I started Keyhole Factory last night. I live-tweeted reading the first “chapter,” which was only two pages. It was a quick experiment that turned me off almost instantly. Here’s why I shouldn’t live-tweet books:
- Part of what I love about reading is getting lost in the work, and I can’t loose myself in the story if I keep turning to my laptop and typing tweets.
- How arrogant is it to share thoughts on a work that I haven’t finished yet? It’s not that I don’t have thoughts, but imagining someone reading my work and throwing out opinions without taking it all in as a piece makes me nervous, so I shouldn’t do it to another author.
- I should at least get into a novel before blurting out judgments. Assuming it’s not rotten from the start, of course. I tend to be a very forgiving reader, but if something is still off-putting after page 4 or so, let the critique commence; this one wasn’t off-putting.
- Reading = ruminating. How can I ruminate if I’m counting characters?
- You don’t want to know what I think about every sentence, and yet I’m tempted to tweet my thoughts on every sentence.
And so, this short-lived experiment is ended. I’ll continue reading the book, because I enjoyed the opening even though I stacked the TweetDeck against it. But I’ll just update my progress on Goodreads and share a review once I’m done.
Egads, that was awful. Next time I come up with a ridiculous idea, I should just write a story about it, instead of doing it.
Barbara Lee Williams 
Technology has created an instant gratification culture (Think back to dial-up. Imagine waiting over a minute for an interenet connection?). It’s very tempting to act first and think about it second.
I’ll be in my cave if you’re looking for me.
Agreed–it felt very shallow. I very much enjoyed reading this morning on the treadmill and letting my thoughts bounce around in my own head while I huffed and puffed.