Using social networks to keep you honest - Twitter

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There are all sorts of motivation tools to keep you writing. They range from simply forcing yourself to sit down in front of your computer/typewriter/stylus and clay tablet,etc. and staring at it long enough until words bleed out of the tips of your fingers, or to less severe rituals like getting yourself a nice cup of coffee (my personal favorite) or listening to “mood music” to get your creative juices flowing.

With the proliferation of social and IM networks, these can be other tools to keep you motivated to plow through a project. I’ll talk about a couple of social networks I use to make sure I keep up with the output I want to produce.

Twitter

Basically, Twitter is an online SMS system with the ability for your friends (and the general public if you wish) to read small 140 character messages you send. The main idea behind it is that you would post these small messages called “tweets” throughout your day telling people what you’re doing at any given moment. While mostly used to post inconsequential stuff like “Wow! I totally pwned him at Halo, LOL!” you can use if for the more interesting purpose of telling people how many words you’ve completed that day.

I will post a tweet in the morning either after I stop writing before I leave for work. Here is an example of a typical tweet for me:

Definitely not a good start. Only 75 words. I’ll need to kick it into gear during the rest of the day. Link to actual posted tweet

As you can see, today was bit challenging for me. Instead of making me feel bad, this just makes me want to hit my daily goal even more.

I will try to do some writing during lunch and if so then I’ll post another tweet then or just before I leave from work:

Made it to 628 words. Alright! Only 328 left to go and here I thought I’d be behind. Got into the rhythm early on, and boy did flow nicely. Link to actual posted tweet

I did better that day, and I only needed another 328 words to hit my 1,000 word daily goal. After getting home, I’ll write whatever I have left over and then post the last writing related tweet of the day:

Whew, polished off another 1,033 words today. Feelin’ so groggy, I wasn’t sure I’d finish. Damned tortellini at lunch, last time I order it. Link to actual posted tweet

Last tweet of the day, and I made it. But as you can see the tortellini didn’t help me too much. You don’t need to include personal information if you don’t like, but sometimes it’s good to show your readers you are indeed human and that you need to eat and possible go to the bathroom like they do, too.

To make this really effective, make sure you have your friends, family and any other people who you know are following your progress to register for a Twitter account. This way, if you forget to post, they’ll send you a tweet asking what happened or maybe even other questions about your work. This is a great way to foster community between you and your readers and the best way to get near instant feedback.

Tomorrow, I’ll go over how to use Facebook as another way to keep you on track with your writing.