I admitted a while back that been extra distracted of late and
my mood has altered very little since. I’m still here in a house I can’t sell feeling
stuck, thinking my life will never change for the better!
To that end I’ve been avoiding the real world, hiding my
paperwork and trying to escape the overwhelming grief that is so stubborn it won’t
go!
However I know from past experience that my moods are
subject to change very quickly and this can’t last much longer can it?
And while I wait for some excitement in my life there is
always Twitter, my latest favourite waste of time!
Only a few months ago I decided to give up Twitter altogether
just because I was getting bored with it and couldn’t see the point of
following the people I did.
My timeline then was filled mostly with two sorts of people
·
Writers promoting their latest blogs posts/
books/stories and I don’t feel like a “writer” anymore. Was I ever? Isn’t it
all just hype spinning out of control?
·
And Christians expounding lots of wisdom that I
didn’t always want to hear. God may have a plan for me but he is keeping it so
secret I am totally frustrated to the point of falling out with him on a daily
basis!
In the end I didn’t delete my account, somehow I knew I’d
have a change of heart and in the last few months I have added a third group of
people I follow and who follow me - my #Musketeer friends.
And I hold my hands
up and admit I now spend so much time on Twitter my best friend has to tweet me
to get my attention because I don’t always answer her texts!
It all started with conversations about which musketeer/actor
we fancied most – we are like a bunch of giggly schoolgirls sometimes and it is so
good to laugh and daydream – I’ve reverted to being a teenager again!
It’s crazy to think they would be too old for me if I were
still a teenager and they are far too young now I am somewhere in my forties (let’s
just leave my exact age out of this - I've told you before anyway!)
But over the last few weeks I’ve discovered something else new
to me on Twitter that I never knew existed – Role Play.
Some people have special Role Play accounts and pretend to
actually be the Musketeers and other assorted historical characters.
Now one of my friends sternly raises her eyebrows at this,
concerned that I am chatting to the wrong kind of men! She always has been
suspicious whereas I am probably too naïve and trusting.
I promise her I will be careful and not get carried away…too
far! It’s a bit of harmless flirting and quite honestly I could use the
practice! Most are university students, some are older and a few have admitted
being single but you never know for sure what's true and what's not (inside or outside the brackets)!
It is fun, reading Musketeer storylines played out, the writing is usually excellent and has you on the edge of your seat as you wait for the next tweet to appear. Meanwhile
another thread weaves in and out of the timeline made up of those of us reading
and making comments.
Sometimes us “real” people even get to join in and it gets confusing,
it’s sad, it’s funny, sometimes poignant and often very sexy *blushes* - I am
learning lots.
I’m not sure I can explain it all very well without if
sounding, well just a bit strange to the uninitiated. My real life friends shake their heads at my
new found hobby but they know only too well it will probably be another passing
phase, another step along my grief journey perhaps, another way I try to mend
my broken heart or at least fill in the gaps.
Consequently I have
become a part of yet another on line community who at this moment in time are
encouraging me, supporting me and mostly making me smile. That’s got to be a
good thing.
In return hopefully I am being as encouraging and giving out
as much as I receive because as people open up you can see underneath we are
all the same - aching, hurting, needing - and Twitter is such a great way to
communicate succinctly, dispensing positive thoughts like drops of April
showers.
And I’ve found it easy to just drop into a conversation that
I will pray about something. It’s not a glib comment I truly mean it and if
people want to ask me more about my Christianity they can. Yes my faith is a little
shaky at the present time but it’s still there under pinning everything, it
always will be.
I think carefully about what I tweet and try not to get
myself into controversial situations I feel uncomfortable with.
So now my Twitter timeline is made up of Musketeer fans, who
make me smile, Christians who regularly challenge me and writers who remind me that once
I wanted to write too and even if my words only fill 140 characters I think it’s
good to remember that that is still writing!
It is so strangely addictive on Twitter and as a role player with so many characters throughout history and literature to play, my friends also think I'm mad. Yet it is such a release to be able to tease out stories and events from fiction and non fiction books that I have read over my "many" years. It is no different from being lost in that book you can not put down except on Twitter you pick up friends and ideas that both challenge and excite you..
ReplyDeleteTrue, you don't really know who or what sort of person lies behind the role players mask: but are we not all "strutting and fretting our hour upon the stage"?.
A role player can not help but bring part of themselves into their writing and although they will try to interpret characterisation, the best role players will choose roles that they can relate to, thus draw on own experiences to highlight key traits.
So look carefully at who people choose to play and how they interpret them. There is no wrong or right way to play them...just more intuitive or perceptive interpretations.
Ahh...the release from 140 characters..feels like freedom!