Pinning My Interests Away
I’m stuck. I’m stuck on the how and why I am venturing out on the newest craze of “HeyLookAtMe” socializing: this week it’s Pintrest. It must be that hermit in me that is holding out on sticking up photos of couches, cupcakes, book covers, pets, and favorite movies. I don’t get the concept of pinning up photos. But that’s a whole ‘nother post in itself.
English: Red Pinterest logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’ve been doing some pondering of late about the whole tizzifying concept of web presence. If publishers, agents, editors, even fans (thinking someday potential) exonerate and extol the virtues and necessity of working The Web–well, then I guess it should be done. I thought I was doing pretty well with a biweekly post to my blog. Apparently that’s not enough. I should have a Facebook account (I don’t). I should also Tweet, Tumble, Stumble Upon, and be Linked In with others–I did try, but the bigger question came up: when exactly am I to find time to write if I’m busy telling everyone that I’m writing? Here’s some more figuring, a step up from pondering:
It takes time to …
- Sign up
- Create a profile
- Check messages
- Answer messages, invitations, reply back
- Update the profile page
- Again
- Redecorate the home page
- Again
- Create a post
- Postdate my posts
- Get lost visiting other blogger’s sites
- Leave pithy comments
- And on, and on
All this activity consumes my precious time needed to write. I decided I found myself running around checking too many little fires instead of enjoying the warmth of the bigger one I had built. That’s metaphor speak for all that time and energy linking, tweeting, facing, and pinning, and stumbling, and what other web verbage is out there, left no time for the actual purpose of kindling* those web fires in the first place: my real writing–picture books, YA novels, poetry, middler reader renderings. My cow joke manuscript is languishing. I should be pursuing that publisher tip I received last year at the SCBWI conference. Yes, there are publishers who looking for a cow joke book for their list.
Sigh. My writing languishes while I coax and blow on the embers of a handful of hopeful flames of recognition. So I shall not be poking at smolderings any longer; I shall stick to the toasty warmth of WordPress. Especially since I’ve discovered the scheduled post option. I now have time to attend conferences, revise current projects, and reflect upon yet another rejection letter.
So, wonderful reader(s)–have you found that all those web verbage fires leave you a bit cold, considering all the effort it takes to get them going?
*kindle, Not Kindle–not an intentional pun
Blue Skies,
CM
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Pam Webb 
i think you really have to find what works for you and stick with that. you did hit upon the one crucial thing that many people overlook when building their writer’s platform (besides putting quality content out instead of quantity) – it’s all about the writing in the end. you can have the most spectacular web presence on the planet but if you have a crap story to promote, who’s really going to give a damn? your writing should always come first. as for your web presence, i agree; find what works for you and stick with that. i still can’t figure out how being on pinterest will help your writing career, but ooh, so many pretty pictures.
I know that with Facebook and Twitter, you can get WordPress to automatically update, so I assume it will do that with the rest, but yeah it is a crazy world where time seems to flow to fast. After eight days off of here, I came back to it and it took 8 hours to catch up on around about 60 blogs. Web presence sometimes seems to ma a way of diminishing such good writing. But good writing always generates word of mouth.
Good writing, good reading, good grief–where does the time go? I wonder, does my writing suffer from the effort of web prescence due to ignoring it, or does it become better because of the practice of writing so often. Ponderment…
Definitely the latter, the more writing, the more unique a voice, the better conveyed, the more assured of handling new and interesting ideas confidently, he asserts with his third person perspective because he likes to do that sometimes.
And she replied, “Yes, confidence and talent and output are the time-proven modicum of writerlieness.”