CONFUSED ABOUT SOCIAL NEWORKING?

My LiveJournal friend, Susan Taylor Brown is conducting an online class in social networking. When you click on the link above, scroll down to her write-up of a class she co-taught on this subject at a recent writer conference in California. (The feedback is impressive!)

ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR THE BUSY WRITER How to Blog, Tweet, and Friend (and Still Have Time to Write)
- Need help navigating all the online promotion possibilities on the web?
- Want to increase your web presence but unsure what to do next?
- Reluctant to add one more item to your to-do list?
- Do you have the Twitter Jitters?

Then this 4-day ONLINE introductory class to Social Media is for you. This class is conducted entirely online.We'll cover an overview of many of the current online social media platforms such as Blogs, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Amazon Connect, JacketFlap, Linkedin (and more) and how authors are using them. You’ll learn why “friend” has become a verb, how to “tweet” for research experts, and what you can do about managing your time with all this new online activity. You will set up new social media platforms and learn how to enrich the ones you do have.

More details and how to register can be found here: http://www.susantaylorbrown.com/classes.html

Susan is the author of Hugging the Rock, a book I loved! (Read my review of her book here.)

And while you're checking things out, do visit Susan's website!

Oh, and one more thing. If you're not a writer but you're interested in the class - it never hurts to ask!

PRICELESS!

There are times when I should just buy the book!

This was one of them. I renewed it at least twice and still paid overdues yesterday when I reluctantly returned it. (That was after my library gave me a recorded phone notification and a snail mail one too. I think they wanted it back and I don't blame them.

HUGGING the ROCK is a good book to buy!

I've been wanting to review it for weeks (just as I've wanted to pull weeds in my flowerbeds, clean my house, and do research for my work-in-progress). But sometimes there aren't enough hours to do the things I want.

So, anyway I returned the book and now I will have to write this from memory. Well, actually I did sit in the library parking lot and scribble a few favorite quotes on the back of a deposit slip before I forced myself to take the book inside.

This novel is heartbreakingly sweet and amazingly spare. If I had written this story it would be at least a hundred pages longer. It would have taken me a whole paragraph to say what Susan Taylor Brown puts in one sentence. It is a verse novel. So eloquent. So reader friendly. So universal in its message.

Rachel's mom abandons her. And who is she left with? Her dad. "The Rock". Just when she needs someone to hold her! Grandmother tries to help but mostly manages to annoy both Rachel and her dad who actually just need to find their new life together.

HUGGING the ROCK is a long emotional journey told in a short amount of space. I love emotional journeys. And while I tend toward melodrama I also loved the spareness of this story.

Especially the chapter titled Mother's Day. Would it cross my mind to leave the page blank? Never! And if it did, would I be able to follow through? Probably not...

I think my favorite quote comes from page 138 -"She did the best she could with what she had in her at the time. " That bit of wisdom about Rachel's missing mom comes from "The Rock". And, while I'm not a psychologist, I declare, it goes a long way toward explaining inexplicable human behavior! (IMHO)

And then there's this - "He hugs me tight and I realize that some rocks have soft spots and that I am melting into him."

Ah, I do love rocks. And I loved this book! Gonna' have to buy it for myself.