Simplify

I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of time I spend on social media, especially on Facebook and Twitter. I maintain my author presence on my book’s Facebook page, visit a few friends’ pages, and occasionally catch up with breaking news on Twitter. But with the exception of a couple of Facebook Groups I belong to, none of it really sparks joy for me. And it creates a huge distraction from my writing and editing.

So I’ve been writing more, reading more, and just generally feeling better about how I use my time. The compulsion to document and share my experiences in the highly temporal world of social media is not enjoyable for me any more.  

Be Specific

 42nd Street, New York, 1940, by Lisette Model. Her student Diane Arbus said Model taught her: "The more specific you are, the more general it’ll be."

Writer's Tools

While my preferred pencil is a Blackwing Palomino, I believe that my IKEA souvenir will also work. For a little while, anyway.  

TWSB fountain pen, 53 iPad stylus, IKEA freebie

Artifact From A Time Before Auto-Correct, When Writing Was Something You Did On Paper

Who still has one of these in a drawer somewhere? Who still uses one?

Twitter Haiku

Twitter's 140-character limit (and to some extent text messaging) challenges us to say everything we mean in the fewest words possible without compromising meaning, and has spawned some fascinating linguistic constructs.

Which can really be fun for the hardcore Wordie.

For example, one of my writerly friends recently closed a Tweet with:

"Kthanxbai"