The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl- Volume 76: I’m Bringing BLOVI Back
I will begin by answering the burning questions you most likely have after my absence from the blog scene. One, I have not been blogging because I have been writing a book. Two, I am still single. Three, there has been and will not be, at least for many years, any change in my sight. Four, if you want to know what has happened in the eight months since I stopped the blog you are just going to have to read the book. I am a moving forward type of gal, but you already know that. This week I will dispense with my usual blog format, which will be back next week and start with a few random thoughts I have been having lately. Then onto the focus of the blog, my first experiences on Twitter as a virgin tweeter.
I recently discovered the Harlem Shake. It is all over the Net. My daughter made me watch something like 20 Harlem Shake videos on YouTube while she giggled and then insisted we reproduce the Harlem Shake in my office. It is not that much fun with two people and I could only pretend I was working unawares of her dancing and then popping up only so many times. I think I have added a new item to my bucket list and that is to start the Harlem Shake in a public place. So my plan is to go to a crowded local bar and stand up and just start doing those lazy like dancing moves and see what others do. Actually this is where visual impairment helps out. I won’t really be able to see how many people are doing it or if everyone is just staring at me and if someone asks me what I am doing I can just say I thought I saw some others dancing and was just participating cause I don't see so well. No matter what it cannot turn out badly.
I have also encountered or maybe rediscovered a new female excuse for just plain old bitchy behavior, PMS. Recently I have heard two different guys tell stories of how they forgave women for their cra cra (a new and favorite phrase) behavior because they later said they were PMS'ing. So, I could really make this work for me for two reasons; I feel I have full blown PMDD and somewhere in my house I have that blind person white cane. With this combination I can maybe, just maybe, get away with some really good ranting and raving and a few accidently well placed blows by the white cane of course using the I did not mean to do that I just can’t see very well and misjudged the trajectory of my cane and the distance to your crotch area. And in addition I am PMDD’ing and can’t be held accountable for anything I have said or done here. Of course I would never, ever do that.
Yesterday I found out about and applied for the new National Library Service Talking Books Program for us kind of blind or blind folks where we can now finally, in 2013, get digital versions of books for FREE. In 2010 when I had my accident I received the most fantastic yellow 10 pound cassette tape player and then upgraded to a unit which resembled a smaller version of an eight track player. So I ignored the Talking Book Service and the written catalog of books they sent me written in 10 point font (makes sense, right) and continued to pay for my downloads. Much progress has been made in these last 2.5 years, the NLS has gone digital. Alas, there is always a catch when things are free and here it is; the file format is not compatible with I Pads, Kindles. Nooks, any type of smart phone or any type of computer or any other technology you may already have in use. No, you get a special player from the NLS and I know what this means. I am guessing it is something that weighs over five pounds and somehow resembles a 1980’s Walkman. Because I happen to know that the more compact versions cost big bucks. But I am confident that there is an app that will convert these files to be used on an I Pad because there is an app for everything. Now all I need is an I Pad.
Where I am now is writing a blog about a book that is kind of based on this blog. The book, all 98,000 words and 298 pages of it must somehow make it into the literary world and I had no clue how to make that happen, newbie that I am. Gone are the good old days of sending your manuscript out to publishers and waiting for rejection letters. My creative coach says you must go out into social media and find your tribe and create interest. Oh how fun because you know how much I love social media networking. And the place to do this is the foreign land of Twitter. I don’t tweet, I cheat tweet, which means I linked my Life By Design Coaching Page on Facebook to Twitter so that my posts are tweets. I think I logged into Twitter once to set this up. I hear about tweeting, know about followers and think I should be concerned about being beat to the tweet, but was never sure about the actual purpose of tweeting or how people can convey their thoughts in such few words. But since tweeting is necessary, I complied and set up a personal account on Twitter (I am supposed to now say something like Follow me on Twitter-LisabethMedlock).
I am frustrated with the blandness of the profile page because I just can't make it look non-boring and for some reason it won’t let me change my profile picture. I will continue to work on the overall design scheme. Then I was supposed to look for agents and publishers that published books similar to mine or memoirs in general so I started doing that and following them on Twitter, hoping beyond hope that some would follow me back. So far, after 4 days I have 22 followers and maybe a few are legit. Then I am supposed to tweet five times a week. If tweeting meant something else I would have no problem with that number, but what the heck am I going to say in two sentences or less for five days especially given it is supposed to be commenting on books and have links to interesting, pithy and easily consumable bites of information. It just seems like a lot of work, but I am doing it. I am not really sure about the quality of my tweets and given I can’t see so well there are bound to be misspellings, some which could result in utter chaos or bring me a huge following. Think about it, there is only one letter that could change where to whore.
I probably need to take the time to do a Twitter workshop or look up how to get followers or ask a fellow successful tweeter how it is done, but I seem to have a low tolerance for learning curves. This has also been the reason why I am not such a good visually impaired technology consumer, because I refuse to use a smart phone (after the Siri just does not understand me incident) or learn how to zoom or do Voice Over in I Pad. The learning curve is something I am bored with, so, if you have any advice for me in my new foray into the world of Twitter, get in touch with me or tweet me or Facebook me or e-mail me or text me or hell maybe even pick up a phone and call me. If there is a cheat sheet or Crib notes I will also take those.
My next steps in the what I am calling “12 weeks to get an agent who will think my book and I rock Plan” is to produce a book proposal, so you will be hearing about that. And next week I am going to my first assistive technology forum. What this translates to is that I can play with stuff that is really useful to people like me but ultimately costs tons of money. Let’s hope I am wrong. And I am sure, as at this moment I am in day 18 of a 19 day fast, I will be sharing the joys of fasting next week, when my brain is nourished and working better.
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
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