6 ways to stop me following you on Twitter

Recently, I've noticed a number of bloggers writing posts entitled 'Why I won't follow you on Twitter', which (not surprisingly) list various reasons why they won't add people to their list of friends. So, as all the cool kids are doing it, I thought I'd compile a similar list

1) You have 9000 followers but only 3 friends: Sorry, but unless you are imparting truly 'must have' information, I'm not going to follow you, I don't care how famous you think you are. If @stephenfry can follow back, you really haven't got much of an excuse not to.

2) You constantly tweet about how Twitter should be used: Who made you king of the twittersphere? It's supposed to a form of communication, not a platform for your business. People can use it anyway they choose, and if you don't like it, don't look.

3) You post nothing but links to get-rich-quick schemes which, you claim, have made you millions: If you really are that successful, why are you spending so much time marketing? Surely you should be tweeting about drinking Dom Perignon on the beach of your private island.

4) You say things like LOOL, or WOOT: What do they even mean? OK, you might not like my LOLs, Eeks, or Yucks, but at least they have a meaning that is widely understood (and you can always see point number 2 above). WOOT sounds like something annoying, English public school boys said in the 1920s when they discovered they were getting jam roly-poly for pudding, and the only time I've ever heard anything similar to LOOL, it came from a drunk who was throwing up outside a particularly sleazy nightclub.

5) You keep tweeting about how much you love Your God/George Bush/BarackObama/Darren Rowse/WordPress: I'm sure they are all absolutely delightful, but do we really need you to tell us about them, constantly, in every other tweet, day-in, day-out.

6) You are a dirty old man: If you send me direct messages containing thinly disguised pick-up lines, I will unfollow you. Sorry to shatter your illusions, but using the internet does not turn women into racy sex maniacs, it won't give you the pulling power of George Clooney and using lines from Sid James is never a good idea anyway (online or off). Sid was joking, you just look like a joke.

So now you know how to make me go away and never follow you again, but be warned: If you consistently post interesting tweets, link to useful stuff, are the least bit amusing, or are sociable and chatty, you'll never get rid of me :-)

Hot Links Thursday 11/12/08

Just a quick round-up of interesting things I've discovered on my internet travels.

CSS Toolbox - a free CSS editor and validator. I haven't tried it, but it looks really useful.

100 Blog Topics I Hope You Write - Well, not me personally, it's actually Chris Brogan. The list has quite a  techy theme, but might inspire you if you write about such things.

The Cambridge Guide to English Usage - Available as a free, downloadable PDF.

100 More Ways to Organise Your Life - Loads of useful organisation tools and services.

The Festive Toolbox and Over 100 Free Christmas Design Resources - Ideas and resources for giving your blog a seasonal makeover.

Cool Stuff for Twitter - Some useful tools and services including a few I haven't seen before.

101 Facebook Hacks You Never Knew About - Some great ways to make Facebook more useful and personal.

Down for Everyone - Very simple but useful. Just add the url of the site you can't access and find out whether it is down for everyone, or if the problem is at your end.

Twitter in Plain English - Short video explaining Twitter.

Typealyzer - Discover your blog's personality.


A Collection of Strange Links on Google.com - Visit Google's back alleys and side roads.

How to Create Blogger Label Feeds - The title is pretty self-explanatory. 

Email Error End Up On Road Sign - This should really be called 'Lost in Translation'.


Agent Query Connect - A place for agents, editors and writers to network.

30 Creative Website Headers - A collection of really nice looking headers, useful if you are looking for inspiration.

The Poor Misunderstood Semicolon - What are they, what do they do? Is it true they are the James Dean of punctuation?

Your Personalised Shakespeare Insult - Just click the link to get yours.

Letter to a Young Blogger - Really good blogging advice. Forget all those gurus, this is the stuff newbies should be reading!

That's all folks :-)

Post NaNoWriMo Resources

So, you’ve got your 50,000 words down and finished NaNo. Now it’s all over until next year and you can put your feet up and relax. Err, no. Now the real work begins! That was just the first draft, you now need to edit, rewrite, maybe even write more because 50,000 words is not enough for a full novel. Of course, you could simply pop your manuscript into a drawer and forget about it, but wouldn’t that be a terrible waste? Think of all the time and effort you put into to producing it in the first place, don’t you owe it to yourself to see this project through to the end?

