Caption for photo: Me trying to figure out how to open a CD.
I've never been the fastest dog on the track when it comes to dealing with technical things. Program a TV remote? Oh, please. I'm lucky if I can change the batteries. Set up my Brita pitcher? Yeah, I did that and it was a year before I figured out, courtesy of the Boy who is ten, that the reason the water kept spilling when I poured was that I had the top on backwards. And all the while I complained bitterly about the poor design.
Setting up computers, DVD players, iPods, or anything that even remotely requires tech savvy are all done by others in my household--my husband, the Boy, one of the Chihuahuas. I don't care as long as it isn't me struggling to decipher cryptic instructions written on a thin sheet of paper the size of a business card. Really, have you noticed how a piece of electronic equipment that can do everything except bounce a laser beam off the moon always comes with four lines of instructions? And one of these lines is wasted on a warning to avoid dunking the product in water, putting it in your mouth, or setting it on fire.
Writing? I can do that. I can even do it on a computer. Go me. Internet? I know my way around. I can email with the best of them and I'm a whiz at using search engines. But get this--now I'm told I need to master social media. Social what? I need online friends in order to promote my work? Okay, I'll give it a try. Facebook--I'm there, but not sure what I'm doing and where all these friends came from or why they're writing on my wall. Twitter. Right. Now I have followers and people I follow. It all sounds kind of cultish, but I admit I kind of like tweeting and retweeting. Hey, everyone, I just tweeted. I might be important because I have almost 103 followers.
Website? Now I know you're kidding. I did actually make a website of sorts, but it was so ugly, even I didn't look at it more than twice in a year. My son kindly stepped in last month and made me a real website. It's beautiful and useful. So I'm covered there. Book trailer? My son again. Very nice. Blog? I'm told that's a must have. So I have. But I look at other blogs and I'm perplexed. Mine is so generic and I really would like to have followers and a blog roll and links to my books and to other social media. I don't have any of those things, but it certainly isn't from laziness on my part. I tried. I wanted to follow my followers, all five of them (now six). Sadly, the old tech-clueless bug bit again and that's how I ended up following my own blog. At least I'll know right away when I make a new post.
You crack me up...because it could be ME you're writing about here! :) What gets me is all the different languages on those directions that I THINK are telling them more than they tell us in English...like how to really use the thing. I wish I knew some languages to see if they're making fun of me on those directions. HAHAHAHA!
ReplyDeleteI finally kind of figured how to list blogs I follow and I added some buttons. I'm still not entirely sure the world won't blow up if I click on some of them.
ReplyDeleteLinda, you mademe laugh out loud. Or am I supposed to say LOL? You have said exactly what I have been thinking while struggling with blogs and Facebook and other social media. Why on Earth do we have to do this? Because publishers have quit doing promotion for their writers, that's why. Then they wonder why we turn to self-publishing. Why not, we're doing all the work anyway.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of us follow our own blogs. That way we have one follower and perhaps it will entice others to follow - or feel sorry for us.
ReplyDeleteAbout a year ago, we got a flat screen TV with DVD. There are three controllers! I live in a house with two men, my husband and my son. I'm the only one who's clueless about how to work them - and inevitably, one of them will watch a movie then turn it off, leaving it on the movie setting. I punch twenty-something buttons over and over before I get it somehow back to TV mode.
I use my blog's blogroll all the time. It's the only way I can be sure to find what I want. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI gave up Tweeting and I've never been able to figure out Facebook. No big loss, I don't think. Probably just as smart to leave relevant comments on busy blogs like Red Adept, as I see you already do.
Helen, you're right! At least if I follow my own blog, I've got one. The clickers for the TV and all that other equipment--aaaargh, I could scream. They are impossible.
ReplyDeleteDick, I'm trying really hard to do useful things with Twitter and Facebook. Funny how it's so easy to write books and stories, but I get tongue-tied trying to think of a good tweet.
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