After my high school binge of social media (LiveJournal, DeadJournal, Xanga, MySpace, and facebook), I’ve become unimpressed by and unmotivated to participate. I never felt that my day to day schedule was exciting enough to provide a play by play about it. I’d rather eat my food at peak freshness than take a picture, slap a filter on it, and post it for the world to see. Honestly, I’m mostly uninterested in what others post and having to reject the same friend request from an acquaintance, that I never liked in the first place, is annoying. We knew each other 20 years ago and haven’t spoken a word since, so, yeah, get over it.

Most people I encounter feel negatively about facebook. The best excuse, for not deleting it, is being able to connect to that obscure high school friend that you won’t ever talk to anyways. I think it’s lame. I don’t want to participate. And, for a time, I didn’t use any social media platform. That’s until one of my fellow editors, Ryan, urged me to get on Twitter.

I didn’t want to. I thought hashtags were a gimmick and following people would just be annoying. I didn’t want to get this play by play of people’s lives. I didn’t think that Twitter could have any value and just thought of it as a distraction that would take away from my writing. I was wrong.

Twitter can be art.

Through following others who crafted their tweets, I realized that I could be creative in what I posted. It’s a social media form thats core is about writing and you will be rewarded for writing well. Sure, there are celebrities that can tweet “hola” and get thousands of favorites and retweets. But, if you’re clever and know your audience, you can really reach a lot of people with your talent.

As writers, Twitter is our place.

It’s the place where the conversation about writing is never ending. Just search the hashtag #amwriting. There are many fantastic authors to follow and even accounts that are dedicated to advice for writers. Its a community that creates accessibility and direct contact to many writers and authors that wouldn’t be available otherwise.

Publishers take Twitter seriously.

A classmate told me that, while being interviewed for an assistant editor position, the first question he was asked was, “Why don’t you have a Twitter?” Even though it seems ridiculous, it makes sense. Twitter can be used as a free marketing tool that links you to the reading and writing community. It makes you look like you know what’s up and what you should be involved in. Publishers can also see how well you write. Brevity can be difficult, and, to write successful tweets, you must craft them. They get to quickly hear your voice and experience your wit and beautiful prose.

If you’re not on Twitter, get on it. Don’t worry about not have followers. Tweet often, favorite tweets you like, and retweet ones you love. Interact with the writing community and they will interact with you.

Follow us on Twitter:

@the_asproject

Follow the Editors:

Evan Ramos @jevanramos

Kevin Cullen @colorthebooks

Ryan Hicks @ryanhickscomedy