The Leviathan At Rest

I've had an account with Twitter for ages - follow me @niallalot for regular updates on the blog and other random thoughts as and when they occur - but before The Speculative Scotsman launched I really only used it to send cheeky tweets to my other, better half; you know the like. She, on the other hand, used Twitter largely to demand some delicious soya-based treat or other for dinner, or to remind me to clean out Nothing's cage - that's our budgie, incidentally.

Now I'd always despised social networking, but I see now that was largely only for the people I'd ended up networking with on the rare occasions I'd dipped my toes into the great array of MyFace and Spacebook pages. Being relatively new to the whole blogging game, I didn't expect Twitter to be such an incredible tool. The recent tweets widget on the sidebar there was just a passing notion; I didn't expect it to open doors, either for me or for the site, nor for it to be such a fine way of trading links, keeping up on the news I actually care about and chatting with like-minded people. I've never enjoyed social networking, not ever - to this day, the first thing I'll do after a clean Windows install is kill MSN's instant messenger stone damn dead - but Twitter, curiously... Twitter I've come to rely on.

So when I wake up of a morning, say goodbye to the loveliest girlfriend in all the land and sit down with a steaming cup of coffee to draught and re-draught my first tweet with the day stretching out before me, you can imagine my surprise that Twitter politely advises me it's over capacity, that there are - wait for it - "too many tweets".

I'm sure this has happened before, and no doubt it'll happen again. I just wanted to share my boggled morning mind with you all.

While I have your attention, however, you'd do well to pop on over to Stomping on Yeti for a read of Lost, but Not In Translation, an excellent round-table discussion of the power of setting in fiction with a particular interest in the expectations of readers who've never experienced the US cities in question first-hand. Needless to say, Patrick was kind enough to ask for the participation of The Speculative Scotsman, who is, you might have surmised, not very American at all, as well as Amanda of Floor to Ceiling Books and the great Aidan, who bleeds literature on a regular basis over at A Dribble of Ink. All told, it makes for some fine, insightful reading.

Now, back to twiddling my thumbs until Twitter gets its act together. And remember to follow @niallalot for more idle banter and my speculations about speculative fiction.