Why Twitter Is Going To Get Me In a Heap Of Trouble

For those of you that don’t know, I am obsessed with twitter. I tweet about random crap all day. It gets me through all the book writing fun. I like meeting new people, and the world of twitter makes me smile. But, I have a book I want published, and I want an agent to help that happen for me. I follow a few agents on twitter, and I occasionally comment on whatever it is they have to say. (Not because they are agents, but because I am addicted to twitter, and I like to comment on what everyone’s up to–but I digress.) A couple of weeks ago, I got a helpful rejection from a literary agent’s assistant. I tweeted about it. Well, because I have talked back and forth to that particular person, she saw my tweet.

This could have gone one of two ways:

• The first way was that she was offended I was discussing my rejection letter on twitter, and then I had ruined my chances of ever working with that particular agency.
• The second way was that she was excited I was out there soliciting feedback from fellow writers and wannabe writers and trying to make myself better. She and I would become friends, I would read her manuscript, discover we have loads in common, and without twitter we would have made a fantabulous connection.

Well, it went the second way. Lucky me. Because that could have been bad! This got me to thinking–I could really get myself into some serious trouble with twitter! But, it didn’t stop me-oh no it didn’t. A couple of days later I made an accidental dirty joke to an agent right there in my smackin’ twitter stream! Fortunately, she had a sense of humor and yet all was well in the twitter verse. But maybe I should walk away from this with a little lesson learned, eh? So, what I want to know is-

How do we balance our careers and internet goals and do the right thing with ALL these twittering bosses and potential clients in our midst?

Jamie Harrington is an aspiring author that spends her days frantically writing about super heroes and band geeks. She's married to a pretty cool guy, and has a beautiful three year old daughter that's the topic of most of her blog posts at Totally the Bomb.com. You can also find her mindlessly chatting away all day on twitter.