Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler

 

“Writers need to think of Twitter as the largest cocktail party in the world where you can mingle away with fellow writers ,editors, publishers and friends from all over the world.”

Editor Alan Rinsler, “Strategic Tweeting for Authors on his blog, The Book Deal.

 

When I joined Twitter back in 2010, I did so reluctantly and cautiously, asking myself the following questions:

 

How can I say anything significant in 140 characters?

Who would even care what I had to say?

How could something called Twitter be a serious platform?

 

I did it because I was told I had to if I wanted to build an audience and establish an online presence.

I liked it right away when I found I could connect with people– publishers, agents, authors and writers, like myself who were just getting started.

As a nurse, I was accustomed to communicating information about patients in concise, pertinent ways, whether it be to report information to the next shift or update a physician on a patient’s changing status.

 

Report the facts, just the facts to convey the priority information.

 

Soon these connections led to requests for guest posts and ideas for my own blog posts.

 

I began to enjoy meeting so many new people who helped me in my writing journey. This guest post on Shirley Showalter’s blog spells out how I learned to use Twitter strategically.

 

I then began to meet some of the people behind the tweets either in-person at writer’s conferences or online in other arenas.

 

Relationships were forged. Bonds developed. I began to feel like I knew these people even though I had not met them in person.

 

Then something magical happened one day…

 

Freelance author and editor Robin Flanigan @thekineticpen reached out to me on Twitter. She told me she resonated with my profile and wanted to connect.

A conversation ensued and before we knew it, we discovered that she lived in the vicinity of Keuka Lake where I spend my birthday week every year at the family cottage. Her daughter would be attending a day camp right down the road from where our cottage was the week I would be there.

 

Coincidence? Serendipity?

 

Not only that, we also discovered that our birthdays were one day apart.

 

We planned a face-to-face meeting at the cottage:

 

We sat on the patio overlooking the lake and talked for three hours non-stop. Lost in our own writerly world, we chattered on as my grandsons ran in and out of the cottage on their various quests and the rest of my family walked past us. They’re used to my writing zones and didn’t even try to engage with us as we soaked up each other’s  projects.

We were in our own little world but the difference was we were sitting across from each other on a picture-perfect sunny July day talking about writing and reveling in our shared interests.

We did take time from our chatter to snap this photo on the beach before Robin left:

 

 

 

It was magical and it all started on Twitter.

 

Real and wonderful people are behind all those tweets.

 

 

 

Robin will be my guest next week, Monday 8/12. She has a fascinating story behind the story of climbing Mt Kilimanjaro and the memoir she is working on. She will also give away a copy of the anthology, Silent Embrace:Perspectives on Birth and Adoption in which she has an essay, “Moving Close.”

 

 

How about you? Have you found Twitter to be a useful tool in making meaningful connections?

 

 

I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~

 

 

Announcement: Congratulations, Joan Z Rough! Your name was selected random drawing of commenters to receive Eleanor Vincent’s memoir, Swimming with Maya.

 

 

This week: I’m also over at Mary Gottschalk‘s blog with a guest post. Mary is the author of a compelling memoir, Sailing Down the Moonbeam. She has written a novel, A Fitting Place and is starting a series of guest posts on issues related to her protagonist, Lindsey. The topic of my guest post is “Getting Past Self-Defeating Behaviors.” Hope you’ll stop by there ,too.

 

 

Thursday, 8/8/13: ” The Healing Power of Poetry in Memoir: An Interview with Louise Matthewson.” Louise will give away a copy of her memoir, A Life Interrupted: Living with Brain Injury”, a collection of transformative poetry, to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.