Once upon a time, I was a Twitter virgin. Sure, I had a Twitter account, but I didn't use it, let alone link it to other social media. There I was thinking all about the joy of writing. Knocking out some new product. Besidres, there's a Facebook account, so what possible need would I have to use Twitter? Rhetorical question there.
Fast-forward to July 21st and I catch wind of a a vehicle from the publisher DarkFuse, known as Tiny Terrors:
The picture sure as hell got my attention, just like the title. What DarkFuse had in mind was for authors to submit short horror/dark fiction via Twitter. Now this would be typing up to 140 characters of fiction as a best-case scenario. But since there would be a hashtag and a Twitter handle to use, the author is then left with a mere 116 characters to craft their piece.
Hence the name Tiny Terrors.
So the more I rolled this idea around in my head, the more it grew on me, and this was when I knocked out my first Tiny Terror. My first tweet, as it were. I did start to get into this for a while, and then real life got in the way, or I had some writing to do, or some such that diverted my attention. Much further down the line - probably a month or so - I'd seen that I had actually been in the running for the Number One spot (the Tiny Terrors Wall of Fame). There was also an invite from Inkitt to take part in their own horror competition.
I really must get some usage out of this Twitter thing. Regularly might be good, too.
It's been a busy few weeks, on top of which I'd taken off to Toronto for the end of the summer. The annual trip thats sees me hit FanExpo, hang out with friends, see the sights, catch some live music, etc. No live music this year. The trade off (I guess) was actually doing the meet and greet at FanExpo with some HWA members, including those in the local (Ontario) chapter. That and a recent foray into the HWA online forum, and as a result, I may have found an additional couple of beta readers. I already had a number of beta readers, but they aren't dedicated horror readers, let alone horror authors.
As things stand at the moment, I've got a novel to beta for one of those said authors, a novella and short story to beta for my existing team, submissions to handle, etc. Most importantly for the writing now, I'm looking to knock out a short novella by the end of next month. Time off in Toronto served well. I did want to come back refreshed and ready to go, so there it is.