I’ve only been posting about once a month, but I felt compelled to do one today based on some recent activity on my desktop here.

A couple of months ago I activated a Twitter account and at the same time requested membership to three different writing groups on LinkedIn.  Doing those two things were absolutely, unequivocally, taking steps in the right direction.    Since I keep reading about all of the self marketing that is expected of an author once their book is published, I figured I’d be proactive and try to build a following, plus, I wanted to connect to the folks I consider my new “peer” group.  I’ve worked in the technology industry for over thirty years and all of my contacts were related to that and I needed to start turning the ship (don’t worry, I’m not going to use the Titanic analogy).  I needed to start thinking about this as a new career path with a new set of friends and colleagues who do what I do.

What I love about “meeting” all of these new folks – they are generous with their thoughts, advice and praise.   I’ll admit I’ve been soaking in a few of the positive comments for over twenty four hours.  I can’t help it, it’s like getting a long, cool drink of water after a hot, dusty run.   Everyone gets tired, run down, loses focus and energy and for me personally, what fortifies me can be as simple as a tweet that says, “nice blog”, or a comment left on that says “Wow, you had me on the first sentence.”   I’m currently reading a book on writing that describes the personality of writers saying they can be a competitive, jealous group of people who hate it when a fellow author does well.  I do not see that at all.   And even if they were competitive or jealous, or envious, who cares??  That is no different from any other profession I know of and seems quite normal.  It only means that person wants to do better and whats wrong with wanting to be better?

So, THANK YOU new friends for refilling my writing reservoir and I promise, just like the follow for the follow, I will be as diligent about providing feedback to refill yours.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!