Robots retweeting robots to no-one

Do you do Twitter in person?  I'm not talking about scheduling tweets via Hootsuite and Tweetdeck - for a busy person who only gets to use Twitter at the weekends, this makes sense.  I'm talking about the 'bots' that do the the RTs for you as well, and who, in effect, have control over your profile.  

You've seen those tweets tweets saying  "Use @SomeCrapApp and make Twitter work better for you", or "Contributed tweets for @PersonWhoCan'tBeArsed are delivered by @SomeDumbRobot, and various other similar statements.

Please, please DON'T be tempted to sign up for these things.  


I don't know exactly how they work, but I believe that if you sign up for them, they RT tweets from the users you nominate. Certain words or hashtags can be nominated, too.  Your chosen robot will RT something by them every hour, or whatever - but it can't discriminate between promotional tweets and conversation.  The other morning I noticed that 27 people (sorry, not people - I mean profiles worked by @SomeCrapApp) had RTd me saying 'thank you' to someone.  If you sign up, at least half the tweets it RTs for you will be conversational.  

So who uses them?  People who are trying to promote something.   They think that if they do 200 RTs a day, all those people will RT them back, and therefore spread the word about their product far and wide.  Sounds great, doesn't it?  Free marketing, without you even lifting a finger.  Yes, you're right - it's too good to be true. 

These are the reasons why you shouldn't use retweeting apps:

• If your followers are constantly bombarded with pointless RTs, they are more likely to unfollow you than buy your product.  Too many RTs is one of the main reasons profiles get unfollowed.
• If you are RTing someone's bits of random conversation, all you will do is annoy the person.  You are unlikely to get an RT back.  I never RT back the profiles who use these apps, even the ones who catch my promotional tweets, too.  I know many others who don't.  Many people block the users who are constantly RTing their conversation.  
• Twitter is a social networking site.  Marketing is about communication and interaction, not robotic advertising that isn't even targeted properly.  
• If you are never actually on Twitter, but just use these apps, what if someone asks you something about your product?  You won't know; before I understood what these things were, I thought they were just being rude when they didn't answer.   They weren't - they just hadn't seen it.  I, fool that I am, was just talking to @SomeCrapApp

How do you know if people use these things?  When you look in their timeline they will have nothing but tweets by other people, with the occasional one saying "Contributed tweets provided by @SomeDumbRobot", or something like the ones I mentioned in the first paragraph.  Worse - this isn't even a tweet sent out by the person, because they think that these apps are just so damn good they want to tell the world - @SomeCrapApp sends its own advertising tweets out along with yours.  Look on their 'tweets and replies'.  There will be no conversation.

I will just say one thing - I know that a few people who are very busy do use @SomeCrapApp to do some RTs, but still appear on Twitter to interact, answer messages, etc, so they can be forgiven for the occasional RT of me saying "Oh yes, I agree" to someone.  This isn't about you!

There are some @SomeDumbRobot users who RT me several times a day, every day. Are they sitting there in their non-Twitterly homes, chuckling as they imagine all those people like me clicking on their profiles and spreading the word out to their (in my case) 42K followers about their super-duper products, while they sit back, watch the ball game and eat pizza? Well, I have news for you, oh robotic ones! I never RT you. You're spreading the word about me, that's all... except they're probably only spreading it to other @SomeCrapApp users, ie, no-one, as most of the 'real' people will have unfollowed them by now.   All my Tweets twittering around all day, seen by nobody....as one writer friend said to me, if we're not careful Twitter will soon become robots retweeting robots to no-one. Which is why I'm writing this article!



Here's the good news!

If you still want to follow someone but don't want to see their retweets, just go to their page, and click on the little cog-like symbol next to 'following'. There, it gives you the option to turn the retweets off.  

Remember - even if you can only spend 20 minutes a few times a week on Twitter, it is far, far better than churning out 200 robot RTs a day.

On trolley rage.... and more....

My 'Morrissons Rage' takes several forms, and is experienced on a weekly basis, so I thought I'd get it all out of my system here, now, and be done with it.  


