I’ve written a couple of things here recently and I’d forgotten how much I enjoy doing that. I should do more of it.
Most of my creative writing energy goes into D&D, or stuff for work, or talks at conferences, or #sundayroastclub, but I think quite a lot of it is bled away by Twitter; an idea happens, and then while it’s still just an idea I tweet it and then it’s used up. There’s a certain amount of instant gratification involved in this, of course, but I think it’s like a pressure valve; because a tweet is so short, so immediate, it’s easy to release the steam in a hundred tiny bursts rather than one long exhalation. I’m not good at metaphors, but in my head this seems like one of those thermometers for charities: my creative wellspring builds up to the overflow point — call it the value of 50 — and so I tweet something which drops it back down to 48. Then it builds up again to 50 and another tweet drops it back to 48, and so on. In the old days, it’d run up to fifty and then keep going while I was consumed with the desire to write but also consumed with the time required to actually write something, and then there’d be something long and detailed and interesting which would knock me back down to thirty, or ten, or nought.
I kinda miss that. I’m not sure what to do about it, though. Swearing off Twitter isn’t really an option; even ignoring the catastrophic tsunami of FOMO that would ensue, I’d be hugely worried that if I’m not part of the conversation, part of the zeitgeist, I’d just vanish from the public discourse. Not sure my ego could cope with that.
So I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea. Neither of those are nice (which, obviously, is the point) but, like so many people before me, and I suspect me included, I think I’m going to make an effort to turn more thoughts into writing rather than into snide asides or half-finished thoughts where maybe a hundred likes will finish them.
Of course I don’t have comments, so your thoughts on this should be communicated to me via Twitter. The irony hurricane proceeds apace. (Or on your own weblog which then sends me a webmention via the form below, of course, but that’s not all that likely yet.) Check in a month whether I’ve even remotely stuck to this or if I’ve just taken the easy option.