Post This. Or, You Know, Tweet It. Or something.

Time to fess up.

So, I've finally started to pay attention to, become interested in, engage in, make some noise in, grow addicted to, be entertained by and enjoy Twitter.  No kidding. (Don't believe me?  Yeah, well, take a gander at the Twitter feed over there on the right-hand side of this blog.  Right there under that picture of me that -- whoa -- seriously needs to be updated. Ahhh...note to self....) 

Okay, but alas and anyway.  I swore it just wasn't in me, and now here I am...dare I say...tweeting on a somewhat regular basis. At the office, while I'm working at home, when I'm fixing dinner...I even read tweets tonight while I was on the treadmill at the gym.  Uhm.  (!)

And we're all adults here, yes?  Yes, I think we are.  Or at least most of us are mostly adults at least most of the time.  Probably.  Maybe.  So I'll go ahead and throw out the "A" word, even though I struck it out a few sentences prior to this one. (Oh, haha, c'mon, admit it. You thought I meant that "A" word, didn't you?) Yeah, no. What I meant was addicted.  That "A" word.  I won't say I'm there yet, but I'll admit that I'm beginning to see how I could be.  So apples-falling-off-tree-branches easily....

But there's just one teensie-weensie little thing that's hindering my existence in the Twittersphere, and that is this: I don't quite get the hashtags thing.  I mean, I understand the purpose of hashtags and how they work.  I understand what will happen if I search for one, or if I use one myself in one of my own tweets. (At this point, you're drumming your fingers on the table, wondering what in Sam Hill is left for me not to understand about hashtags, aren't you?)  Well, okay.  What I don't understand is where they all come from -- at least in some cases -- and how you find ones that you might want to use that are already in use (if that's even the Twitter way). 

I know people, businesses, organizations and et cetera make them up on purpose sometimes. Like when the organization I work for holds big events, they create and assign hashtags.  Yep, got it.  Check. But I'm talking about the ones that people always seem to be throwing out at the end of their tweets that point to something that's not a major event or whatever. 

For example, say I tweet the following (which is, truth be told, true): I recently finished re-reading Stephen King's 11/22/63.

Now I realize I'm not obligated in any way to append a hashtag of any size, shape or relative importance to my 140-ish characters. But it seems rather logical that I might go ahead and add any of the following: #king, #stephenking, #11/22/63. Those make total sense, and I absolutely get it. 

But what about any from this next group: #stephenkingauthor, #stephenkingrules, #bestkingbook, #besttimetravelbook, #bestbookever, #bookrec.  Those do, in fact, make sense (at least to me), but do I just throw them out there willy nilly?  How do I know that other people will even know they exist, if they don't already? Better yet, what if other hashtags, very similar to these in meaning if not in form, already exist and are in use (say, #bookrecommendation, #recommendabook, #irecommendyouread)? Should I look for them?  Should I try to use what's already out there? If so, then how? 

My consternation becomes even more obvious (to me, of course, but maybe not you?), and for the same reasons I listed for the previous bunch, when we're talking about hashtags such as the following (still assuming they might follow the sample tweet I proposed above): #booksthatbelongtohistory, #geniuswriter, #wishicouldbesocreative, #timeresonates, #dancingislife, #youwouldlovethis, #putitonyourlist, #waytokill30someoddhours, #50lbsofprint. 

So...there it is. Comments -- especially those offering up explanations -- are welcome.

Oh, and by the way?  A friend at work only had this to say when I told her about my hashtag anxiety: You're way overthinking it.  Way.

Yes, clearly....

Write What!?!?

Yeah, so here's me trying to work on the novel.

Just sayin'....

Return of the Wayword Blogger.

I've been feeling the need to get back to blogging, and recently was tasked with doing it (for work) from an upcoming national conference hosted by my employer. The timing on the work request is pretty good in the grand scheme of things, I think. In a motivational way, I mean.  As I was wanting to start blogging again anyway, well...I guess I just figure that if I can blog for them, surely I can get back to blogging for myself.

Let's start by throwing out a few of my most recent reads:

• 11/22/63 by Stephen King (actually, this was a second readthrough; still as fantastic as it was the first time)
• The Host by Stephenie Meyer (...yeah...I resisted...but my sister convinced me, and I'll just say that, for various reasons, it was worth the read)
• Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston (three words: could.not.finish)

Current reads are Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin and Time and Again by Jack Finney.

Reading; Not Writing.

Clearly, I've not made a priority of posting here on the blog in a good many months. My bad....

So, instead of setting expectations about how often I'll write and/or what I'll (allow myself to) write about, and thereby intimidating myself into not writing, I'm just going to wing it. The only goal of this particular post is to list some of the books I've read in the past few months.

• The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
• 11/22/63 by Stephen King
• Sway by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman
• White Horse by Alex Adams
• Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Must say I've found inspiration for my own writing (potential/possible/plausible writing?) in all of the above -- some more than others, of course.

Hunger Games Movie.

Just got back from seeing the Hunger Games. And, wow. It did not disappoint. I always worry about the translation from book to screen -- that being based on the colossal disappointment I've dealt with so many times in the past in instances where it's been done wrong.

The Hunger Games, though? They did it right. Oh, so right....

Late to the Party. As Always.

I have this penchant for ignoring my friends' (and now my son's) reading recs, until something like the last book in the series (Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling), or an impending movie release (The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins) spurs me into action.

I read all of the first six Harry Potter Books in the six months leading up to the release of Deathly Hollows. Finished Half-Blood Prince a week before DH came out and was standing in line at midnight to buy it. (For the record, my receipt says I purchased the book at 12:07.) Then I did go ahead and read that one in 24 hours.

Cut to last night, when I stayed up until the crack of dawn to read The Hunger Games all in one go. My son has been raving about the series for ages now, and since I want to take both of my boys to the movie next week I decided to get with the program and at least see what the fuss is all about.

And that fuss? Well-warranted. And then some. I've got the Kindle Fire all charged up and am planning to start Catching Fire on my lunch break this afternoon.

Little Red Riding Hood in Four Minutes. Exquisite!

Okay, you know what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words, right? Well, check out this video. Four minutes to tell a story. No dialog, no narration. But it's spectacular. And it hits you right there. Wow.

RED from RED on Vimeo.

Making Words Work.

"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

~ Alice and Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass

Longing for the Sea.

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

~Antoine St. Exupery