(For readers outside the UK, Morrissons is a supermarket)

Firstly, why do they keep hiding stuff???  Not being able to find the vegetarian gravy granules doesn't mean that I will go "Ooh look, they've put butterscotch sauce where the vegetarian gravy granules used to be, and it looks yummy! I'll buy some of that, too, before I spend ten minutes trying to find an assistant to tell me where they've hidden the gravy granules!"   No, it means that if it happens ONCE MORE, I shall do my impression of Michael Douglas in McDonalds in 'Falling Down', when they refuse to sell him a McBreakfast Whatever, two minutes after they officially stop serving breakfast.

I can't, however, repeat my much repeated moan about 'up-selling' ("and would you like any stamps or top ups?  A family sized tub of lard?  A DVD that you'd pay a tenner NOT to watch, for just a fiver?"), because Mozzers doesn't seem to be too bad with this at the moment (unlike Greggs, who offered me a vast amount of doughnuts for a quid when I went in to buy 2 stotties this morning).  So I shall concentrate my grumpiness on the OUTSIDE, instead.

People outside supermarkets:  Generally speaking, if you see someone walking towards you, pushing something large, cumbersome and heavy, it kinda makes sense to move out of their way, instead of standing there with a gormless expression on your face and waiting for THEM to move out of YOUR way, doesn't it? 

......I'm guessing they're relatives of the people who allow their kids to run amok inside the shop..... and the ones who stop for a chat mid-aisle, their trolleys forming a barrier....

Oh yes, inside the shop again - and it's about SELF-SERVICE CHECKOUTS.  I don't know supermarket management hasn't cottoned on: queue of 15 people at the one till that's in operation.  5 self-service checkouts, only 3 of which are occupied.  Du-uh.  I know some people like them, but more don't.  Unless the people around where I live are particularly lazy, of course.  

And don't get me started on the taxi drivers on the way home, who don't grasp from your polite yet two syllable only answers that you don't feel like chatting.  As Humphrey Bogart said to the taxi driver in 'Dark Passage': "I'm paying you for the ride.  If you want a friend, get a dog" (or similar!).

Every time I come back from the weekly shop I vow to shop online from now on. Every week when my husband sees me writing my shopping list and getting my 'bags for life' out, he says "I thought you were going to do it online from now on?".

I suppose I've only myself to blame, really....

It's new book time again....

I've just finished another novel, which is currently with my first test/proofreader.  After that there will be more revisions, another test read, etc., etc.; the whole process does take a long time!  It's a bit longer than my others, at 125K words (the others are between 85 and 95K).


I'll tell you more about it nearer the time, but for now I'll just say that if you like relationship orientated contemporary drama, romantic suspense and family saga, you will like KINGS AND QUEENS ~ and if you are interested in these people, you will like it even more!

It's all over....

..... yes, the woman I once was has checked out, left the building and may never be seen again.  


Today I did it.  I tried not to, and my hand hovered over them for many moments before I took them off the rack and put them into my trolley.  But I did it.  I succumbed.

I bought some BIG KNICKERS.

Alas, the days of the lacy mini brief, the high leg, and the 'no VPL' thongs are now history, because I have become the woman who looks at the selection of underwear in the shop, and chooses the full brief.

.....and most of us don't look anything like this airbrushed picture of a model in them, do we?

I've laughed through the fact that I haven't bought high heeled shoes for eight years, that my daily footwear of choice is hugh white furry boot slippers, and that I live in baggy patterned trousers and t-shirts, like a refugee from the Glastonbury of 20 years ago.  Yet still I was hanging on to the last smidgens of making an effort.

Until the BIG KNICKERS.

(I have a feeling they're going to be one of the best finds of my life, like the furry boot slippers.  Ssh!  It's just between you and me, okay?)

Welcome to ICAA - Ice Cream Addicts Anonymous!!!

I've had it for breakfast, I've craved it in the middle of the afternoon, I've stood in the supermarket and thought, just don't buy it.  If it's not in the house, I can't eat it.  I'm okay if I don't take that first scoop. But I know beating this monkey on my back takes just one day at a time - and I am proud to announce that yesterday I DIDN'T HAVE ANY ICE CREAM!

I can now admit it at last - Hi, I'm Terry, and I'm an ice cream addict! 

