Creative Reviews discussion

Is there something that you just can't hold your tongue about? New book release? Get a new job? Get to meet your favorite celebrity? Anything you want to throw in here that you are excited/happy about please share here!!

I'm still really psyched about reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It was one of those books..well the only book I've ever read where I needed to write a letter to the author because I had so much to say. Turns out, the author doesn't have any way to contact him until I finally found him on Myspace...of all places. Anyway, so I did that last night and it made me happy. Then for some reason, I really don't know why, I decided to check out Twitter...and now I'm addicted. I think Facebook can get away with being a social networking website, but I think Twitter may have been made for stalkers... it's weird how everyone post what they're doing and where they are... Yup, so those are the exciting things that happened to me last night!

That is great! I have never been able to get onto twitter, I'm not even sure how to do it!! (I kinda feel old about it!! LOL)

Ah...I feel kind of old and I'm only 23. lol. I've been messing around with it since last night and I still can't figure things out on it. I feel kind of stupid because no one I know in 'real life' uses twitter, so I could only 'tweet' (I feel like an idiot saying that) celebrities and that made me feel even more stupid. Argh...I think I need to join an angsty teen forum...that is what twitter is reducing me to!

I love the term "tweeters" - I am in college right now and my last set of classes talked a lot about social media. The tweeters were all over the place in my class...and sadly, I never quite caught on to it!

I have never caught on to twitter either....:( So do you think that for social media that being on FB and Goodreads and maybe having a blod and/or website is enough or would Twitter bring you a different audience?

Maybe we should form a group for all of us non-tweeters who can't figure it out. LOL.

I'm not sure how big Twitter really is. Probably because I am not a part of it. I know there are A LOT of businesses who use it. They ask me to sign up to follow them all the time. I guess it wouldn't hurt for me to sit down and try to figure it out, huh? :-)

probably not. :) I would think there would be a small market that you reach there that you might not with other social media.

Well if you guys get twitter accounts you should 'follow' me! I think mine is @Brema10

Absolutely! And I'll prob have to ask you how to use my account! lol

I "tweet" occasionally! LOL Mostly I use my account to enter contests and such. I know maybe two people IRL. ;-)

I promise, one of these days I will try it!! :-)

me too!

Ok, I think I am finally set up on Twitter, but I can't find you Brenda...I typed in Brema10 in the find people by name thing, and I'm assuming that is WRONG because I can't find you...Where do I find you?? LOL

Amy, did you put @ in front of the name?

Twitter is so addictive - like an endlessly fascinating magazine for those with the attention span of a bluebottle. I love it!!

Anyone who's on there, come and find me - I'm @jaclementwriter
JAC

I'm on Twitter and use Hootesuite so I can track my fav. stuff (Tweetdeck works too).

@bitsyblingbooks -- all things bookish

Argh, that Twitter / Kaspersky combo is crashing my poor elderly laptop again. Time to give up for the night and let it get on with it methinks!

Will come back and add people tomorrow hopefully!
JAC

ooh, and will ask you about those - know people use them but not sure for what?
JAC

The @ thing may be where I messed up, but I still have yet to catch the "Twitter Bug", my daughter says it is because I'm old... LOL!! I guess it may be true!!

Ha! Au contraire, I am older than you so you'll have to find another excuse!

Though in my head I am 24 and have been for a loooooong long time now...
JAC

I haven't caught the twitter vug yet either....guess I am old too. :)

I don't get Twitter either. I like Facebook, but I only have a private profile there and gave up my public profile.

But hey, I'm excited, I finally figured out the stupid code to make my blog do what it's supposed to do. I now have a save word file copy of the complete xml code including widgets so I never have to touch the messy part again. Now all I have to do is copy my goodreads profiles to the blog which I might wait 'til tomorrow to finish. Nobody may ever read it and I'll probably be awful at updating it, but at least the next time someone asks me where my blog is I can answer the question without looking stupid. There is even one thing on it that might be of interest to everyone. Not my opinions or reviews because everyone has an opinion, but at the top I have a tab called Other People's Contests with links to all the massive free book contest sites I've found. I'm sort of a giveaway addict, I seldom win, but it's sort of exciting to know there's a chance right? Anyway my point was I'm excited because I don't have to look at anymore CSS or XML coding for a very long time.

