Thoughts from the Morning Commute – Authors Twitter

It’s been a few days since I posted one of my thoughts from the morning commute. Part of the reason is that I took a few days off and wasn’t going to work. I was barricaded at home behind my computer screen madly editing away on Nowhere Feels Like Home. Since being back to work, my morning thoughts have primarily been about the book and things I want to remember to fix, or make sure I actually remember to write in. In other words, still about the book and I don’t want to bore anyone with those thoughts, boring myself is bad enough.

This morning, I did think about how being an author is such a solitary endeavor. It’s not a new thought I know, but I think that’s why so many authors I know enjoy Twitter so much. Think about it, you’re working away, typing, scribbling, deleting, maybe, like me, talking to yourself as you go. You just pour your heart and soul on to the page, or write and extreme action packed scene. You have been through the emotions with your characters. You take your hands off the keyboard, or for some of the more old-fashioned authors, put the pen down, and you know you’ve nailed it. You’ve just done some of your best work. Your heart is racing and you want to share your enthusiasm and elation with someone. . .anyone. Here’s where Twitter comes in. You pop onto the Internet, bring Twitter up and instantly have a sense of community. Someone out there is listening and you can Tweet or Twitter about your success and the feelings that you have. Someone is bound to tweet back, and even if unrelated to what you have written, you feel comforted. There is another soul out there who understands.

Anyone who follows this blog knows that I am an avid college baseball fan. I enjoy the team spirit, the competitiveness of the games, and how even the crowd is considered a part of the success or failure of the game. I follow our team’s games very closely, either from my seat in the stands, or when they are away via Gametracker and radio broadcasts. I am a devoted fan. Of course, then my mind segued into fans of books, like the following that JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer have. Their fans are just as devoted to their writing as I am to my baseball games. The difference is that JK and Stephenie, and all the rest of the writers in the world, are competing (against the blank page) for the most part alone. When they write the passage that’s a home run, there’s no one to go crazy in the stands. Can you imagine it? A stadium full of screaming tweens and teens as Rowling or Meyer work at a table (the playing author playing field). Oh, the delete button is in heavy use, a groan arises from the crowd. A sudden a burst of typing occurs. A hush falls over the crowd. A smile lights up the corner of their mouth. A chant erupts as the fans cheer their author on to the finish line. And then it happens, the passage that has been such a struggle. All of the attempts, the strikeouts, the fresh starts, and all of a sudden, it’s out of here. A home run. The crowd goes wild.

And since it will never happen, we have twitter. Somewhere to share that burst of feeling we simply can’t contain. I know we have friends and family, but unless they also write, do they truly understand what it’s like to walk on air after having climbed a mountain and stand looking from the peak at the path you have conquered? You’ve run the race, conquered your opponent, it’s a feeling like no other. So we twitter.

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