Just because Bradley Cooper does it, it's not okay!  Thank goodness for ICAA ~ if you're an addict too, or think you might be, just take a look at the twelve step recovery plan, borrowed from Alcoholics Anoymous but made relevant to ice cream fiends everywhere.....

ICAA - The Twelve Steps

(We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable) 

We admitted we were powerless over ice cream - that our lives had become unmanageable when faced with a tub of Carte D'or salted caramel.

(We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity)

We came to believe that a Power greater than our fridge freezer could restore us to a size 12.


(We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him) 

We made a decision to turn our sweet tooth and helpless desire for Eton Mess at 3 in the morning over to the care of our loved ones, who agreed to padlock the freezer during night time hours.


(We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves) 

We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of how much we'd spent on Haagen Dazs in the last twelve months.


(We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs) 

We admitted to our best pal, to ourselves and to another human being (or the cat) the exact nature of our gluttony.


(We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character) 

We were entirely ready to have our loved ones remove all half eaten tubs of Rum and Raisin.


(We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings)

We humbly asked them to remove the Weightwatchers Toffee Caramel Sundaes, too.


(We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.)

We made a list of all persons whose share of Raspberry Ripple we had eaten, and became willing to make amends to them all.


(We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others)

We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would encourage them to be total ice cream monsters, too.


(We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it)

We continued to take personal inventory and when we were caught buying a White Chocolate Magnum, promptly admitted it.

(We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out)

We sought through prayer and willpower to improve our conscious contact with the fruit section in the supermarket as we understood it, praying only for knowledge of its nutritional value for us and the power to make tempting fruit salads.


(Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs)

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps (cross fingers), we tried to carry this message to other Cornetto worshippers and to practice these principles at night time when we're having a film binge.

