I'm more a 'Golden Retriever' kind of guy. In my opinion, the 'Golden' is the best animal in the world: true, loyal, obedient, a friend for life...had to put 'Toby,' my 'Golden,' down some years ago and it broke my heart...lost one of the best friends I've ever had.
But I digress!
Why am I comparing 'George' the Bengal cat with Twitter?
Well, you see, I fancy myself a writer. I've got nine books to prove that I am a writer, and one is in the oven. And, yes, I know, there are lots of books out there in our galaxy hoping to get read and get popular. My problem is, I've got myself locked into this digital world, trying to self-promote my books while trying to get the one book out of the oven. Add to that frustration the fact that I'm an anachronism (as in, 'old dog learning new tricks') in this age of emoticons, hash marks, and retweets. It can become a maddening thing, trying to keep up with it all, particularly when what I want to do is write. So, I schedule some short cute twitter tweets and facebook messages to let the world know the books are available, have great reviews, and they should be purchased.
Now I've worked very hard to get twitter followers, facebook followers, Goodreads followers, Shelfari, Google Plus, you name it followers, and it just doesn't end. I promise myself the next morning that 'oven' manuscript gets some work and the ninth book gets some polishing. Guess what? I'm up at 7:00 AM, go immediately to the laptop, think, okay, I'll just do a quick check of Twitter for new followers, do some scheduling, then get to the book. Now, all this time, sweet lovable 'George' is acting like a stuck needle on an old 45 RPM record (yeah, I know, 'anachronism!) and I'm going crazy.
Suddenly it's late afternoon and I've accomplished some things, like, thanking my new twitter followers, thanking the retweeters, doing some scheduling, listening to 'George's' caterwauling. But the book in the oven? Still in the oven. Rework on the ninth book? Maybe tomorrow. And the biggest blunder I managed to make all day? Forgot my wife's birthday! Lots of making up to do...
The gist of all this rambling is I'm 'misery' and I want company. 'George' got it all started by pulling at my laptop screen and meowing like crazy.
'George' has been with us for almost eleven years, and guess I'm going to keep on loving him, even though my patience runs so thin at times.
Twitter is kind of new for me, and, frankly, half the time, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. But it's kind of fun, too, like 'George' is at times. I'm just thinking 'Cats Are A Lot Like Twitter.'
You will pardon this last sad attempt to regain some leverage and redemption with my lovely wife.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JULIE ANNE --- I LOVE YOU!