Roppongi, Tokyo, on New Year's Eve

Roppongi, Tokyo, on New Year's Eve
Among other things, I am writing a detective series that takes place in Tokyo. The first novel, "Be Careful What You Ask For," centers on a much-admired Tokyo police inspector being forced to confront his ties to a crime family while investigating a murder in Roppongi.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Another stop along the way

This has been a pretty cool week on the journey. I discovered two amazing things:
A place to let folks know about me and a place for folks to read what I write:
about.me and wattpad.com.
About.me is a site created by the folks at AOL as a "free service that lets you create a beautiful one-page website that's all about you and your interests. Upload a photo, write a short bio and add your favorite social networks to show the world the big picture of you."
Speaking for myself, sharing me is weird on so many levels, but the point is, in sharing our stories we share ourselves, don't we?
I have read over and over the notion that writers cannot work alone any more. It isn't enough to live in one's world and then anonymously send out one's stories to the world -- if that was ever the case.
For better or for worse, engaging with the world, at least the world of like-minded storytellers and readers, is part and parcel of life in the world we now live in.
If anyone had asked me to accept such notions only a few short years ago I would have blanched and pull the covers over me head. "Writers are introverts," I would have shouted. "Writers live in their own worlds. We like it there! That's why we're writers!"
But then I realized I had to embark on this journey, this journey into a life I thought I was living, a writing life. And now that I've embarked on this journey, I know pulling the covers over my head is only useful for sleeping.
In fact, I discovered wattpad because I decided to engage with the online world, a part of which is Twitter. I knew I was on the right path when I discovered writers such as  Margaret Atwood engaged in social media. It was one of her tweets that lead me to wattpad. And what a great idea: a place to share stories.
So I hope to meet you on the internet and read your stories there, too. I think these two sites will improve my chances of doing that.

No comments:

Post a Comment