Do what I did - if you think it's becoming a problem, beyond your control, seek help with ICAA - or, a year from now, this could be you!!

~~~

Good luck - don't end up like Britney...

or Ozzy....

Eleven signs that you're not just GETTING old - you've GOT THERE!

• At last, you understand why your aged parents like watching Miss Marple and Dad's Army...

• You go to do something like put the washing on, and discover you actually put it on about five minutes ago, though you have absolutely no recollection of doing so.

• You fancy a cup of tea and a toasted teacake when you come back from shopping.

• You think back fondly to the times of no internet and mobile phones, and tell people that it was much better, then.

• Instead of leaping forward with a bright smile and your best pose, you now avoid cameras.  And mirrors.

• You try on the sexy high heels you haven't worn for some years, and wonder why on earth you ever put yourself through it.

• Since you last went to a wedding, you've been to at least five funerals.

• A younger friend shows you the new 'retro' style she can do on her new camera - and it makes her photos look just like all those ones in your photo album, of you when you were her age...

(and you actually have photo albums, too...)

• You are unaffected by pop culture, fashion and social trends as you've seen it all before, and know it's all just cyclical, anyway.

• All the actors you fancy are at least 45...
• 

• You've smiled and nodded to at least half of these, and have your own to add, too!

My top 5 independently published books of 2013

.....and I've read a fair few this year

These are the five I liked best; with all of them I was able to read without my 'editing head', which for me is a sign that a book is really well written. All of these are, in my opinion, good enough for traditional publishing - I'm not saying that a professional editor might not make the odd change, but the authors of these books can really WRITE!

One short story, one novella, one factual account and two novels - and I don't recommend lightly, these are all books that I genuinely think deserve more recognition.  None of them will break the bank, either - two are under a quid.


I have given the Amazon UK link only, as most of my blog and Twitter followers are from the UK, but the books are available on all Amazon sites. I've also chosen not to copy and paste the blurb or my full reviews of the books, not because I'm lazy but because you can read both by clicking on the link!  In the meantime, I'll just say a few words...

Without further ado and in no particular order:

THE PURPOSE OF A MAN by Daniel Brevitt

Lad lit and contemporary drama at its absolute best - knocks the socks off a couple of those by bestselling traditionally published writers of the same genre I've read this year. Under-promoted, little known and sitting on a dusty back shelf of Amazon waiting to be read by YOU!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Purpose-Man-Daniel-Brevitt-ebook/dp/B00CVFBPJ2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387790579&sr=1-1&keywords=the+purpose+of+a+man

X by Jack Croxall

Unusual and shocking post-apocalyptic short story that should have been at least novelette sized!  Because I would have liked to read more, I mean - it's perfectly executed as it is.  If you like films like '28 Days Later', get this!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/X-Jack-Croxall-ebook/dp/B00EYMXTJ4/ref=la_B00BBX48NK_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387789632&sr=1-2

LIFE'S A DITCH by Charles Dougherty

I adored this account of Charles and Leslie Dougherty's first experience of running away to sea (I mean living on their houseboat!) - and not in the first flush of youth, either! I've read bits of this quite a few times - it's fascinating, funny, thought provoking - good stuff!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lifes-Ditch-Charles-Dougherty-ebook/dp/B00AODXQSG/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387789753&sr=1-1&keywords=Life%27s+A+Ditch

THE HIGHLANDER by Zoe Saadia

Zoe Saadia is an expert on pre-Columbian history, which I greatly respect anyway, but she can't half write a good bit of fiction, too!  This is a cracking tale, and the style reminded me of some parts of the Game of Thrones series.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Highlander-Rise-Aztecs-book-ebook/dp/B009CCBCU4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387789671&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Highlander+Zoe+Saadia

ONE STREET OVER by Kimberley Biller

Please excuse the straight-from-Amazon picture of the cover, I couldn't find another!  Ms Biller was my surprise find of this year.  I'd read the sequel to this, The Tree In The Front Yard, and immediately fell in love with Sissy, the 11 year old, dirt poor Southern US heroine.  I liked this one even more.  The author writes as Sissy would talk, and it works, brilliantly.  A natural story-teller.



http://www.amazon.co.uk/ONE-STREET-OVER-Kimberly-Biller-ebook/dp/B00FHBG1WI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387795583&sr=1-1&keywords=One+Street+Over

Moving Out - a short story

This story was written in 1995 and was originally to be included in my short story collection, Nine Lives, but I rejected it.  It would've need a complete rewrite to bring it up to date and sharpen it up, but I thought it was worthy of a blog appearance!
Nine Lives is free from Sunday 16~Wednesday 19 August 2015 ~ click here

MOVING OUT -

a story about leaving home and growing up....

Time to go.

She zips up her suitcase and takes a last look around the bedroom, a pretty, frilly room, decorated in a style she has long outgrown.  Then, turning to gaze out of the window, she pictures the flat she hopes to buy once she has found her feet.  A flat furnished to her own taste, with dramatic splashes of colour.  In this flat she will laugh and cry and live, she will find a social life and entertain her friends, all by herself.  In this flat she will grow up.  For nineteen years she has lived according to someone else’s rules, but now it is time to break free.

She lights a cigarette and watches the stream of grey smoke drift across the room.  He doesn’t like her to smoke.  Well, that’s too bad.  He seems almost pleased when he catches her, so that he can tell her off, as if she is still a child.

He.  Him.  Victorian Father.  That’s what he is.  The restrictive, demanding, nagging presence who wants to stunt her development.  Enough is enough.  She feels guilty about planning her departure with such secrecy, but there is no other way. 

When did the rot begin to set in?  Two years ago, she thinks, when she wanted to enrol on a college course - and he used every one of his persuasive powers to prevent her from doing so.

“Why on earth do you want to mix with a crowd of silly students?” he’d demanded, rustling his newspaper and lighting his pipe (that pipe!  How she hates it!).  “Think of all that studying!” he said.  “You’ll never cope with it!”

She has read articles in women’s magazines like Cosmo and Company, and is beginning to understand the male ego.  She hides these magazines in the same way as men hide porn, reading only her innocent romance novels with alpha male heroes and ditzy heroines when he is around, but her secret stash has taught her a lot.  She knows about men, now, all men.  He likes her to feel helpless so that she can see him as the Great Provider.  Big Daddy.  He is scared of losing her, so he wants her to believe she cannot cope on her own. 

She has had enough of their quiet, closed, stifling existence.  Just the two of them.  It used to be enough, but now it isn’t.  He discourages her from making friends.  Doesn’t he provide her with all she needs?  If she wants something she only has to ask!  Yes, she can have anything she wants – apart from the freedom to express her own personality.  Maybe she should blame the generation gap, she thinks, and laughs to herself.  Men of his generation don’t acknowledge such a thing exists.  They think it’s just an excuse for younger people’s lack of respect, but it’s not.

She opens a cupboard and looks, without regret, at the few possessions she is leaving behind.  She doesn’t feel they are truly hers, because she chose so few of them herself, not even the clothes.  He likes her to dress like her mother did.  She wants to wear jeans and funky tops, not pretty frocks.  His little girl.

“But I’m not a girl, I’m a woman!” she says, out loud, to the reflection in the wardrobe mirror.  A girl would stay put, safe, unchallenged, cared for, but the emerging woman in her head dares to break free.  She feels sad because she loves him, of course she does, but she is more frightened of the consequences of staying than of the big, bad world outside. 

She lifts the handle on her case and, on impulse, leaves her cigarettes and lighter on the dressing table.  She will give up smoking, because she won’t need it anymore.  She won’t feel frustrated and hemmed in, in her new life.  She walks out onto the landing.  Before closing the bedroom door behind her she glances in one last time.  She is shutting the door on her childhood.  This makes her smile, and she hopes many more things will make her smile when she steps out into her brave new world.

Down the stairs, out onto the street.  She breathes in the air and feels spring-like, despite the cold November drizzle.  Now she must walk; wisely, she has decided not to splash out on a taxi to take her to the station.  Managing her own finances will be another thing she will have to learn, but learn it she must.  Better to be poor but independent than shielded from the world by those overpowering arms. 

She walks down to the bus stop, her hand closed tightly around the train ticket in her pocket.  Her ticket to freedom, and life as a fully-fledged adult.  She is scared but happy, and proud of herself. 

She should have listened to her mother after all. 

Marrying a man twenty-five years older than herself was never going to work, long-term; finally, at the age of thirty-seven, she has found the courage to grow up.