J.a. wrote: "Ha! Au contraire, I am older than you so you'll have to find another excuse!

Though in my head I am 24 and have been for a loooooong long time now...
JAC"

I have always claimed that I have the mentality of a 17-year-old in the body of an 80-year-old. LOL!!

I have a twitter too.. (@JourneyinReadin).... my 19 yr old has one too.......he's on there way more than I am..... but..... I'm still 29 :).... with 15+ yrs of experience :)

Amy wrote: "J.a. wrote: "Ha! Au contraire, I am older than you so you'll have to find another excuse!

Though in my head I am 24 and have been for a loooooong long time now...
JAC"

I have always claimed that..."

LOL

Kat (LvnEvryMin) wrote: "I have a twitter too.. (@JourneyinReadin).... my 19 yr old has one too.......he's on there way more than I am..... but..... I'm still 29 :).... with 15+ yrs of experience :)"

Those 15 years of experience probably comes in real handy sometimes.

Cambria wrote: "Kat (LvnEvryMin) wrote: "I have a twitter too.. (@JourneyinReadin).... my 19 yr old has one too.......he's on there way more than I am..... but..... I'm still 29 :).... with 15+ yrs of experience ..."

Haha.... you are soooo right!

Facebook is mostly pointless and sucks up enough of my time already. Twitter limits me to 180 characters! How can I possibly say anything worth reading with such an arbitrary limi

Have I ever mentioned how much I love your posts, James?? :-)

James wrote: "Facebook is mostly pointless and sucks up enough of my time already. Twitter limits me to 180 characters! How can I possibly say anything worth reading with such an arbitrary limi"

So true.... :)

Did you not use texts when they were limited to 160 characters, or are you lot all too young for that?

I quite like the challenge of saying things in that character limit without using text-speke (pet hate, sorry). I'm naturally far too blathery and verbose so it's actually helped my writing too.

(Editor is vital for anything I want to write professionally though!) heheheh
JAC

@ James that's my feelings about Twitter too, not enough room to say what you need to say should you decide to post a status. Facebook is limiting too but not nearly as much.

@J.A. I resisted using cell phones until it already defaulted to sending the message out as 2 messages when you went over your character limit. My thoughts back then is that I didn't want people to be able to find me and bother me anywhere I was at. I felt they were a violation of my personal privacy. lmao. Now I only have a cell and gave up the house phone. Unfortunately you can't resist change forever.

Yep, I was the same initially....

But I left the house in a hurry the other day and left my purse and my phone behind, and when I found out my first thought was "noooooo - what will I do without my phone?!"

Honestly! No money - not to worry, it's only one day. No phone? Argharghargh, etc.

You have to worry really.
JAC

I don't really remember texts being limited but I kind of limit them anyway....I kind of like shortening things down.... More efficent. Lol. I never really resisted a cell.....only paying for one and up til recently I only had a simple phone w no Internet or anything....but then I started social networking and emailing queries and stuff and I got major dependent on checking my email. So we broke down and my hubby got me an iPhone for mothers day/my b-day. I cannot imagine how I lived w/o this phone....I am so addicted to it.....

Cellphone texts are still limited to 160 characters per message, and each message costs me a quarter, so I'm very aware of that limit :-) But my logic still holds true: I still can't say anything meaningful within such an arbitrary limit.

This whole social networking thing... How are we supposed to NETWORK if they limit us to 180 characters of communication? Facebook at least has a larger limit. Nobody has anything to say, but if our thoughts are bigger than 180 characters, we have the freedom to express them!

James, it just means we all have to learn the brand new text language so we can get as many ideas through as possible, while forgetting how to really write properly! That is the whole idea behind it all, it's a government plot to create a new generation of people unable to write a sentence properly! LOL <--- See, it begins there..... haha!

Amy wrote: "James, it just means we all have to learn the brand new text language so we can get as many ideas through as possible, while forgetting how to really write properly! That is the whole idea behind ..."

