anything! All I had to do was join so I could follow the publisher! Honest! I promise! That's all!

Sigh. I do love Eugene Peterson's work. And of course I won't win...

Y'know, it occurs to me that if Darth Vader had ever wanted me to join him in ruling the universe, I would have had no problem screaming along with Luke "I'll NEVER join you!" But if he'd offered me a library...well...you do know that's when Beauty truly fell in love with the Beast, right?

Let's just hope that twitter is a prince in disguise and not the dark side.

P.S. Just in case you want to find me on twitter...not that I've tweeted anything (and I won't, right? Right?) you'll find me listed as endlessbooks.

4 comments:

Erin said...

Your third-to-last paragraph really had me chortling. And boy, does the unveiling of the library in Beauty and the Beast stir my soul every time I see it! :D

I know what you mean about Joining the Dark Side. And I've indulged in some exceedingly silly posts on Twitter, but then I don't mind exposing myself as a goofball once in a while. I do think posting links there has really helped my Epinions hits, though; my IS the last couple of months has been much better than usual, and I think that's at least part of the reason. I guess I'll really see if that's true now that the Christmas bump is over...

Beth said...

Hmm...makes me wonder (gulp!) if I shouldn't try posting Eps links there after all. Do you generally turn them into tinyurls first, or do you just post the whole link? I'm kind of clueless.

My overall hits don't seem to be doing that well, though of course it would help if I'd actually post more reviews (my current sinus infection has really taken the wind out of my sails during a week when I actually thought I could write/post a lot...we'll see if I manage to pick up energy sometime!) The Christmas bump was pretty small for me this year; my last month's IS was only a bit better than normal.

That Beauty and the Beast moment is a definite soul-stirrer. But it does sort of make me giggle to think about how much it might have played into Belle's ultimate falling for the Beast. Kind of like Elizabeth Bennet admitting how seeing Pemberly made her take another look at Mr. Darcy!

Erin said...

I can't blame either of them! ;)

If I don't really have anything to say about the review, and just want to post the title and link, I just post the link from Epinions but get rid of the gobbledegook in the middle - for instance, http://www.epinions.com/review/Golden_Age_Shekhar_Kapur/content_498609720964 would become http://www.epinions.com/content_498609720964. If I want a little more room I go into tinyurl. It's handy, though I try to avoid it since people don't really know what they're getting into and might think I'm trying to lure them into malware...

I hope your sinus ickiness goes away soon!

Beth said...

Thanks, Erin. I didn't win the Peterson books (sigh). I have now officially tweeted twice (that DOES sound funny!). I'll have to see about posting some links to Eps -- I appreciate the advice about how-to.

Of course, I can only post links to reviews if I actually write them first. This has not been a stellar writing week, due to the sinus crud. I am apparently going to make my deadline on the diocesan article though...hooray!