~~~~~

If you would like to read more of my stories, Nine Lives is only 77p or $1.25!  Here are the links to Amazon UK and Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nine-Lives-Terry-Tyler-ebook/dp/B00GQFDSI4/ref=pd_sim_b_5

http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Lives-Terry-Tyler-ebook/dp/B00GQFDSI4/ref=la_B00693EGKM_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387104551&sr=1-1

Christmas Desperation....

"Are you ready for Christmas?" 

My father and I place bets on how early we will be asked that question, each year.  I expect my first one will happen in the hairdressers on Friday. I will pretend I haven't heard it.  (I'm not, by the way).

Well, then - are you?  No, I don't really want to know.  Every year we hear that the seasonal retail figures for 'the high street' are disappointing - especially in recent years, now that more and more people are shopping online.  The shops are getting desperate - and it shows.

Where I live, the shopping centre is open air.  Yesterday I walked through it, on only November 26th, to the tune of Wizzard's "I wish it could be Christmas every day".  I couldn't get away from it.  Look, I didn't want to hear that banal, tired song in 1973 when it came out, and I certainly haven't wanted to hear it for every one of the 40 years since. How, pray, do the shops think this will entice me in?  The same goes for the clothes stores with horrible reindeer sweaters in the window, and every single emporium trying to orientate its wares towards present giving; even Wilkinsons (where you go for your cheapo kitchen cleaner and shampoo) claimed to have the perfect Christmas gifts for all the family ("a handy kitchen gadget for Mum, and don't forget that garden tool for Dad!"). A girl in a red fleece wearing reindeer antlers stood at the door trying to spray me with perfume as I walked past.  I only wanted a notepad and a pack of biros.  

As for the supermarkets who start pushing overpriced chocolates and packets of red candles at you as soon as you start taking-a-cardigan-with-you-because-those-late-summer-evenings-can-get-a-bit-nippy ~ don't get me started, especially not now that people moaning about it begins as early as Christmas product promotion every year, and I'm as guilty of this as everyone else.  I find the whole thing so desperate and so ghastly that this year, guess what?  I'm not going to go out shopping again until January.  I'm going to be one of those who shops online, instead.  

I think it was buying bleach and loo paper to the sound of Elton John's appalling "Step Into Christmas" that sent me over the edge...