The fib that Twitter reveals

I can’t recall why I decided to start tweeting as the band, but do remember when: January 2012.

I'd just arrived back from Australia and blew the dust of my book, The Forty Watt Flowers.

I'd worked on this book from 2000 to 2005. There were test readers, substantive editors, copy editors, agents, publishers from one end of the country to another. Many firm nibbles. One agent looked at it 3 times. No bites. So into the box it went.

Reading it again in 2012, I realized that it had to get out there or I'd never write again.

At the same time, I wanted to learn about Twitter. So as I was writing I used Twitter to get into my characters.

Their tweets are about music, the challenge of writing meaningful music, the joy of creation, the thrill and magic of seeing yourself reflected in the work of others.

I now have 640+ followers, many of them other bands. Some record execs even asked to hear our music! (eek!)

When the book was finally published, I changed the twitter description to clearly identify the band as "fictional."

Before doing that, whenever I tweeted about another band's music, they'd reach out and we'd connect. Now that we're 'fictional' the bands seem to take offence and stop following.

I suppose they feel cheated or fooled somehow. But we are essentially doing the same thing: hawking our art. Developing relationships with other artists is part of it.

The bands I write about in the blog about the tour love us (they get some good writing about their music they can use to promote themselves). The ones who I write about only briefly feel betrayed. Need to figure that bit out.