I'm not that good a writer...on social media

Hellloooo friends. I woke up this morning with a vacation hangover. You know that feeling. When you've been away for a week and you finally get home and you're exhausted, disoriented, and suffering from a headache. Honestly it wasn't a vacation, so much as a trip. My son played in a soccer tournament in Hershey. Then we decided to tack on extra days to do the amusement park and Washington DC and let's just cliche...I need a vacation from my vacation. Yuk. Yuk. Yuk.

And while on vacation, I posted photos of my kids to social media with cute captions like We're at Hershey! And Smithsonian Day with a healthy dose of whine. Then, later that day, I wrote the same thing while on the beach with a cup of merlot and punned a healthy dose of wine. And you know what I realized? I am terrible at composing pithy captions on social media. In fact, I am a crappy writer all together on social media. Which wouldn't be a thing if I wasn't a goddamn author.

My friend Dave was a writer for Mad Magazine. He is the funniest dude on the planet and his one-line Facebook updates are Pulitzer worthy. Another friend is a copy writer and her Instagram posts about ballet and coffee are eloquent and artsy. Meanwhile, I'm on Twitter trying to blog about my favorite television shows because I don't often know how to relate to people other than to talk about what Netflix shows I'm bingeing. I am literally that person at parties. Because it's not cool to discuss politics and religion and those are my two favorite topics of conversations, I'm the one who asks, "So whatcha all binge watching?" And then I get the response, "I don't really watch TV." Or they respond with, "I'm into the Real Housewives."

My last Tweet that got traction was me asking the Twitterverse if anyone found the exhaust fan above the stove as annoying as I do. And it turns out, lots of people do.

I marvel at how sassy and clever people can be on Twitter. Especially about mundane things. And there's me over here revising the same sentence ten times just to vary my word usage. Half the time, I don't add commentary because my brain is fried from trying to simply write a novel that I have nothing left to devote to cleverness. I have to work at being smart while others simply do it on instinct.

Do you ever cringe at your Facebook post memories? I do. I'm like, "I wrote that trite piece of crap observation?" Ugh. Thanks Facebook for reminding me that I'm a hack.


Please don't judge me by my tweets and status updates. And why is there no edit button on Twitter?

Don't bring on the noise

I love Twitter. It's how I get my news. It's where I learn quite a bit about what's going in the world, either globally, or sometimes just in my own writing community. But lately my feed has been stressing me out, and believe it or not, it has little to do with the election.

I've been writing a YA mystery, set in the 90s. I'm passionate about this project but I feel insecure even on a good writing day. Every so often a tweet pops up on my feed that just sets me back emotionally. The other day, someone posted about how YA books set in the 80s that feature music are really nostalgic reads for adults. Maybe that's true, but tell that to Rainbow Rowell whose Eleanor and Park was widely loved by teens.

But then I worry about my WIP. Am I writing an indulgent nostalgia 90s trip? Will agents think that? Readers? I'm working so hard on this book -- is it all for nothing? Will an agent take one look at the setting and disregard it?

Yeah -- they could. They could easily do that.

I have to be realistic about this business, but I also have to do my own thing without worrying about trends or prevailing thoughts on YA. It's no one's fault but my own if I get hung up on my insecurity. I've been purposefully staying off my writing forums and querying sites in order to stay positive. If my WIP secures me an agent, awesome. If it doesn't, I'm no worse off.

But for my own sanity, I think I'll just stick to tweets about the election.