When I get exasperated with social networking, I often think of that poor bewildered character, “Jack.”

You know the guy ― the protagonist in the children’s nursery rhyme, “The House that Jack Built.”

If you need a refresher of the rhyme, you’ll find it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_the_House_That_Jack_Built

So there Jack was, sitting comfy-cozy in his house in 1500s England, minding his own business and stockpiling a mountain of malt, for whatever odd reason, when along comes this crazy rat.

Before you know it, that rat sets off a colorful series of events which Jack must experience before he can relax and appreciate his house once again.

In due course, the rat is killed by a cat which is worried by a dog, which is tossed by a cow with a crumpled horn, and on and on, until a priest all shaven and shorn conducts a quickie marriage between a man all tattered and torn and a maiden all forlorn.

I like weddings, so, I suppose the hoopla that Jack had to go through was worth it in the end, but I doubt that it seemed like it at the time to the poor man.

He was bewildered.  And so am I…at least when it comes to social networking for the novel I’ve written.

Quite frankly, I just want to toss that novel out into the world and let the masses discover it, while I am left alone to enjoy my privacy.

But nooooooo. 

It has to undergo a convoluted series of events, just like Jack’s rhyme.  Now remember, Jack’s story was a cumulative tale that doesn’t even tell the story of Jack’s house or of Jack who built the house, but instead it talks about Jack’s indirect links to other people and other things.

And so it is with this thing called social networking… all this indirect hoopla and hype and drum banging and hand wringing we writers must go through just to draw attention to our work.  (Apparently it’s not cool to plead, “Please buy my book!”)

So the new rhyme would go something like this:

The Novel that Debra Wrote

Phew!

And that, dear readers, is why writers complain about never having time to write.

Now, as the comedians say, I told you that story to tell you this one:

True confessions — I actually enjoy my blog and Twitter and Facebook!

Honest.

So, writers, if you’re wondering, “Should I…Shouldn’t I…”, my advice is to give it a try.

I’ve learned so much through the experience.

I’ve made new friends, discovered a world beyond the writing life, touched lives, shared prayer and praise, laughed at myself.

The problem is that if you start these activities with the goal of developing a following, as I did, you will soon either fail at it or get bored with it because all that you’ll be doing is delivering banal, shallow, empty noise.

However, if you approach it with the idea of establishing true connections with like-minded individuals, and engaging yourself in helping or influencing others, then you’ll soon find yourself surrounded with new virtual friends who can help to make your trips around the sun a lot more enjoyable.

And isn’t that why we write in the first place?

“Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn’t wait to get to work in the morning:  I wanted to know what I was going to say.”~Sharon O’Brien