Friends Wanted!

I want to make friends.

Not blog followers, or twitter followers, though I think these things will maybe surface? But I don't want to meet people just so I can up my numbers.

I want more people to talk to.



In my lifetime, I've been a part of a lot of online communities, starting from way back in the day when I was on my 2800 bps modem and working in ASCII-text only. (I used to be KILLER at ASCII drawing.) In junior high and part of high school, I was part of a BBS (remember those?) service group that got together teens from my city. Lo and behold, I ended up "meeting" someone whose aunt went to my church anyway. It was back in those days of the internet when the web  and quote-unquote "real life" crossed over a lot.

From there I bounced into all sorts of other communities--a women's community I've been a part of for over twelve years, the online community for the David Allen Getting Things Done methodology, some fan communities, and now, the pre-published/post-published/unpublished/just-wanna-read-stuff-that's-published community.

I'm excited about this last one. But I've found it's hard to make new friends.

I'm on Twitter; I'm on Goodreads; I'm on Absolute Write; I have a blog (duh, you're already here). I have some crit partners, but they're mostly people I've known already.

Things I'd like to do: tweet more. Review more. Post on interesting conversations more. Comment on blogs more. I finally, after over a year of being on Absolute Write, figured out how to subscribe to a thread so that I can keep track easily of conversations I want to stay a part of.

This week, thanks to my "tab" key, I failed miserably to make it into The Writers' Voice contest, hosted by Cupid of Cupid’s Literary Connection, Brenda Drake of Brenda Drake Writes, Monica B.W. of Love YA, and Krista Van Dolzer ofMother. Write. (Repeat.). (My crit partner Tina did make it in, though, and you should go read her entry! ) So, no four coaches and eight agents coming to bid on me. But, I found something even cooler--two hundred people (and even more with the people that didn't get in but are still commenting and are still on the hashtag) that maybe, I can be friends with. So I'm slowly going through entries, seeing what people are writing, and...gulp...meeting people. I'm following the #thewritersvoice hashtag on twitter, and slowly bouncing around from blog to blog to comment on people's entries. In the meantime, I'm finding lots of really interesting people...which to me  is what this is all about.


So far, so good. Maybe.

So...are you writing an interesting blog? Or maybe one that you think is horribly uninteresting, but you want someone to wander over anyway? Do you tweet funny things? Or unfunny things? Or twitter tirades? Do you write about the books you read on Goodreads, but no one ever comes by to say that your comments are interesting? Are you maybe like me and slow to figure out how to find *people* in all of this?

Well, hello. My name is Jessica, and I want to be your friend.