Being on the cutting edge ...

I consider myself reasonably smart, and I like the latest techie kind of things, and I love to write so trying to meld everything together you would think wouldn't be that hard. I think my brain is turning in to mush today.

First, I'm writing my book. So far so good. And although I have not  yet even completed the first draft I am trying to look forward, see the big picture. I want to know what I will need to do next, how does this all work, publishing etc.? I was already on Facebook but that was more to keep up with family and friends than anything else.

Then I joined another site geared specifically towards writers, even more specifically towards female writers called She Writes (http://www.shewrites.com/) . This site is amazing and wonderful. I can get information, I can get support, I can find friends, I can learn  things. So one of the things I learned is that most of the writers on there, especially published writers all seem to also have a blog, and they twitter and they facebook. And when you join the groups about blogging and twittering ... or is that tweeting ... they all talk about using those forums as platforms for your writing.

So I joined twitter. I've got the basic, I can tell you what I'm having for breakfast part down but there is so much more to it than that.

Then I decided to start this blog. The reasons were many, I love to write and this gives me a chance to write in a shorter form than the book, and on a myriad of topics, and if it helps me to someday get the book published I'm all for it.

I checked out a website (one of my favorites listed below) of a guy named Tim Ferriss,  he is pretty incredible, wrote a book called The Four Hour Work Week, (my kind of work week), amongst a million other things he does. He's funny and interesting and really smart, at least I think so. But I watched a presentation he gave on blogging,"How to  Build a High Traffic Blog Without Killing Yourself", which was interesting but probably way above my level of blogging but interesting stuff none the less. Definitely got me thinking about getting my blog out there and seen among the how many million other blogs out there?

All of this stuff, as it relates to being a writer is about getting your name (your brand if you will) out there, making contacts, letting people see your writing. As an example, I have heard although haven't tested the theory, that if you want to write for magazines, particularly the well known magazines, they sometimes will accept previously unpublished writers, but best way to get writing assignments and be published is to have already been published. Hmmm, is this what is known as a conundrum? BUT, it seems that at times those same editors at magazines will look at a person's blog to determine if they think that person can write on a subject and/or coherently enough to be given an opportunity to write for that magazine.

I also looked at another site which I have listed in my favorites called Inkygirl, she has a several part article about Re-Tweeting. Wait! I'm just starting to get the hang of tweeting to begin with and now I have to learn to re-tweet? It actually is a great thing, someone tweets a link about a news story, a video, someone's blog, whatever, it is stuff you would want to share with your friends and followers, so you can re-tweet that same information or link. She also has articles about the basics of  using twitter. She is a prolific tweeter and re-tweeter for that matter.

Then I thought, what I need is one of those buttons on my blog that says "Share This". I went to the Share This site and sure enough they say you can add it to your blog, I tried, wouldn't work, waiting for a reply from the blog site help folks.

I'm getting dizzy.

I should have updated my facebook status today but who has time, I was reading about re-tweeting and blogging, and how I need to get my name and my blog out there so people see it, and then I found time to only update my twitter status once. Then I decided to download something called Tweetdeck which is supposed to make all this easier an all from one spot. The download went fine and I thought I was set but then it wouldn't let me add Facebook so I had to uninstall and download again. I think I'm all connected now. Where is that instruction book? What time is it? Where did the day go?

For now, I'm trying my best, if you want to follow me on Twitter please do @julesjeffs, check out my facebook page and friend me there if you have't already, and hey you are all my Share This button for the time being, if you think anyone you know would like the blog please pass it along, follow me (there is a button for that), and drop a note once in a while, or comment on blog postings.

Oh my god, who has time to write? I think maybe I need to make myself a sandwhich board and just wear it around town.