Today I have 1013 followers on Twitter, but last night I had 997. The milestone seemed like an opportunity to interact with some folks and get some help scrambling over the hump.
A while back, a literary journal I review books for was in a similar position: The folks in charge of their funding were coming to town and they wanted to show off 1K Facebook friends — they were already pretty close, but still 30 or so off the night before the big visit.
I took to Twitter and started messaging about the journal, linking to the Facebook page. For some reason, in the midst of my messaging, I thought “I should ask William Gibson to retweet this message to his followers. He’s a writer. He’ll get it. He’ll want to help.” There was no reason for William Gibson to help or even notice the message in his stream, but he did notice it, and he helped. Following Gibson’s RT the site’s Facebook page was well over the 1K mark by morning.
Yesterday night I messaged William Gibson again asking if he might give me a hand with an RT. He did. He’s a writer. He gets it.
Thanks again @GreatDismal!
Gibson’s latest book is The Peripheral
Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran’s benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC’s elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there’s a job he’s supposed to do—a job Flynne didn’t know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He’s supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That’s all there is to it. He’s offering Flynne a good price to take over for him. What she sees, though, isn’t what Burton told her to expect. It might be a game, but it might also be murder.
And in keeping with recent posts, here’s Gibson at the Chicago Humanities Festival last November discussing “Technology, Science Fiction & the Apocalypse.”
Stay Awake!
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