Up to now, it's been a good thing that I haven't cultivated a web presence.
The distance has allowed me to dip into the world of the internet at will, then drop back into life as it existed in the days when hiking the Smokies or camping at the beach meant you were unreachable. Period. It's a mental freedom we gave up for safety and the ability to look up the surface temperature of the sun or the final score of the Duke-Maryland game.
It's about to change.
I finally finished the novel I have been working on since the summer of 2011. Not just finished a draft. I have a manuscript. I traded it out to couple of other people who needed beta readers as well. One of them is Irish. We crossed paths on a facebook page and agreed to trade excerpts.
She wrote back that she loved my writing, and wondered how it was that she had never heard of me before. And that was when it hit me. I write. I don't dance all over facebook, friending random writers. I accept the friendships, but I don't vote on best excerpts in contests, don't review books I've barely read. I'm in a hidden online writers community. I'm also in a real live writers group. I'm a reader in a contest which is based here in Nashville. It's not that I'm not involved in the writing world. I'm just not all over the web.
Googling myself, the first two hits are on linkedin and twitter, despite the fact that I am on neither. The first writing site is the fourth hit. My Amazon hit is the fifth one. Then there's Intelius, which gives out my personal information. Creepy, but it would be creepier if they got more of it right. By the second google page, my hits are mixed with a psychic named Nina in Ft. Myers. I don't know how good she is, but she's got the web in the palm of her hand.
Anyway, I'm not going to be obnoxious about it. I'll set up a writer's page and find the places I can make the most of networking because if I don't, Justin, Leon Stewart, Sadie and the rest of the cast of Calling Home is never going to get off my computer and into the hands of people who would enjoy their antics. It's how the world is today. And if it drives me crazy, I can climb over the hill to the creek behind my studio and watch the water run down the slate rocks.
And then create. It's what I do.
The distance has allowed me to dip into the world of the internet at will, then drop back into life as it existed in the days when hiking the Smokies or camping at the beach meant you were unreachable. Period. It's a mental freedom we gave up for safety and the ability to look up the surface temperature of the sun or the final score of the Duke-Maryland game.
It's about to change.
I finally finished the novel I have been working on since the summer of 2011. Not just finished a draft. I have a manuscript. I traded it out to couple of other people who needed beta readers as well. One of them is Irish. We crossed paths on a facebook page and agreed to trade excerpts.
She wrote back that she loved my writing, and wondered how it was that she had never heard of me before. And that was when it hit me. I write. I don't dance all over facebook, friending random writers. I accept the friendships, but I don't vote on best excerpts in contests, don't review books I've barely read. I'm in a hidden online writers community. I'm also in a real live writers group. I'm a reader in a contest which is based here in Nashville. It's not that I'm not involved in the writing world. I'm just not all over the web.
Googling myself, the first two hits are on linkedin and twitter, despite the fact that I am on neither. The first writing site is the fourth hit. My Amazon hit is the fifth one. Then there's Intelius, which gives out my personal information. Creepy, but it would be creepier if they got more of it right. By the second google page, my hits are mixed with a psychic named Nina in Ft. Myers. I don't know how good she is, but she's got the web in the palm of her hand.
Anyway, I'm not going to be obnoxious about it. I'll set up a writer's page and find the places I can make the most of networking because if I don't, Justin, Leon Stewart, Sadie and the rest of the cast of Calling Home is never going to get off my computer and into the hands of people who would enjoy their antics. It's how the world is today. And if it drives me crazy, I can climb over the hill to the creek behind my studio and watch the water run down the slate rocks.
And then create. It's what I do.
I agree - we need that cast out here where we can get to know them. Do what you do best - create.
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