The Uses of Twitter: Flogging the Dead Bird

This is a rant, really. One pointed straight at some my fellow writers. I love twitter. I love its liminality. I love the ephemeral quality of its flow. I've met some wonderful people there. Made some excellent friends. I've bonded with a lot of writers I'd have never met if it weren't for twitter. It's a great community. I get to chat with readers, authors, people I admire, artists and poets and painters and candlestick makers. But I hate people whose primary reason for being on twitter is trying to sell stuff and when I run across them I block them. It's called social media. Not marketing media. Not mall media. I think twitter is a great place for writers. If nothing else, it sure teaches you to tighten up your sentences. At best, it's a marvelous space to develop friendships.  To learn from other people. To broaden out your view of the world. If you need to know about ballistics at 5 am in the morning and want the short version, tweet  your question; someone out there is going to know. When I was researching amputees, I found out I had five surgeons following me and one person who [...]