The curious encounter of Stella Deleuze

There are things I really love, like my new flavoured coffees, my iguana, cycling, cooking, writing, editing, yes even helping, but there are things I can't stand. At all: time wasters.

A few days ago on Twitter, I connected with a guy who apparently studies English Literature and loves reading. Good. I like people who love books. I followed him back. We communicated and had a bit of a harmless banter; enjoyable, nothing offensive. Yesterday, he sent me a message and asked me if I could give him feedback on a bit of short fiction. Because I like to help, I agreed and shortly after I stared at the screen in disbelief.
Did he really mean that? That piece of short (really short) fiction was so badly written, even a 10-year-old would have done a better job. I was gobsmacked. I wondered if that guy is taking the piss, but I take things like that seriously, so I spent roughly ten minutes on giving him the feedback he wanted. Then I fought hard if I should tell him to better not continue with writing. I ended up telling him that the bit looked like a 9-year-old wrote it and that he has a long way ahead of him.
He got back to me, saying it was the most useful feedback he ever received. I thought he's just having a laugh.
When I asked him if he's only joking, he answered saying it wasn't even serious writing and it took him about five minutes to jot the stuff down, but he had some other writing he'd like feedback for.

Guess you can imagine my response. Yep, told him where to shove it.

As an editor I find it insulting that someone would send me such a text for feedback. I would have given him credit for not being a native, but jotting down some shite and asking me for feedback is plain rude and a waste of my time. I could have written an e-mail, made a coffee, given the iguana a head rub, edited my own stuff...
That said, next time someone random asks for feedback, they can pay cash upfront. Simple as that.

Rainy days, writing and social networking

I haven't been to the garden in a while, mainly because I wasn't in the mood and it was rather cold and wet in London. Don't get me wrong, the wet was really necessary for the lack of rain in general. Funny, because everyone thinks it rains constantly in London. Far from that. Believe me, it doesn't. Nevertheless, as some of you might remember, I bought an Ostfriesennerz (reversible blue and yellow rain coat) and the boots to the left in October last year. They are originally sailor's boots, but do the trick just as fine on land. And, who knows, I'd love to go for a sailing trip one day. Never did it before, but it's been on my wish list for quite some time. I love the wind and the water, so I assume, it  must be fun. Exhausting, but immensely enjoyable being with a few good people out on the sea.
Okay, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon, but a girl is allowed to dream, right? In the meantime, I wear the gear every time when it rains, though, as mentioned above, they are rare occasions. Yesterday, I saw a massive black front coming up and since I needed to get some food for the iguana, I decided to go blue and yellow, take a walk through the park in order to proof that the 100% waterproof applies. Ha! Typical. I put on the boots and jacket and walked. For an hour! Without even one drop falling from the sky. Very funny, weather, the joke's on me, then. I got funny looks, though. I'm convinced it's people admiring my rain coat. Admittedly, it's rather unconventional, but I had a few comments in the past, and they were all positive. If it rains, I don't get wet, that's for sure. So, after a good walk in the dry, I came back with hopes of being able to write. Forget it! My muse has other ideas. I leaned out of the window and screamed, 'Get your arse back here, Muse!' and waited. Nothing. Odd. I get rather annoyed if I don't write every day. It's weird, after the massive headache attack, I've lost connection to the thriller—to writing in general—which is not what I expected after the good creative wave I surfed on for a while, churning out 1000 words a day. I really want to get back to that. One a positive note: around 2.30am, I wrote 150 words for another book (contemporary fiction), a scene that kept bugging me. Seems, the urge to write is coming back slowly and as the weather's not improving much, I shall make the most of it and force myself to sit down and continue with the thriller. I've also decided to take a step back from social network sites like Facebook and Twitter. It feels like it became too much to handle. Not one day passed on which I wasn't bombarded with invitations to look at a page, to like something or participate at an online book launch. There are still too many Indies who don't understand that I'm not their audience. Anyway, you'll still find me here.

Love,

Stella

Tip of the week: Who to follow on Twitter or connect with in general

Be honest: how many of your followers are writers or authors and how many do you follow because they are writers or authors? My blind guess would be about 95%. I admit, when I started out with social networking on Facebook, all I did was trying to gather 'friends' and I envied those who had over 1000 on their list. Same with Twitter, I connected with anyone whose name I vaguely knew.
It became clear very soon that having all those writer friends on facebook didn't really bring me much other than having their constant promotion in my face as soon as they self-published. I started to delete those I never really talked to and kept those who are dear to me and with whom I have interesting, funny and informative exchanges.

On Twitter, I stopped following back. Instead I take a look at the profiles and blogs (if link provided) and decide then if they are 'worth' to follow. The problem is that I'm an author myself, so my tweets or the tweets of my followers will most likely be about writing or the books. It's preaching to the choir. There's no need to gather as many followers as possible, because only if your followers retweet your tweet, you'll have more exposure and that only if they have plenty of followers themselves. I have a few followers who have over 30k people following them, we never talk, they never retweet my tweets so I'm wondering what's the point of following them?

I observed that I'm gathering new followers (mostly writers) and when I visit their profiles and they don't interest me enough to cause me to follow back, they'll unfollow me a little bit later. We never exhanged a word. Which means, they didn't follow me because they found my tweets or profile interesting, they followed me in order to get a follow back. Well, no, I don't see the point.

Please don't get me wrong, I love the people I connect with, they are carefully selected -- at least those who'll stay in my list as I'm slowly going to clean it up -- and I'm having good conversations with many of them. Sometimes we don't talk for ages, but that's a Twitter thing, time differences, life, etc., but I only follow those who will catch my eye, be it due to their profile, their blog/website or because of our exchange.

To up your 'presence' write interesting blog posts, informative, educating, be versatile; something that'll make you stop and read another person's blog. Write about what you know, blog regularly and be selective with the people you connect with. A following of 4k or more won't help you if they only follow you because you follow them.

Have you noticed that a large following helped your exposure? I'd like to know about.