Literally Aspiring discussion

I've made an early New Year's resolution - to be social with my GRs friends. This entails me making a point of progressively messaging everyone I befriend on the site, try and strike up a conversation and see if I can connect with people.

By the way, this is not easy. I have almost 200 friends and haven't contacted half of them yet, but I'm striving for quality here. I don't want to be another person who accrues friends they never talk to or share interests with.

I know that not everyone is going to someone I feel close to but I want to feel like I tried. I'm also trying to strike up conversations in other groups with members to see if there are unique, thoughtful souls present.

It just seems like a common complaint around GRs is people gather up friends they don't actually care about then pimp their writing out and expect to care. Not only is that inconsiderate, it's illogical. Unless someone had a captivating pitch for their novel, I wouldn't be jumping to read something sent to me out of the blue. I'm not even sure how much an advanced read and review helps if the person isn't willing to talk you up in groups or to their own friends on GRs.

Word of mouth isn't just five-stars and a couple kind words. It's people supporting you and your work in an earnest, emphatic way that makes others want to give a book a chance.

I'm not advocating everyone run out and curry favor for the sake of, but take advantage of an opportunity to befriend those who share your interest in books. How often do you know people personally who have read everything you have? I'm grateful to some people for letting me gush or vent about random books.

Anyway, I'm glad to make acquaintances and friends around here and encourage others to do the same. It's great practice at being social and a chance to discuss books. What's not to love?

How social? Hmm To be honest it depends. I participate in friendly threads, but stay away when in doubts.

Some days, I feel like chatting a lot, while other days, everything I type gets erased without being posted.

However, I read most posts, even advertisement, as long as I don't see them in all the different groups I'm in. Then, once is enough. :P

Courtney wrote: How often do you know people personally who have read everything you have?

Frankly, I don't remember knowing anyone who had my taste in books aside from my mother. We used to share books all the time. Then I discovered 'Fantasy' and that was it. She never liked Elves, although I made her read The Hobbit and she liked it.
My husband and I do have many favorites in common but only as long as he reads them first. Strangely enough, if he knows I've read a book, he won't read it. And NO, it's not that I reveal anything about the books because I don't. However, HE DOES it all the time. Good thing I am able to forget quickly. (Although that's the main reason I haven't finished the Dresden's files yet. He told me too much already. Grr

lol G.G. when I get excited about a book and one of my friends is reading it I avoid talking about the book at all costs or I would do the same thing as your husband! It is awesome though that you are with someone who shares your interest in books!

I participate in threads that interest me and I always reply when GR friends send me messages. Sometimes private messages will turn into a lengthy conversation, sometimes not. My GR friends are much like my FB friends: some of them like to keep up a fair amount of private conversation and some don't. I belong to several groups and, like GG, I read a lot of posts in those groups but don't always join in. I haven't seen any overly aggressive self-promotion in any of those groups, but maybe I haven't been paying attention.

I usually prefer to read the posts of others; contributing only when what I have to add offers a different view of the subject or a bit of information not yet mentioned.

It is not that I'm anti-social. My life experiences have taught me that it is sometimes more beneficial to listen than to talk. Some of my best ideas have come from others.

I'm new to GR so my activity is still pretty low but because I'm an introvert (and a bit shy) I don't really see it changing any time soon since it's very difficult for me to go out and talk to people. Lately I've been just lurking around in groups and only putting in input where I feel I can without any doubts. Otherwise I sit back and watch what everyone else has to say.

I haven't been very social thus far. But I am really hoping to change that. I see it as a great resource that needs to be used especially for us writers, aspiring or otherwise. So my goal is to meet people, learn, and well network!