I see. You're saying internet shorthand is the real-life equivalent of Newspeak! Of course... Why didn't I see it before!? We must spread the word across the internet! Don't let the government dull your minds! Think in complete sentences! Type properly! Resist the character limit--don't let anyone tell you how long your thoughts can be! REPENT!!

lmao @ Amy & James. You guys are too funny, I totally get what you're saying about text speak and twitter speak. I've glanced at some posts on twitter that had so many abbreviations that I had no clue what they meant and I'm not THAT old. I mean I'm not a teenager, but I'm no where near being put out to pasture. And some of the abbreviations you have no idea which expression they're referring to without the words around the for example ATM. It used to be universally known as those little machines where you withdraw money without being at a bank. Now half the time when it's used people are saying at the moment the first time I saw it used that way I had to message the person back and ask them to break down the sentence because with my definition of ATM the sentence made no sense whatsoever.

LOL. I have no idea what ATM means either....

I've found the Urban Dictionary is very useful for some of these abbreviations.

Such as OP. Original poster.
ITT. In this thread.
ATM. At the moment.

Sometimes you gotta wonder if it is a conspiracy to limit the thoughts of the average person. It sure feels like it. You know it's bad when people start using these abbreviations off the internet, too.

The one that gets me the most is when my two daughters walk around saying "OMG" - that drives me bonkers!!!

Amy wrote: "The one that gets me the most is when my two daughters walk around saying "OMG" - that drives me bonkers!!!"

I know what you mean. People using internet shorthand in speech drives me up the wall!

Nonono....textspeke - don't do it!! As someone who loves words I can't be doing with textspeke (apart from imho, but I picked that up on the forums before textspke was really in full flow).

On the other hand I Tweet a lot. As far as I'm concerned, it's a bit like writing a haiku (in fact that's a whole other art form into which I have ventured of late and 17 syllables in 140 characters is DIFFICULT!). It's not a restriction - it's a challenge!

What does wind me up is people who email you purely in textspeke though - guy at work sent me one saying "Pls xcuse us we r l8 - thnx."
?!

Lost all his vowels along the way somewhere it would seem...

JAC

J.a. wrote: "Nonono....textspeke - don't do it!! As someone who loves words I can't be doing with textspeke (apart from imho, but I picked that up on the forums before textspke was really in full flow).

On th..."

emails like that bug the hell outta me, too. They just scream: "this isn't important enough for me to use full words."

I agree that the restrictions of something like a haiku are artsy...but twitter is just plain arbitrary. Used to be we read blogs. Now we only have the patience to comprehend a single breath, and sites like Twitter are helping our attention span shrink! We must resist!

Man, you're telling me! I used to have a weekly blog which was terribly self-indulgent and verbose but my weekly target wordlimit was 5000 words. At the time I was getting 350 hits a week - but try that these days and I genuinely don't think you would be doing. Life is too fast and people are too impatient.
JAC

J.a. wrote: "Man, you're telling me! I used to have a weekly blog which was terribly self-indulgent and verbose but my weekly target wordlimit was 5000 words. At the time I was getting 350 hits a week - but try..."

Cynically, I agree. But optimistically, I believe the right people will find it and read it, just like my blog on games that made me cry. Everyone wants to read about the wimp who cried at the end of a game!

Really, it's been my most-hit entry. I like to think there are lots of people out there who comprehend things longer than one breath and speak without shorthand. Just gotta reach them.

If not, my novels are done for! It's taken 2 editors and some hefty scalpelwork to cut out the waffle!

Interesting blog though - alas, as someone who never got past Kokotoni Wilf and Super Robin Hood, it was mostly over my head, but the first one particularly sounded like a fantastically well-made game. They didn't have that on the Sinclair Spectrum ZX+2 though!

heheheh
JAC

J.a. wrote: "If not, my novels are done for! It's taken 2 editors and some hefty scalpelwork to cut out the waffle!

Interesting blog though - alas, as someone who never got past Kokotoni Wilf and Super Robin H..."

My novels rely on my optimism triumphing over my cynicism, too. This far-reaching hope that someone, somewhere actually cares. It's why we keep writing.

Morpheus is a great game. I still have the discs because someday...maybe...I'd love to write the screenplay and adapt it into a movie. Hopefully it wouldn't suck.

This whole reading things has really gotten in the way of my video game playing. I haven't beaten my Lego Harry Potter game yet or Folklore...I'm slackin!! :-)