Twitter Funk

I sometimes get into a Twitter funk.  I have nothing interesting to say (admittedly, this may happen more often than I think it does).  No one is saying anything worth retweeting.  There are no fascinating or funny or fascinating and funny stories to link to.  There’s just nothing.

Or it might be me.

Not that I’m clever and witty and insightful all the time.  But sometimes I feel like I can fake it.  Or the other people on Twitter help.  Someone might make a comment I respond to and it turns into a “conversation”.  Others join in.  It can really get fun, and sometimes silly.

My kids help.  They say and do funny—in my opinion—things that end up on twitter all the time.  I know I’m not the only one who’s heard someone in her house say something and then turn and tell you “do not tweet that, mom”.

 

The idiots driving in front of me, standing behind me in the grocery store line, or even the ones who work with me, also help. 

Can’t someone just do something stupid already so I can tweet it?

But I do not want to tweet just to tweet.  LOTS of people do this.  LOTS.  Random thoughts that have no context or meaning to me at all.  You know what I mean-- the “this is what I ate for lunch” tweets. 

A lot of my tweeting has to do with my writing life.  Okay, pretty much most of it.  I tweet about my writing and my books and I follow lots of writers and people who love and talk about books. All. The. Time.

Funny thing about that—sometimes I love it.  In my “real world” (whatever that means) there aren’t nearly enough people who read and talk books (not to mention read and talk about the books *I* read).  I love knowing I can get on twitter and instantly be surrounded by like-minded people.  I can catch up on industry news.  I can check out new releases.  I can read excerpts and drool over Pinterest pins.  I can see if my favorite authors are writing.  I can find out if any authors are behaving badly. 

But sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I get tired of all of that too. I get tired of the “read my book, read my book” stuff.  And I follow a lot of reviewers.  I don’t know why, but lately there are a lot of harsh reviews out there.  Sure, the books might deserve it, but I get tired of seeing people bashing books. 

So, thankfully, I follow some not-reading-community people too.  Stephen Colbert, Andy Borowitz, The Bloggess, just to name a few.  They make me laugh and get me out of the book-world for awhile.  Which is probably a good thing.

 

Now, don’t get me wrong—there are plenty of writing-community people who are funny.  And informative and entertaining and all of that.  But sometimes it’s good to get out of the bubble, just like it’s okay for me to once in a while reach for a caramel macchiato instead of my most-major-addiction-of-all: Starbuck’s coffee-flavored bottled frappucinos. 

It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

So, I want to know—who are the best non-reading-community people to follow?  Anyone that I’ve been missing all my life?

And how about the best reading-community people to follow? (and don’t say Smart Bitches or Dear Author.  Just don’t.)

Anyway... I do love Twitter most of the time.  I really do. 

So, Happy Tweeting To All!  May the Twitter-funk not hit you :)

Erin