You’ve still got a lot of work to do, that is the bad news. The good news is, you don’t have to do it straight away - take December off, your novel isn’t going anywhere and the break will help to give you a fresh perspective on it’s strengths and weaknesses. In addition, you don’t have to work at the same frantic pace. Now you have your first draft, you can take your time and hone it to perfection.

If you aren’t quite sure how to go about editing or rewriting, the following links should help. Oh, and if you weren’t able to complete NaNo, pay a visit to the the I Wrote a Novel, Now What? page on the NaNo site for details of other novel writing months - yes, they are springing up all over the place.

Editing and Rewriting Guides
1) BBC Get Writing - Editing Mini Course: A short online course covering editing, rewriting and how to ask for and receive critiques.
2) How to Revise a Novel: Holly Lisle offers some really useful advice and tips from the perspective of a published novelist.
3) National Novel Publishing Year: A forum offering a step by step guide to transforming your novel from a rough draft into a finished manuscript ready to be submitted to publishers.
4) Editing 101: Another online course covering the basics of editing and rewriting.
5) Poewar - Read What You Have Written: Informative article explaining how to undertake that first reading and how to make use of it.
6) NaNoEdMo: Like NaNoWriMo, but with editing. If you want to edit your novel at the same frantic pace you wrote it, why not wait until March and do it in the company of other crazy, sorry, dedicated writers.

And that’s all folks! If you have any suggestions, tips or resources for NaNo re-writers, don’t forget to leave a comment. And if you are not the least bit interested in novel writing, don’t worry, normal service will be resumed asap.

This post was first published on December 6th, 2007

It's Oscar Wilde day . . .

. . . on Twitter. Organised by @stephenfry, you can find all related tweets here.

Reading: The gift that keeps on giving

Collection of National Media Museum/The Royal Photographic Society (Peter Henry Emerson)

"When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young." ~ Maya Angelou

I've had a link to The Literacy Site in the sidebar for a while now, but as Christmas is almost upon us, I thought I'd highlight it in a post because it's a great way to give children a wonderful gift.

The site works in the same way as a number of others - visitors click a button and make a free donation - but in this case, instead of food or water, the donation goes towards providing books to children who otherwise would not have access to them. I strongly believe that a love of books is one of the greatest gifts you can give to a child because, not only does it give them a vital tool for further education, it also expands their horizons in more ways than I can possibly list here. And of course, today's young readers are the writers and bloggers of tomorrow, you can help to start them on that path.

Oh, and if you are wondering how you will remember to click daily, try Morning Coffee, a Firefox plugin which lets you create a menu of all the pages you visit regularly to be opened with one click of your mouse.

When Hitler can't tweet

If you can understand German, turn the sound down, it doesn't really work if you know what he is saying. Otherwise, it's hilarious.

Gah! Some people.

In an article entitled Mourn not for end of pointless blogging, Mike Seate says, "Writing is a tough gig, and the fact that millions of people choose to do it for free is a mystery to us paid writers".

Well, I would suggest bloggers blog for the same reason some people choose to play guitar in a pub band, or turn out for local five-aside football teams for little or no recompense. In other words, they do it because they have a passion for it, because it enriches their lives and helps them to build relationships with other like-minded individuals. Oddly, one nevers hears of rock stars or professional footballers having a hissy fit about amateur participation, quite the opposite, many positively encourage it.

The fact that Mr Seate sees writing as something that is only worthwhile if it is officially sanctioned and financially beneficial is really quite sad. However, his remarks about "pointless blogging" are interesting because they mirror criticisms of 19th century women writers who were derided for frivolity and triviality, and suggest a kneejerk reaction to a perceived threat, rather than a genuine critique.

Climbing down off my soapbox . . .

Updated to add: Of course, it isn't only bloggers who face the wrath of disgruntled MSM writers, Tweeters are dismissed in a similar manner.