Tag: tweeting

Writers on Twitter

John Guillen12 Comments

Rant incoming.

Okay. I’m pretty active on Twitter. I’d say I tweet maybe 10-15 times a day. On the weekends that number probably cuts in half because I’m sleepy. My tweets are literally about anything that pops into my head. A movie quote. Something my dog does. An interaction with a co-worker. A text conversation I’ve had. Anything. I’ll tweet about it. What I very, very rarely do is tweet about books, writing, reading or any of the things I discuss on here. Why? Because that’s what this blog is for. I only wish others felt the same way.

I follow a few bloggers on Twitter. Probably less than 15. And I’ve followed many more than that during my time on the site, but I’ve unfollowed almost every one of them. Why? Because for some reason writers feel the need to tell everyone exactly how much they’ve written several times a day. And then those same people also feel the need to let everyone know the precise moment they sit down to read. It’s like they’re trying to live up to this persona that their entire lives are full of books even though they’re working a full-time job in an industry that has nothing to do with books or publishing or anything writing-related.

I have no issue with people tweeting about their writing every now and then, but is there really a reason to use #amwriting in ten straight tweets? WE GET IT. YOU’RE ON TWITTER PRETENDING TO BE WRITING. No one gives a shit.

I know what you’re thinking by this point. You’re thinking that I should just unfollow these people and be done with it. Yep, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m unfollowing other bloggers on Twitter as soon as this post publishes. Cause I’d prefer to read pointless tweets from people I know personally and from celebrities I follow, but not from bloggers I don’t hardly know at all. If I want to read about your writing or reading, then I’ll gladly do so on WordPress.

I guess the point of this post is to say that you shouldn’t follow me on Twitter because I don’t follow back unless you’re in a group of maybe three bloggers. I wonder how often James Patterson tweets using #amwriting. Oh wait, that’s just ridiculous.

On this day in 2014 I published Not Your Typical Easter Post.

 

Writing Pet Peeves #2: Text talk

John Guillen18 Comments

txtkknknk

TeeTime

I told y’all I’d continue this series at some point. Well today’s the day.

Text talk. Ooooh. Do not get me started. This probably should have been the first post in the series because I think this irks me more than bad capitalization does. But it’s a close race. Anyway, we live in the age of the smartphone, right? Smartphones that have been made to help us do the simplest of tasks, right? Including our terrible writing.

See, I know not everyone is going to be like me and text/tweet with nice complete sentences and proper punctuation. But some people take it way too far. I just recently saw “ion” in a tweet and didn’t understand why that word was used in that context. Then I realized that someone was trying to say “I don’t” and had shortened it. Like what the? I also see “tryna” quite a bit. Which of course is “trying to” shortened. Tell me I’m not the only person who is annoyed with this nonsense. Cause these are just two examples of SO many.

Like all the stupid acronyms. I use “lol” because that’s my way of acknowledging that the other person was trying to be funny and I noticed. No laugh. No anything. But at least I’m acknowledging it. But seeing “smh” or “idgaf” or “lmao” or “rofl” or “fml” or “wtf” or any of the gazillion acronyms that are constantly used is about as annoying as it gets.

AND lastly, those who text with no sentences or punctuation or anything. They just type big blobs of text. Please stop. Just let your phone do that stuff for you like everyone else.

If you don’t know what all the acronyms mean…you lucky soul.