Mumsnet Talk

And so, I have discovered Twitter, set up a Facebook page for my blog and am using Stumbleupon. I am picking up some hits from these sources and that's great.

However, I have a problem now. I appear to be surgically attached to my smartphone. And the actual writing isn't getting much time. And my DH is starting to get somewhat annoyed by the combination of laptop and smartphone hours I am putting in on top of my actual job and my job as a mum and wife.

Please can someone tell me how to balance it? Are there some short cuts? What is Networkedblogs? Will that help?

Any advice is much appreciated fellow bloggers! Thank you.

Well, you can get NetworkedBlogs and other such resources to automatically update your Twitter/FB feeds/statuses when you post a blog.

But the actually other tweets/status updates do need to be done by hand.

Perhaps designate an hour a day to your Social Networking presence rather than doing it all the time?

I don't really have this issue so no real suggestions, sorry. Blogging is just something I do for fun.

I agree with Tee, choose a good time & stick to it, twice a day at the most should be enough.

Don't forget if you neglet the writing too much nobody will be popping in!

I think I am still in the phase of 'newly excited by new toy'. And so can't seem to put down the phone! I guess its just like how I deal with emails at work... allocate a time, stick to it, and don't get side tracked when you happen to hear the phone beep. Even better, turn it off.!!

Ok. I needed that. Thank you folks! I shall stop neglecting the writing and get on it!

If you link up to triberr. The other members of your 'tribe' tweet your blog posts automatically for you at agreed intervals during the day. You do likewise for them. Very straightforward.

I have the same problem yummymummyreally. I set up my blog and twitter account to promote my writing and they have been close to starving out the writing itself.

I can now only write productively when my internet connection has been severed. And like the other respondants I have to set aside time for tweeting and blogging. I also try to do both during 'dead' time such as during Match of the Day (yes Saturday nights are not quite what they used to be).

Social networking and writing do seem to be bracketed together in so many people's minds and self-perceptions. Whenever I see 'writer' as a term in people's self-descriptions in their twitter bio (which happens much more frequently that can possibly be justified by the actual number of "writers" in the population), I feel tempted to wonder whether writing the word "writer" is the sole evidence for the truth of their self-designation.

Peter Cooke once joked that when someone said to him at a party "I am writing a novel," he answered "Neither am I." Today I think the best response to someone saying "I am writing a novel" would be to say "Yes, I piss about on the internet too."

Heh, yes, but some of us actually ARE writers and don't just piss about online. Much. ;)

Anyway, on my Twitter bio, I have said that I am a 'Lady Authoress' rather than 'writer', which I feel lends a certain gravitas to the whole thing.

Lady Authoress is very fine, and would dissolve all my scepticism. I would enjoy thinking that you were social networking via your escritoire-top computer, or your lapdog, or (if on the move) your iFootman.

How peculiar - that is EXACTLY what my life is like!

Am I allowed to say writer if I am blogging regularly and have my children's story book out at publisher no 3 (pending rejection!)? I have 7 chapters of a novel finished too. Is that ok?

But whilst I can tweet whilst waiting for a train, I can't easily write then. ;-)

oh yy of course yummy. I didn't mean to sound like I was having a pop at you. I was just pondering my twitter experience. SO many people are blogging now. Your output sounds like v serious amounts of writing. Good luck with the ms at the publisher.

cataliesisters I was smiling whilst typing. I know you weren't having a pop!! Interestingly that's the one thing I have difficulty with in my writing - getting the tone right so people know when I'm teasing!

To be honest I happen to agree. I know soooo many people who are 'mid novel', including, if I'm honest, myself. But I am also self aware enough to know that the 'novel' that is tinkered with every so ofen isn't actually where my enjoyment in writing lies at the moment. I am enjoying writing shorter pieces... The blog, the children's works.... The trouble I have is that I get bored very very easily, so unless I have a block of uninterrupted time in which I can write a novel length story at a speed not dissimilar to the speed I'd read one at (I read fast, so it's unlikely) then I am unlikely to be completing that novel any time soon. And that's fine. But it does annoy me when people say they are writing, but haven't actually written any words for months!

Interestingly I have just spotted Mumsnet have shared this thread on FB: and I spotted it, and am writing here.

Darn! Quick... let me untie my talk/fb/twitter shackles and go write something.... Nah.. first!

Thanks for the well wishes on the ms. Fingers crossed!

Oh, and where can I get an IFootman? They sound brill!