Under the Twitter Tree
NEWS FLASH: After many years as a certified Twitterphobe, I've finally caved in and signed on to both Twitter and Instagram.  (I'm also on LinkedIn; but I'm holding the line with Facebook).
My mission is to bring creativity, color, and pleasure to the world of academic and professional writing, one Twittertweet or Instatreat at a time. Please follow me @helens_word. Â
If, like me, you're a newbie in the Twittersphere/Instaverse, you're welcome to hang back and watch as I take my own halting baby steps. But if you're already a confident power user – as I know many of you are – I'd be grateful if you could work some of your social media magic to help me grow my audience.
I've just posted a bouquet of old newsletter collages and blog links to both platforms so that you'll have plenty of fun stuff to like, share, and retweet. Next I plan to publish my 10-part Write Like Freddie series, with some bonus photos at the end.
But but but but but but – have I mentioned my lingering sense of dread? The anxiety about professional self-sabotage that hangs around me like a black cloud? My fear of being sucked into the social media muck and losing all sense of proportion – to say nothing of time? Â
To reframe my negative emotions, I've turned to paper collage and its creative cousin, metaphor.
If I visualize my website as a colorful garden where I happily potter around most days – nurturing seedlings, pulling out weeds, watering and fertilizing and pruning – I can see Twitter as just another tree in a much larger landscape, one that I have planted for its capacity to attract avian life. Sure, I'm a bit worried about all the noise. Did you know that the English word jargon comes from an Old French word denoting the sound made by twittering birds? Â
I've reimagined Instagram's squareish camera logo, meanwhile, as the door to my garden shed / log cabin / mountain chalet / writing studio. That wonky, welcoming Instaportal gives me another metaphor to ponder: perhaps my collage is trying to tell me something about the creative relationship between society and solitude?
As soon I've built up a respectable Twitter/Insta following, I hope to use both platforms to crowdsource future newsletter material. For example:
What metaphors for writing does this week's collage invoke for you?
What tips and tricks can you recommend to others for writing more productively, playfully, pleasurably, [choose your own adverb]?
Most pressing for me at the moment: How do you make the most of Twitter and Instagram without going insane?!
A special shout-out to all the generous colleagues and friends – Michelle Boyd @InkWellRetreats, Karim Khan @KarimKhan_IMHA, Inger Mewburn @thesiswhisperer, Amanda Palmer @amandapalmer, Steven Pinker @sapinker, Margy Thomas @ScholarShape, and Pat Thomson @ThomsonPat, among others – who have encouraged or inspired me to take this scary step.
I hope to see you soon in the newest patch of my garden!