tweeting up a storm

Amazing. So this is how the social media steam train really works: thanks to a friend, I learned that the Globe health writer, André Picard, had retweeted my article, and that Dr. Jane Philpott, former cabinet minister, retweeted it again. I looked them up. By then, Picard's tweet had 27 retweets and 77 likes, Philpott's had 39 and 106. 

These are people who have thousands of Twitter followers. I have 149. A day after I tweeted my article, 11 had liked it and 3 retweeted. It's good to have friends in high places! I thank them both. So many have commented on its timely message, I've written to the Globe to ask if the article could be reprinted in other papers, but have not heard back. 

Oh, and another amazing thing: my psychiatrist called today to say how much she liked it. In all our years together - we began serious work in 1990 but for a very long time we've talked only once or twice a year - she has never contacted me. Strict boundaries. That was a deeply meaningful call. How this article has resonated! You never know.  

In the meantime, reality: I've spent two days working on a new article about this past year with Covid, and it doesn't work. A complete dead end so far. A good reminder that writing never gets easier, it just gets harder in a different way. In the meantime, the audiobook of the memoir, which took a week to record, has sold four copies, and because Audible lets people without a membership get one book free, the amount of royalties I've made is exactly zero. Cheers! 

It's winter. It's cold and grey, and we face at least three more months of cold and grey. Being alone in this silent house may, at some point, feel hard. So far, though, I'm busy and happy, counting tweets.

In the meantime, Anna wrote that Ben joined his JK class online this morning. The teacher, in this classroom with many immigrant children, was talking about families who live far away and asked the class if they have relatives who live far away. Ben put up his hand and she called on him. "My grandma lives on Sackville Street," he said. "That's far away, but I see her lots." 

Many heart emojis.

And Eli's tutor Greg sent this picture of his student with the Saturday Globe, his grandmother's name at the top. They talked about vaccine hesitancy, and Eli said, "If they don't want the vaccine, they should just read the article, how simple is that!" Greg is trying to get Eli to write longer answers, so they counted the words in the essay. Another lesson of writing: you never know what use your readers will make of your work.