Or maybe it's supposed to be tweets? I've been playing with this thing called Twitter for the last few days. More or less legitimately, since I'm "investigating" social networking as part of my job.

It's a bit schizophrenic. I'm restricted to 140 characters or less per "tweet," which lends itself to silly remarks posted frequently. But I'm uncomfortably aware that if someone "follows" me, they might be receiving my messages as txt on their cell phones--meaning, they might be paying to read my babble. So I shouldn't post unless I'm actually saying something. As we all know, I don't often have Something to say.

I'm "following" (that's what it's called when you subscribe to someone's posts) two people. A stranger I added when I was experimenting with the interface originally and one familiar name who somehow found and "followed" me.

I'm also LinkedIn (under my Other Real Name), but that's less entertaining. As a "professional networking" site, it just sort of sits there. I guess I should look at it as "low maintenance."

I don't know. I already have this blog to keep up and then there's the other journal, not to mention all of the writing I'm doing at work (right now: a manual for putting out the ArgonutNews, the stupid newsletter itself, although more editing than writing, and web pages for Gidget*). Not that all of that added together makes a significant amount of writing, but the diversity in subject matter is keeping my brain spinning. I'm habitually behind on my email any more. I'm finally getting back to reading Bloglines on a regular basis, but haven't yet gotten back into the habit of commenting on posts.

I don't know that I should be taking on anything else at the moment. I mean, I'm pretty much failing at everything I already have underway, you know?

Gidget is working with a friend to write a book. On marketing or something, I'm not sure. (No doubt I'll wind up doing some gratis editing, so I'll know eventually.) For a second, as I typed that first sentence, the urge came over me to write a book but having produced near-book length stories already, I am firmly remembering that Real Writing would be even more work than that.

Also, if you're going to write a book you should have Something to say. Sigh.

I could write a gimmick book, like that person who wrote the one about the "secret." That was, what, twenty pages long? Or less? But it caught the public imagination and I'd guess he made a pretty penny on it.

I like pretty pennies.

OTOH I'm not really that interested in making money writing. I'd rather (assuming I ever get back to writing again) have fun (inasmuch as it's possible to have "fun" when writing, which is a singularly painful and consuming pastime) than work. I miss the days when all it took was putting my fingers on a keyboard to trigger a massive outpouring of text. It may not have been good, but it sure was easy.

I'm boring you on the subject of working today because The Novel is back in my mind. Not in a "write this down" kind of way or anything, but I occasionally ponder the Alternate Universe I created when I first conceived of the idea and then I want to go back to my files and hand-drawn maps and flesh out the world. I still have a ton of climate research to do, to make sure I've structured the ecologies of the various parts of the world correctly. I need to know more about what climates to choose for what kinds of plants, I need to know more about kinds of wood, and to read up on wind patterns and how they're formed. Heh. A ton of useless research. What fun!

I finally remembered to bring in a fan for my cubicle today and it's gray and rainy and very cool inside.

Lunch break over.

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* This is why I don't like writing for other people. I rewrote five pages, just in draft form, but enough to give her a feel for the punchier, more sales-oriented approach I thought she might want to take. Now she's going to go ahead and put them up as her first website, under the theory that she can "massage" the content later and it's more important to have the website up immediately.

She's a marketing professional! How can she think, "fast but not that good" is good enough? Why, when with a few days of thought, planning, and rewriting, she could have a good website, is she so determined to go ahead with a now website? And I have no control--it's her project and I was just doing her a favor, so it's out of my hands.

No one wants to do it right any more. It's a cultural failing in this country. We'll take whatever we can get, as long as we can get it now. Instant gratification is more important than gratifying gratification or something.