Why I've Stopped Tweeting #AmWriting

LIFE REMINDER: The writing routines that work for me may not work for you. If you're a morning writer, I want to be you so badly it's reminding me of that time as a kid where I wanted to be Mary Poppins and would jump off the living room couch in my mother's heels and a toy umbrella. (Yes, there are pictures of this. No, you can't see them.) But the only time I'm ever awake at 6AM is when I'm finally shutting down my laptop for the night. (Read: When I'm falling asleep to episodes of my latest Hulu/Netflix binge after writing from 9:00PM to 5:00 AM.) There are too many distractions we all experience during the day like pets, an episode of The 100, children, another episode of The 100, etc. But the greatest distraction for probably any writer is Twitter, which can turn that little adorable blue bird into your greatest enemy.

When I was drafting my book for the first time, I was a big fan of the #amwriting hashtag. It was a great way to announce to friends (and even agents) that I was actively working on a project. But here's what proved to be my downfall of tweeting about writing: it would prevent me from actually writing. When you tweet, people sometimes respond, which is the beauty of Twitter - the conversation factor. But when I tweeted out #amwriting, I was supposed to be talking about writing my manuscript, not tweets. My suggestion? Tweet AFTER you're done with a writing session, not before. Your friends love celebrating your accomplishments, whether you hit 20,000 words on your latest manuscript, or even wrote 400 words that day. All levels of productivity all great! And you should absolutely turn to your friends if you're having a brutal writing day, obviously, but be honest with yourself about how badly you need the moral support because your writing time is so limited and sacred as it is you're potentially doing you and your manuscript a disservice engaging in a conversation about last night's episode of The 100. I know, I know, it's so good! But go write! To sum up:  1) Writing comes first. 2) Social media comes second. 3) Jumping off the couch in your mom's high heels is dangerous. 4) The 100 is addictive.