Facebook

So I decided this week that if I got a nickel for every time someone told me to get a Facebook, I could quit my job, move back to NH and be quite happy living on my nickeled-income for the rest of my life. Because - NO - I am not on Facebook.

You might say I'm a freak of my generation, but that isn't so. For if you recall the history of Facebook, its a few years behind me. When I was first introduced to this "great" thing, I was at camp surrounded by college students. They all had Facebooks, but I could not. Why? I was finished with college and it was only for college students. Case closed.

And so why don't I have a Facebook now? Do I have moral holier-than-thou reasons? Not really. The truth is, I simply haven't the time. I'd get the silly thing and it would sit for months with no activity. Then I would feel like I have to catch up every time I logged in. I'd rather be reading a good book.

The Facebook question comes up at almost every writer's critique meeting I go to lately. One lady there - an illustrator - is using it to hook up with other writers, editors, agents, illustrators, etc. She doesn't push her work on them, but if they friend her they see the art she's posted, and she can chat with them. Truly, it is a tempting reason to use Facebook. But I got a Twitter account for the same reason and have been on it, um...once over the past six months. A lot of good that's doing me.

"Of course," Kelly continued this past week as she pitched Facebook as a publishing tool onto us, "not all the agents or editors want to be my friend. At first, it hurt when they rejected me. But I don't care much now. I've got lists of agents and editors to find on there."

"You mean Facebook is another way to get rejected?" Karen, who has Facebook but never uses it, asked sarcastically. "I could add all that to my pile of rejection slips. I just love getting rejected!"

And since rejection has become a daily occurrence in my life over the past three or four weeks, maybe I have good reason to get a Facebook account. Pile it on!