I won't Twitter. No, I won't! I Twittered for about a month last fall and it nearly drove me mad. Nearly all of my writer friends Twitter regularly as part of the online professional author package that includes a blog or group blog, myspace, Facebook, and a website. And I admire every single one of them. But I can't do it.

Have I mentioned that I'm highly distractible? (See my blog description, above) For someone like me who needs a lot of structure, Twitter is like digital meth. There's too much going on, too much information and way, way too much psychic noise. As a writer, I'm curious. I want to follow conversations and read odd news and know what people are doing. But I discovered that I was spending way too much time reading other people's links and watching videos and trying to think of witty ripostes that would excite witty responses. Twitter feels like an enormous stage to me--a stage where everyone is trying to grab the same spotlight. *sigh* It's exhausting.

Twitter is the latest and greatest marketing tool available on the web. All you have to do is make your pitch in 140 (or fewer) characters. I just did a Google search for "Twitter Marketing Tool" and came up with 24,000,000 page responses. 24 million. To improve on its immediacy, one would have to have diodes hooked up to readers' brains to decode electrical impulses.  And, best of all, it's free. Who can argue with that?

The instantaneous nature of Twitter makes amazing things possible: lost things, and lost people found, sobriety maintained, marriages proposed. Can't argue with that, either.

There are a million reasons I should Twitter, given my occupation. Book promotion dollars are hard to come by, and it's important--especially for mid-list authors--to work hard to establish name recognition. But I'm beginning to wonder if writing more and better books wouldn't be a more useful and productive thing for me to do--personally as well as professionally.

There are times, though, when I feel a little left out. Twitter is a massive party, and I've been known to be a bit of a party girl in my life. I tell myself that I could probably just Tweet once or twice a day. All it would take is a rigid re-structuring of my woefully unstructured day and the discipline to turn off Twitter when I was writing--or updating Facebook, or trying to remember how to format my myspace profile. I'm sure I could do it!

I like being accessible to readers and friends, but the truth is that Twitter is one place I can't go. I do check my email several times a day, and my myspace and Facebook messages go straight to my email account.

If you have a burning desire to know what I'm up to, feel free to drop me a line and I'll respond just as soon as I'm able...

just had protag chew off own arm...too much? need decaf now!

hanging at delta gate. woman w/ chihuahua in heat wants priority boardg. help me pls.

sad, strange http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWg2vLEyRZc

home from gym. lunch now--who's in?!

More and better books. That's the thing.

Do you Twitter?