It can be a good quality at times, but definitely not all the time. I also suffer from TMIS (Too Much Information Syndrome). I often have to ask the Hubby before I blurt out something.

“Can I tell people that I shave off the hair on my knuckles?”

“Um…no. TMI, Trina.”

Oh well. At least I know these things about myself. So knowing that, I had to use the Hubby as my filter for my tweets, updates on Facebook, and even for my blog posts. I’ll send him a quick text and he’ll let me know if it’s okay to send.

“Burned dinner. Tweet about it?”

“Sure.”

“Burned the dog. Tweet about it?”

“Absolutely not.” (I’m a writer folks, no dogs were harmed during the previous sentence. But I can’t speak for the dinner…)

It may not be as spontaneous as I would like, but I’d rather put a little more thought on what kind of messages I’m sending out, instead of tweeting something I’ll regret later. I do wish I had an inner filter, and I’m training myself to really think about the consequences, that sometimes what seems like a harmless joke can really hurt people in the long run.

So until I learn to keep my mouth shut, the Hubby screens everything. Trust me, he knows he’s covering his interests as well as mine, TMIS also affects the people you love too.

Boy, you have to wear a few different hats with being a writer. For those of you who aspire to do this, let me tell you—it’s a lot of work! Tremendous! Promoting a book and revising another—did I mention how hard it is? I did? Well alrighty then… I love the creative side of writing—but the marketing side? Not so much. It reminds me of the hustle you had to have as a new hairstylist. You always had to be on point—hair done to perfection, hundreds of business cards in your purse inching to come out at a moment’s notice, (Why yes I do hair! Here’s my card…) Hustling like that is exhausting but when it’s all said and done it’s part of the business and you either accept it and thrive or wither away. I plan to thrive as long as I can and so I’m getting the word out about Unbeweaveable the best way I know how right now. I’m not on schedule with my revisions like I would like to be, but I have to let that go because I know over the next few months when things have died down I’ll be ready to send my book out to the world for critique. I’m cringing from the thought…

For those of you who remember, (and for those of you who don’t here’s the link) I was totally against all social media.

MySpace. No.

Facebook. You got to be kidding right?

Twitter. Which don’t you understand the N or the O?

I was against them all. All my writer friends, (you know who you are) kept telling me on the opportunities I was missing out on. I deemed Facebook a complete waste of time and for the life of me couldn’t figure out why so many writers were out there in cyberspace instead of writing.

I’ll tell you why. Writing my friends is a lonely business. On a typical day of doing hair I would talk to so many people, clients, product distributors, other stylists—the list goes on and on. Well now that I’m home with my four-year-old daughter, my day consists of Candy Land, Yo Gabba Gabba (There’s a party in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy!) and sitting in the sweltering heat while she rides on the sidewalk on her scooter. When a stranger asks me how I’m doing, I actually answer. “Well, today I’m thinking of cooking pork chops for dinner. My husband loves them. Although chicken would be great too…” I see their feet slowly back up as I continue to talk, until I realize that a simple, “Fine,” would have done nicely.

So now, *ahem* I…um…take it all back. Can I say that I love Facebook? That the people I’ve met, especially the writers, have been so supportive of me I’m at a loss for words.

For example, the lovely Cheri Paris Edwards, (Fabulous author. Her book, The Other Sister, will be in stores November 2010) posted a lovely review of Unbeweaveable on her blog. (Read it here.) Of her own volition. I mean, how cool is that? She reached out to me on Facebook and dare I say that I feel a friendship forming?

All of my old reasons for not being on Facebook are long behind me.

Time waster? I wish! I don’t have time to be on there long. And I don’t play games, (nothing against it, but have never been much of a video game kind of gal) so it’s pretty hard for me to waste time.

Addicting? Puh-leaze! I have always been good at self-discipline, (if you’re a writer you learn that pretty early) so I don’t know why I thought I would get addicted to it. Don’t get me wrong, it may be addicting for some, but for me everything has it’s limits. And that includes Facebook.

My lesson? Be flexible and willing to change. Be adaptable. And be humble enough to try new things. Dr. Seuss had it right all along, “I do so like green eggs and ham! Thank you, thank you, Sam-I-am!”

Because I’m slow to make decisions, (I don’t know if I’m necessarily slow, maybe it’s just that I’m extremely cautious.) I have made a list of what I consider the pro’s and con’s of joining Twitter.

Pro’s

1. Get to interact with more writers. Being a writer is one of those jobs that only another writer could understand. So getting a chance to rub virtual elbows with different authors has me excited.

2. Could potentially gain more readers for my next book. I’m a believer in, “Only time will tell.” For marketing, it takes time to build a name for yourself. So while joining Twitter may not increase readers for my next book Unbeweavable, (did I mention that it is available for pre-order here? Whoo-Hoo!) but it will draw more attention to my WIP when it get’s published. (And it will get published. Positive thinking, remember?)

3. It reminds me of my favorite show ever, Seinfeld. Seinfeld is known for being “the show about nothing”. Those “nothings” turned into so many “somethings.” (I’m aware that isn’t a word, just go with it.) Talking about what cereal you ate for breakfast, can grow into talking about an article that you read in the New York Post.

Con’s

1. Time consuming. Do I really want another thing that could potentially waste my time? Do I need another distraction keeps me from writing? Will I be able to balance it all? Something to think about it…

2. I need to educate myself on how to use Twitter successfully. I joined Twitter for about a couple of weeks. I followed a few of my favorite authors. I cringe when I think of all the mistakes that I made. One author (who has a very successful blog and who will remain nameless—Don’t you dare tell, Reon!) blocked all my tweets. I didn’t realize that I was tweeting everything to her personally, instead of publicly. Wish I could explain to her that I’m not a cyber stalker, but doing so will only add to my stalker ways. So in hindsight, if I join Twitter I vow to read Twitter for Dummies.

3. I talk too much. Don’t confuse this with gossip. Trust me, I can keep a secret. No, I mean I literally talk too much. When there is a lull in a conversation, my heart beats faster and I feel the beginnings of a panic attack. So I talk to fill any silence. This could be a problem on Twitter. No one wants to know everything about me, and I (or rather my husband) worries that I’ll share too much.

I was worried that I would become addicted to Facebook, but so far I have managed to balance it well. It feels like I’ve been on it forever. Can I be successful in doing that with Twitter? So come on guys let me know, to tweet or not to tweet?