It's My Party and I'll Invite if I Want To...

Heaven knows I don't need more social media. I love facebook, but it can suck the time right off my clock. I do it because I love connecting with people there. I write something, they write something back. Also, it is great for news. I find out what celebrity died within minutes of them dying, what books are climbing the Amazon bestseller list for mysteries (my friends Stephen Parrish and Deborah Reed, thank you very much), and also what recent naked burglar was caught in my hometown.

And twitter I just don't get, because it's got the attention span of a flea. Seriously. I read somewhere that a tweet has the life of something like seven minutes. Seven minutes after you hit the enter key, it's not likely to be read. Ever. By anyone. Writing something on there for me is like throwing a thought into the universe knowing that the only one to hear it will be God.

Then there's blogging. And despite how little I write nowadays, I hope y'all know the affection I have for you. True, heart-swelling affection. I loves you.

But now there is something new, and I admit (and not even ashamedly) that I am on the bandwagon.

Google+ is here.

Okay - so the party is a little empty right now. For a while one had to be "invited" by someone on the new site to get in, so there aren't a lot of people yet. Also, social media users want to know why they should add it to their already full media line-up.

This is how I think it's different: it allows you to put your contacts into circles, an artistic way of saying groups, and then post your thoughts to just that group. In other words, I can post all my writing stuff and not bore my church friends with it. Also, I can post my thoughts on faith without offending my writing friends. I can post family stuff for my family without fear of people I don't know seeing it.

It's something between facebook and twitter - where you can have a broad spectrum of contacts without it being too hard to keep up, and can write more than 140 characters but less than a blog post.

This is where I'm going with this ... I think it has the amazing possibility to turn into a great writing forum - a sort of online writing group. Twitter moves too fast and requires a brevity that doesn't lend itself to this. Facebook feels very broad to accomplish this. Blogs are time hogs. (I love you, blog, but you know you are!)

But Google+ sets up the perfect scenario for conversations about writing.... ones that are much briefer than blogging.


We can bat back and forth quick questions for everyone to chime in on: What's the hardest thing about writing for you? Have you tried writing in a different genre? Are you having a good writing day today or a hard one?


We can bat tips back and forth: Cut as many adverbs as possible. Write the first draft without self-editing and let it be okay for it to be utter poo.


We can post inspiring quotes. (Okay, I know people who do this on twitter, but then how often do you comment on those, or how often are they more than 140 characters?)


We can encourage each other.


And all in much less time than blogging. (I'm not disparaging blogging. I LOVE y'all, remember?? But it does take a time commitment if you want to read or write more than a sentence or two)

Anyone interested to give it a try? If you want an invitation, let me know (with your email address) and I'll send one. (a shout out to new blogging buddy Jade who sent me mine). No obligation necessary.

And if you're on Google+ and you aren't in one of my circles, why not?? Let me know and I'd love to add you.

After all, a party of one is just sad.