Twitter As a Writing Tool

For the past two or three weeks, I’ve been getting myself involved with Twitter for the first time. It’s certainly an interesting beast: 140 characters to get your message across. Anything from what you are doing at any given moment, to chatting with other Twitters in the ‘Twitterverse.’ Think of a heavily simplified Facebook and you pretty much have Twitter in a nutshell.

Yet, I cannot help but wonder what it actually does for me. It allows a much more open networking facility than Facebook, is less full of gimicks like poking and sheep-hurling while still maintaining that sense of connection. But what does it do for me as a writer?

• Teaches me to be concise. An average of 20-ish words isn’t a lot to convey what you’re thinking or feeling.
• Connections with other writers. At the moment I have only a small network and a fair few are writers. Who better to make friends with and have the opportunity of learning from.
• Offers inspiration. Such people as Joanna Young and Amy Palko and a few others near constantly seem in a good mood with motivating things to say that can inspire. Links posted from blogs or other such things also offer sources of inspiration: Be it photos, articles, funny stories, it all adds up to inspiring me to write something.

And on that last note, I must make mention of the Confident Writing community’s lessons from blogging, summarised here. A great collection of experiences and something I, as a new blogger, will find greatly useful in the learning process.

Your experiences?

How have you found the Twitter experience? Has it helped you in any way? If so, how?

You can follow me on Twitter: @MattHaywardUK