Sunday Links: June 24, 2012 Edition

First off, a quick update on "Write Every Day." It's been submitted to Amazon and is available for purchase on their .co.uk site and other European sites. However, it's not yet available on Amazon.com for some reason; I've got an email in to Amazon's support site and I'll let everyone know as soon as it's available on Amazon.com.

I've decided to discontinue adding the #storyeachnight and #poemeachnight information to this Sunday Links post. With adding #poemeachnight it has become a big chunk of text and the most recent week or so of everyone's #storyeachnight and #poemeachnight tweets should usually be available to review on Twitter.

So, for now, let's head to the links:

How Twitter Works For Writers

Back in 2009, I decided that I should look into the whole social media "thing." To that point, though I'd been an active web user since its very early days and an active computer message board user back into the 1980s, I hadn't gotten involved with MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. So, with our usual summer lull around here (fewer activities to drive our children to, no classes for my wife to attend) I decided to put some time into seeing what social media was about. I signed up for Facebook, played around with Twitter some, and started a blog. Of the three, only Facebook "took" back then. I stopped both blogging and actively tweeting late that summer, though I did get back onto Twitter before too long, primarily to chat about hockey.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2011. I dive head-first back into the world of writing and, while doing so, I start this blog and also begin to use Twitter for having writing-related conversations. Both have been very important to me during the past half-year. The blog has been great for giving me an opportunity to think about writing topics in some detail and have discussions which go more in depth. Twitter, on the other hand, is much more casual and "social" and has been a great place for making connections with other writers for the purposes of general conversation and also mutual encouragement and support.

Striking a Balance

Along with my recent leap back into actively writing fiction, I've also been exploring the social media world as it relates to writers and writing. I've been on Facebook for quite a while now and also had a Twitter account which I mostly used to keep track of news relating to my beloved Columbus Blue Jackets. I even had a blog briefly a couple of years ago where I rambled about whatever came into my mind; I don't think anyone visited it except for maybe some Russian spamming sites. Recently, I've been following, liking, and blogging about writing like a man possessed.

Not long ago, Twitter told me that I had hit a limit for the number of accounts I could follow. I'd already been giving some thought to how much time I was spending talking about writing as opposed to actually doing writing. This was another reminder that I needed to make sure I was maintaining an appropriate balance.

But how do I know where that balance is? What would be some signs that I'd missed the mark? Here are three that come to mind: