Navigating the Net

Okay, for the past week I have been getting myself up to speed (well, maybe just a notch above neutral) on all this nutty net stuff. I now have a MySpace page, I’m on Facebook and I’ve even tweeted...twice!

I even figured out how to link to those pages from my blog—thank goodness they make it easy to do that these days! Of course, I still have a lot to learn...like, ‘how do I get the cool first paragraph of a new blog post onto my “wall” on Facebook,’ and ‘RSS feed??? WTH?’ It’s been fascinating, frustrating and very time consuming.

I have to admit it’s also been fun...the most enjoyable so far is Facebook. I’ve reconnected with friends I haven’t heard from in more years than I’m going to say publicly. I even got to talk to one of my favorite peeps that I’d lost touch with, who is now teaching English in Thailand, for goodness sakes. How cool is that?

However, it’s now time for a reality check. I am a writer with a young child at home. I have limited free time. Time which must be spent WRITING. And as fun as all of these other things are, they distract me from job number two. (Job one being my family, of course).

One of my favorite authors, Lisa Kleypas, said once that she didn’t allow herself to even check e-mail until she had 1200 words under her belt for the day (not in those words, exactly. She would have said it much more eloquently and with some lovely description).

I am going to have to take a page from Lisa’s book and limit myself to checking Facebook--and my blog and everyone else’s cool sites and blogs and walls and pages that I’ve discovered this week--to once a day AFTER getting in my word count goals. And I’d be smart to save it until night time, when I’m creatively zapped.

After all, my goal is to be a published author, and I’m not going to get there if I’m not writing!

That being said, I’m off--back to work on “Sweet Enemy”.

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! I’ll see you next week...but only AFTER you’ve completed your own goals for the day, right? ;)