By Nik Barnabee
@GargoylePhan on Twitter


I was about to RT (retweet) a check-out-my-book link for a writer I've been following since I first joined Twitter. Then I stopped to think about it. No, she doesn't RT anything of mine, but if I based my decision on that, I'd rarely RT anything. I just don't get RTed a lot, that's a fact of life. But I like to RT. I try to RT as much as I can without overdoing it, and I try and spread it around. But this writer (and she shall remain nameless) … I don't remember ever seeing her RT anything by anyone. But then, in a busy stream of tweets it's easy to overlook things and impossible to keep track of everyone, so I went to her Twitter page. And holy %#&$! … every tweet is about her books. There's not a single RT for anyone else's work, not a RT of someone else's amusing or informative or interesting tweet, not a link from her about a cool website or a fascinating newspaper article.


She's been on Twitter for years. She's been on it longer than I have. Yet she doesn't get it. Not only does she not get the purpose of Twitter – you know, socializing on social media – but doesn't get that, if she wants people to help promote her book, she needs to participate. She needs to see us as, if not friends, then friendly acquaintances, or fellow writers, or something other than a means to an end. I can't imagine how someone could be a member for this long and not realize that.


Of course, she's not the only one. But generally the others are very successful, well-known writers. Although most big-time authors do get it, and do share more with us (Including the Twitterly awesome Neil Gaiman, Lilith Saintcrow, Clive Barker, Ryne Douglas Pearson, and Harlan Coben), there are a few who only show up when they have a new book out, or a signing somewhere, or they're going to be interviewed on TV. That's not news to anyone – we all know that a lot of celebrities do that to some extent.


But you'd think that someone who is just starting out, who wants to become a very successful, everybody-knows-your-name, Hollywood-wants-to-make-a-movie-out-of-your-book author would understand that not only can't you do it alone, but that it's just plain not very nice to have no interest in those people you expect to help you along the way.


In the end, I RTed her book link anyway. I may be a wise-a$$ at times (at times?!), but deep down I'm nice.

Ever start writing a novel or short story or novella and have the story lead you somewhere you've never experienced in real life? Living in a monastery; canoeing down a piranha-infested river with a jungle canopy high overhead; locked in a bank vault; mining ore on a distant planet; working at DisneyWorld, dressed as Minnie Mouse; being chased by a serial killer, through the EuroTunnel; scuba-diving along coral reefs in the Bahamas ... ?

Of course you  have.

That's half the fun of writing, seeing things through the eyes of your characters and having experiences you might never have in real life.

How sad for non-writers, who don't get to live vicariously through a fictitious person. They don't spend hours endlessly searching the Internet for information about a location, or zero in on it with Google Earth, look at photos of it on National Geographic‘s website, or watch videos of it on YouTube, then recreate that place in their heads, in perfect 3D detail, like we do.

For such experiences, they have to actually hop on a plane and zoom off to a real location (after being groped by TSA at the airport), arrive with jet lag, trudge along a beach or a path in a rainforest, pay exorbitant prices for trinkets at tourist traps, empty sand out of their shoes (and possibly their underwear), and sit down in a cafe at the end of the day with a yummy drink with a little umbrella in it, making goo-goo eyes at the hot, native bartender.

Oh, wait ... um ... what was my point again?

I got lost somewhere between the little umbrella and the hunky guy with dreamy eyes and sun-streaked hair and rippling muscles.

Hmmm ...

I think it was something about research being great, thank God for the Internet, but if you have the chance to actually wander out there in the real world instead, go for it. And don't forget to use those real-world experiences you've already had.

Such as, the horror story I'm writing looks like it may meander off into a jungle, all viny and buggy and hot as hell. A jungle. A jungle? The closest I've been to the Amazon is Amazon.com. Thus, much online research will be necessary, since I don't personally know anyone who's ever been there.

I've not had a lot of exotic, exciting real life experiences, myself. But should I eventually write something that takes place in mountainous woods, I have been there, done that. Ok, once. I was a passenger being driven through the woods to Klamath, Oregon. Real woods. Not like the parks back home in the big city. Fern leaves bigger than my head. Trees tall enough to qualify for Jack & The Beanstalk. Utter silence except for twittering birds and, yes, actual babbling brooks. Also, naked people lounging in hot springs in the ground, under the trees, surrounded by snow. My brother & sister-in-law had stopped the car to give me an up-close-and-personal look at nature, and there they were, four people au naturel, waving howdy-do as if their lower halves weren't naked and imitating a lobster cooking in a pot and their upper halves weren't freezing. To a city girl, this was far beyond bizarre. The image is etched onto my brain.

But, like I said, don't waste past experiences. One day those naked-as-jaybirds people will end up in a scene in one of my novels. I suspect they will be horribly murdered.

Think they'd appreciate the honor? Neither do I. But as anyone who's seen an '80s slasher flick can tell you, when you prance around bare-assed in the woods, stuff is gonna happen.