Not dead yet…

I've been away for over a week and am clawing my way through a very fat inbox. I'm also feeling the pressure of not posting for a while, so I'm taking a break from "Getting my Life Back in Order" and thought I'd check in with you lovely people.

Beware the tumbleweeds

I popped onto Twitter last night to say hello and reassure people I hadn't died. I'd only been away for 10 days. That might sound weird if you're not a fan of Twitter, but I genuinely worry if some of my Twitter friends go quiet for a while. It's got me thinking about the way I live my life now, and how social media adds a new dimension of social pressure, as well as loveliness.

As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of Twitter and I firmly believe it has done wonders for my writing career. But there's one thing I just don't seem to be able to do, and that's keep a presence on there when I am out and about in the world.

The tech is there…

I have a clever phone with a Twitter app that's fairly easy to use. The thing is, when I'm doing things, like attending courses that I thought were one thing and turned out to be completely different (and actually quite traumatic), being interviewed by a freelance journalist or racing around the country meeting people in preparation for the Next Big Project, I simply cannot remember to pick up the phone and tweet about what I am doing. Even when it's interesting.

Surely that's what Twitter is all about?

It's been said (I can't remember by whom) that being successful on Twitter is all about having an interesting life and being yourself. I have nailed the latter; when I'm at home, on the computer for 12 – 14 hours a day I can handle chatting away and helping people whenever I can. But when life gets a bit more interesting again, I'm too busy being in it. When I do remember to tweet, I then feel a bit stupid about telling people what I'm doing. Why would they want to know that, I think to myself, and then my feed goes silent for days on end.

It's like photos

I am absolutely terrible at photographs – both being in them (I run away whenever I can) and remembering to take them. I'm too busy being there, doing it, to remember to get the camera out. Perhaps this is just the same as Twitter.

Then there's the jumping back in bit

There have been times when I've been away from Twitter for over a week. A couple of bouts of flu for example, and each time, including this last one, I always have a moment of hesitation before jumping back in. It feels like wandering out of quiet back streets and stumbling across a six-lane motorway full of speeding cars and juggernauts. Once I've said hello and friends reply, it suddenly transmutes into a hybrid of the archetypical country pub, Cheers and the best writers hang-out in the world. With links to funny stuff on YouTube, and breaking news faster than anything else I know.

How do you handle it?

Now I've reassured people I'm not dead, I can sit back and laugh at my reluctance to dive back in. Today I've caught up with friends, tried to help someone find an illustrator for their book, asked for opinions and recommendations on websites designed specifically for a particular book or trilogy (and got some great answers) and discussed the emotional nature of writing the last chapter of a book with a fellow writer. All from the comfort of my home office, whilst getting loads of other stuff done. How cool is that?

If only I could keep it up when life takes me outside of the office. Or do you think that doesn't matter? How do you manage the online life when the real world life gets too busy?