what were you thinking?

So, you join twitter, and you're all aflutter with How.Many.People you can talk with! Or if you can't talk with them, you can talk to them, or about them.  It's all the same right? With/to/about? Heck, just tweet something to @SharkForBrains, and you'll have the attention of the shark herself.

Wheeeeee! Good times!

So what do you do?

You write a blog post about your rejections.

"I'm working hard, but oh man, I got rejections, and I can't figure out what they mean"

Then you tweet a link to the post to the agent who rejected you.

@SharkForBrains Hey, I mention you in my blogpost here:  www.don'tdothisI'mnotkidding.com

Then you write a blog post about the fact you're waiting for a reply from an agent.

"I'm still waiting, it's so hard to wait, I know she's busy, I'm just so excited; it's hard to wait"

And tweet that to the agent you're waiting to hear from.

@SharkForBrain, Hey, I mention you in my blogpost here: www.NoIreallywasn'tkiddingwhenIsaiddon'ttdothis.com

And just to make sure EVERYONE in the entire world sees it, you tweet it to a couple other people as well.

@SharkForBrainsDeputy @SharkForBrainsTrainsandAutomobiles @RemorasAreUs  Hey, I posted some stuff mentioning you here at www.thirdtimeisnotacharmandI'mstillnotkiddingdon'tdothis.com

what the heck are you thinking here?

I'm very perplexed.

This is wrong on every single level.

If you're a writer at the query stage:

1. Keep your query process OFF YOUR BLOG.

2.  Don't call attention to your rejections.

3. Don't post something on your blog about waiting for  an answer  particularly if the wait time is well within the posted guidelines.

Of course we see the tweets.
Of course we click on our names. (once)
Of course we read that blog post. (once)

It doesn't do you a damn bit of good of course, because all we see is someone who seems to be complaining.  At length. And then, if you ever tweet to us again, there's no incentive to click. Your blog post wasn't funny; it wasn't charming; it didn't entice me to come back again, or to to subscribe in my google reader. 

You may not think it's complaining; you might think you're "just talking about the process."  Please trust me on this: it looks like complaining from where I sit.  And honest to godiva, I'm not parsing out each sentence in your post. I'm looking at the first three, skimming the rest, and thinking "egad."  Essentially, I'm getting a quick first impression. And that quick first impression is not good.

Why are you doing this?

There is a place for writerly angst. It's NOT ever a public place.  Disagree with me if you care to about whether that's fair, but this blog post isn't about fair.  It's about how to not shoot yourself in the foot.


Save your ammo for the 1-star reviewers on Amazon.