A new twit joins Twitter

After months of vowing not to, I've joined Twitter. Many, many people said it would be a good way to keep the brand in the public eye. I'm not sure about that just yet, but I had the same view about blogging before becoming a blogger.

After a few minutes of absorbing other people's "tweets," I've discovered that Twitter seems to be far more than a bunch of twits telling each other what they're doing now, like clueless technomopes trying out their new cell phones.

Quite a few writers issue random but interesting thoughts about their trade, about other writers, about literature in general, about sparks of creativity. (My first official tweet was "'Exsanguination.' Just learned that last night. Great word for a mystery novel.")

Ron Charles, a respected critic at the Washington Post, tweeted that he had been promoted to the No. 2 spot at its book review section. That's big news in the ever shrinking pond of newspaper arts coverage.

One guy seems to tweet every five minutes, like a garrulous old fart at the dining table.

But this has possibilities, it does.

My handle on Twitter, if you're interested, is "HenryKisor." Clever, eh? [Right now Twitter is having internal problems and my name doesn't come up in a search. Try http://twitter.com/HenryKisor for now.]

LATER WEDNESDAY: Following a small network of writerly tweets this morning led me to an Utne Reader article from 2005 that I'd never seen before, but which deserves resurrection: novelist Steve Almond's jolly primer on how to write a sex scene.

THURSDAY: Literary journalist Sarah Weinman asks, in a piece for Poets & Writers, "Are authors who Twitter any fitter?"