I am behind on my Twitter communications.

...wait. What am I saying? I am behind on everything.

Anyway, here I am, going through page after page of Twitter, looking for new friends, one bio at a time. I tried one of the highly recommended auto-follower programs for about two days six months ago, but I did not enjoy it.

For me, the purpose of Twitter is to develop a community of “sometimes like-minded and sometimes not” people whose tweets, blogs, Facebook posts, and other social media I find interesting. There is so much to learn and, to my way of thinking, diversity is the first step in creating a balanced world.

Auto-follow does not help me to accomplish that goal. It’s impersonal; and I don’t like impersonal. I’ll leave that to the spammers, numbers hunters, and SEO folks.

If I’m following you on Twitter, there is a 90% chance that I have been on your website or blog. If you are a writer, there is an equally strong chance that I have read one of your guest posts or excerpts. 

After all, getting to know you is the reason I came to Twitter in the first place. A good laugh is always just a click away, and new information shines likes sequins on Dolly Parton’s dresses. (Speaking of amazing talent…Dolly Parton writing and Whitney Houston singing produced one of the best songs ever recorded. You know the one.)

Twitter avatars are like snowflakes, I have decided, and are as unique as they are similar. As for Twitter bios, well, I do occasionally wonder what some members of the community were thinking about when they added those 160 characters.

A few months back, I came across a Twitter bio that had me laughing so hard I lost my breath. I tweeted a comment to the owner and she replied, embarrassed, that she had forgotten to change it once she had become serious about her writing. Personally, I thought the original was worth keeping. It can be challenging to stand out in a positive way in a shockingly large crowd, and she had managed to achieve it.

But conformity is a necessary part of evolution, I suppose. Like-minded people can accomplish a great many things together. As a society, we need certain elements of our collective world – infrastructure, in particular – to be consistent, uniform, predictable, and ordinary. They become among the greatest achievements of civilization, ironically.

Thank goodness that’s not the case for plot, characters, dialogue, writing voice, settings, book covers, titles, and everything else that goes into self-publishing a novel!

As I journey through Twitter this rainy morning, I am reminded of the creative power of the human brain, and of my renewed belief that greatness rests in the individual.

Here, in this nebula we call self/indie publishing, new stars are being created. I want to throw my arms wide and call out to all who pass, “Behold!”

To do that properly, I think I am going to need more Twitter accounts.