I've Succumbed to the Time Suck

of Facebook. I'm still trying to figure out how to upload my contacts list so I can 'friend' people. No, I don't plan to indiscriminately send emails to God and everyone on my list, but I do want to set up some sort of list that has meaning to me.

I decided to join Facebook for two reason: networking and family.

Networking: I want to have another form of contact with writer friends. And when I was requested to friend two of my old chapters mates (a RWA chapter I didn't rejoin this year), I thought this might be a good way to keep in touch since I'm no longer on their yahoo loop. Plus meeting new writer friends or old high school classmates does have its draws. But I hate to say it, just because there's a reason I haven't kept in touch with my old HS classmates, it doesn't mean I'm not curious as to what happened to some of them.

Family: I was talking to my SIL on the phone last Friday, when her daughter came home and checked her Facebook account. It turns out another niece had been in D.C. for a conference and was in a train wreck--not injured. I found out about this quicker than the tried and true method of . . . Grandma. My mother (87) is the glue that keeps this family together. Nine of us kids are spread across the US with one in Japan, and of course, we are wrapped up in our own lives so we don't communicate as often as we should. I have their email accounts, but the last time I emailed the group was when Mom had a heart attack a couple of years ago. I do realize that I'll probably only have contact with the younger members of the family, but I think we should all keep in touch one way or another.

Today, I'll try to figure out how to 'friend' people, but I really need to get moving on finishing my picture book and editing my middle grade novel. There's no timeline on the PB, but the Delacorte Yearling contest deadline is looming at the end of June, and the kiddo is out of school at the end of May and there goes my window of opportunity!

Write on!