WWRW announcement, Twitter overdosing and more

WWRW Announcement

I'm happy to announce that I managed to find a very fabulous guest for this week's Women Who Rock Wednesday after all. Tomorrow I hope you'll stop by my blog to meet Jennifer Echols, author of GOING TOO FAR, which is came out TODAY from MTV Books. You all should be rushing out to buy it like I am! I mean look at the gorgeous cover and read the description and tell me you don't want to pick this book up immediately:

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO?


All Meg has ever wanted is to get away. Away from high school. Away from her backwater town. Away from her parents who seem determined to keep her imprisoned in their dead-end lives. But one crazy evening involving a dare and forbidden railroad tracks, she goes way too far… and almost doesn’t make it back.

John made a choice to stay. To enforce the rules. To serve and protect. He has nothing but contempt for what he sees as childish rebellion, and he wants to teach Meg a lesson she won’t soon forget. But Meg pushes him to the limit by questioning everything he learned at the police academy. And when he pushes back, demanding to know why she won’t be tied down, they will drive each other to the edge—and over…

Yeah, go pick up your copy now and come back tomorrow to meet Jenn!

Twitter, TFC, and TMI

As you all probably know I also blog over at the Teen Fiction Cafe. We finally got a twitter account for TFC, so please start following us at twitter.com/Teenfictioncafe.

I'm pretty hooked on Twitter as are many people, but I know it has it's critics too, who think it is reducing our culture to mindless snippets as opposed to real communication and subjecting us to a deluge of pointless remarks. Do we all really want to know what so-and-so had for breakfast today? Are we all so attention-starved that we must share these things?  I can definitely understand these criticisms. I've witnessed over-tweeting and have probably overindulged in tweeting some days myself. But I'm a person who likes random thoughts, likes sharing them, and likes hearing other's random thoughts. I think Twitter is fun for that and it's also great for finding out little snippets of news when your busy.... Of course you can easily OD on Twitter, other social networks, blogs, and the internet in general. I feel like I'm getting too little work done myself lately... But it's all about finding a happy medium.

Another issue with Twitter and all the social networking stuff is it kind of turns us all into exhibitionists. I was reading an interview with Stevie Nicks in Rolling Stone (I think it was the first issue of Rolling Stone I actually read some off in months even though I have a subscription. I just don't seem to have the time for magazines besides Venus which comes out quarterly and my industry mags anymore) and she says, "Little girls think it's necessary to put all their business on MySpace and Facebook and I think it's a shame."

That gave me something to ponder. I'm not hugely knowledgeable about Ms. Nicks (though I should be, my mom's a big fan and part of the reason I'm named is Stephanie is because of Stevie), so I don't really know if in her day she was and is still considered a mysterious rock star. I wonder if both social networking and the media are killing rock star/celeb mystique and if so I guess that is kinda bad. Though I don't know, I've always been a fan of people like Courtney Love who very boldly puts her thoughts out there. And maybe that's why I'm so open about my life and my history and thoughts and feelings and so forth on this blog. But should I be? I feel like Stevie Nicks has shamed me a little bit.

I don't know it's just my nature to talk about the stuff that matters to me or that I'm thinking about at the moment so I don't think I'll stop, but I'm interested to hear reader opinions on twitter and overexposure and all of this.

And maybe this is totally TMI, but I tweeted yesterday about my kitty Sid being sick again. He has these bouts of vomitting and diarrhea like twice a year and was basically diagnosed with a kitty version of Crohn's disease. This time I took in a stool sample and they found this parasite which he could just be a carrier for, but maybe this is the thing causing his episodes. Of course they can't really kill the parasite just treat it with antibiotics when it shows up, but at least it gives me a solid idea of what is going on with him. I hate giving him pills though because he gets sooooooooo mad. I can't give him the pills until he keeps food down (fingers crossed that he will today!), but then begins about a weeks worth of torture. I've tried everything with meds with him, tried putting it in food, but as a result of that he won't eat certain kinds of food (like the wet food that is good for his stomach...). I've tried those pill pockets. There is no option but shove pill down kitty's throat and beg him not to be mad. Poor guy. Also the downside of this parasite business is I have to keep a close eye on the other cats and make sure they don't catch it. *Sigh.* I'm totally stressed with this cat stuff and not being productive at all... But I have to try to be. After all I have an event to get to soon.

Reading Tonight  

I just wanted to give one last reminder that I'm reading tonight at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago at 6 pm tonight as part of the Nelson Algren tribute event. So if you're in the Chicago area and you aren't drunk on green beer (or even if you are but want to take a short break to sober up) please stop by.