Gratitude journal: Readers live-tweeting my book

Tonight I am thankful for the enthusiastic readers who have been engaging in a new form of live tweeting whereby they send me tweets as they make their way through my latest book, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. My first two books, Something Missing and Unexpectedly, Milo, were published during Twitter’s infancy, so I had decidedly less contact with readers via social media. Back then (just two and four years ago), email was the primary way that readers contacted me, and a few even wrote letters longhand. But today, I am only a tweet away, and readers are taking advantage it.

This afternoon, readers in the UK and Australia tweeted about their experience with novel thus far, sharing their thoughts and feelings about the book at that very moment with me. One reader told me that she was experiencing an overwhelming sense of dread over what might happen next in the story (she was about halfway finished), and the other was nearing the end of the book and was “terrified” by the potential outcome.

She actually stopped reading in order to drink some coffee and calm down before finishing.

I’m hoping it was decaf.

The enthusiasm and excitement of these readers and their willingness to engage me in their reading process humbles me. I am so very grateful for their efforts to reach out and allow me to join them on their journey through my story.

It is a brave new world in which readers and authors can so easily co-mingle, and I like it a lot.