I was all set to write a blog about my addiction to social networks and how the simple loss of internet or technical difficulties on Twitter can send me into an unrecoverable tail spin a la Tom Cruise in Top Gun. After all, between nine-thirty and ten-thirty this evening, I was convinced that a coordinated attack led by the combined forces of Facebook and Google+ had taken out Twitter for the sole purpose of shortening my lifespan. I was practically running around the room screaming for valium when I thought I had lost the follower count I had worked so hard to build.
As horrible as that scenario would have been, had it been in any way true, it would not have been the end of the world. Well, I say that only because the problems seem to have been fixed, but still…I would have survived.
I would have simply had to find another way of reaching out to the wonderful friends and fellow writers I have met using said social networks.
We don’t live in the same world I grew up in, and that is both a sad fact of life and a blessing.
Just three weeks ago I was, for lack of a better phrase, moping around the house without a drop of energy or inspiration to keep me going.
I still wrote the blog every day. And if the opportunity presented itself, I would open a file here and there just to click the keys until I had tweaked a sentence, or moved a paragraph, before saving and closing it again until the next time. Even my website was neglected; its pages dull and lifeless, the forum passed over and forgotten like last year’s tomato plants. Worse than that, I was dull and lifeless…my creativity zapped from me like a firefly dying on the floor.
My keys to imagination land, lost in the couch cushions of life.
Then one day about three weeks ago, as a flash of my old self was shining from behind the dark curtain of indifference, I met them…one by one. Other writers. Fellow travelers on the same path as me. But I didn’t meet them at the grocery store or the library. I didn’t find them at a coffee shop or a pharmacy.
I met them on a social network.
And thanks in large part to their friendship; my spark is back…my enthusiasm for life returned. I am writing again. Not just a blog, but a manuscript. Not just a few clicks on a screen, but page after page of dialogue.
I have opened a page on my website for other writers to share their work—a place where we can critique each other, and support each other’s dreams. I know what I want again…and I’m prepared to reach for that shooting star, even if there’s a risk of my hand getting burned, because I know my friends will stand behind me. Encouraging me every step of the way. With tweets and messages. IMs and emails.
A social network made up of friendship…the new fashioned way.
Until the next time…I’ll be chatting with my friends!