I Know I Look Twibble, But I Am Getting a Hair Cut. Tweet Tweet @MarcHoag

I came late to the Twitter-sphere. I remember an undergraduate trying to talk me into the power of Tweeting back in 2008 and I simply thought, "What do we need a 140 character platform form?" Still, I knew I was going to write everyday, because I've done that since I was 19 years old (I'm 45). After doing the Louisville Writing Project in 2001, I moved from text-only journaling, to writer's notebooks and then, in 2009, a high school student told me, "You should try blogging."

"What's that?" I asked. I thought I'd give it a try and for 365 days I wrote about happiness. The trend followed for the next 9 years focused on different themes (quirkiness, community, commodity, etc), equaling 10 years of blogging and transitioning to thinking daily not only for my own sake, but for the sake of an audience beyond my own id, ego and superego. Why hog my thoughts to myself? Right?

I used to kid that some days I had one reader (thanks, Mom) and other days I had 1,000s. Then I read about TwitterFeed and I thought, "hmmm. What if I Tweeted out my blog in addition to blogging?" The result was that every morning 140 characters started my day. The number of readers continued and I was in awe of how many individuals my writing actual reached. Alas, the free TwitterFeed disappeared, but they wrote an email recommending Twibble. It charged a reasonable fee for the feed and so that is who I have been going with ever since.

Yesterday, I was contacted by Marc Hoag of Twibble about an inquiry I made with posts. He asked questions about my experience and I simply said, "Let me blog about it."

Here's what I can assert. My go-to audience will always be family, teachers, students, schools, the National Writing Project, the National Council of English, literacy researchers, and anyone interested in my daily reflections. I love knowing that every day I write, and the Twibble group Tweets out what I had to say, keeping my writing routine and with an active audience (Readers for 2017 haven't been updated...I usually do it at the end of the year).

I don't have a huge number of followers, but I do believe that my daily tweet, now via Twibble, helps me to make my daily thinking available to the Twittersphere. I know Marc's father is an academic, and I also know that academics would not find such writing valuable to scholarship and empirical studies, but I find it therapeutic and as a platform that works for me. I couldn't be happier.

I finger tap on the keyboard piano on a daily basis and if it catches the attention of one person each day, then I know my online writing is effective. Before, my writing journals were for me and my shelves. Here, I'm able to share my humanity a little more with a larger community.

It's Ubuntu.

It works.

And when there isn't a daily post, I'm shocked my how many people text and email me to say, "Where's your blog today? Is everything okay?"

I am, because we are. Thanks, Twibble (even if I have a Twibble headache from the stress of a new year - that's a Tweety Bird joke, I'm sure you've heard it all before).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DYLAN! Keep Writing Your Stories online, too!