Coming Out of the Shadows

I’ve been a happy lurker for many years now. Apart from some activity on the boards at The Republic of Pemberley a loooong time ago, I haven’t really contributed to many discussions online. I use Twitter a lot, to catch up on news and trends, but I haven’t tweeted until this week when I set up a new account with my real name. I don’t have a personal Facebook profile – I just look over my husband’s shoulder to see what our friends are up to. Now I’ve claimed a ‘page’ for myself there, but I have no idea what to do with it. I don’t even know if you can friend/like other people when you have a page rather than a profile. And I don’t see there’s much point getting that going before anyone knows who I am... right?

So I think the first baby steps are to start commenting on other blogs, and on writer’s forums. I’ve sometimes clicked on a commenter’s profile and come through to their blog, so maybe that might happen to me if I say something interesting. I think this is the main reason I haven’t contributed to things previously – I just don’t think what I might say will be interesting enough.

The thing is I would like to strike up some friendships online, and/or have people respond to stuff I put out there on this blog. I really identified with something Natalie Whipple said a while ago – that for one reason or another most friendships had never stuck in real life... then she went on to say that she knows her writer friends are friends for life. I came over all emotional when I read that. It seems like the YA community is a lot more active than the rest though, so I’m not counting my chickens. I also live on the other side of the world from most of the writing community, which is a tad inconvenient for real life stuff. But that’s OK. All I can do is put myself out there, like I am on this blog, and see what comes of it.