And So We Got A Puppy... and Twitter

I'm fiddling with the website, the blog, and twitter. Tomorrow I'll post the next personal canon post -- I've already written it, and I can't wait to introduce to you a trilogy of books that has meant so much to me. Not part of the southern personal canon, but part of the historical fiction personal canon. So... tomorrow, then?

In the meantime, I'm twittering here, and I'm linking the twitter posts to this blog, so if you are visiting the actual blog on the web (instead of using a reader or reading on email), you'll see my twitter updates in the top left column. What do you think?

It's all Wanda Jewell's fault (thank you, Wanda!). We had so much fun at the twitter-inspired event at the Decatur Book Festival, that I'm hooked on twitter (for now, anyway) and I'm thinking of using these 140-characters-or-less updates (the definition of twitter) daily on the blog.

They won't come into your email inbox or your reader, but if you want to know more about the day-to-day of what's happening as I create a writing life here in Atlanta, please stop by the blog -- or twitter -- and take a look. I'll put a pitcher of iced tea on the kitchen table and a couple of frosted glasses. Tell me what you're up to.

If you are already on twitter, you can visit my page and "follow" me -- or sign in with a new twitter page of your own, start twittering, and follow me, too! I've noticed there are lots and lots of children's book authors on twitter already, publishers are there with their 140-characters-or-less announcements of new books, The New York Times Book Review is there, everyone who ran for president this year has a twitter page -- it goes on and on... I love this short-and-sweet, to-the-point format. But I still love my blog stories as well -- remember, story is everything... so I'll still be here, blogging away at least once a week, usually twice.

If you're following me already on my twitter site you'll notice I mentioned the word PUPPY a few times. As if the house isn't already full-to-overflowing, with daughter Hannah through with school and home again, friend Richard living in the laundry room downstairs (it looks like a beatnik hideout now), husband Jim recovering (nicely) from surgery and beginning to gig again, and a deadline looming for the first of the Sixties trilogy novels.


But my theory is (and my experience has been), no better time to create a bit more chaos (if you must; if you feel so compelled; if you just know you NEED a puppy) than when the chaos level is chugging along at full tilt.

And no time like the present for a puppy, when you've got great boarders who happen to drain the orange juice and eat the last eggs and use up all the hot water (they are wonderful, truly -- this week's dinners are home cooked by Hannah), and who ask to be useful, helpful. Well! Guess who is sleeping with the puppy every night? Thank you, thank you, Richard. A beatnik puppy den, downstairs.



But it's not all work. Let's face it, there's just nothing like having a puppy eat your ear.









Anyway. We've got a puppy. He's nine weeks old, a standard poodle puppy. We keep calling him puppy... he needs a name. Any suggestions?