I hit 365 "tweets" this morning, pretty darn close to a year after I started my 2010 resolution of "a twitter a day." Not every resolution has to start on January 1.

As usual, I'm a few epochs behind current fads. In fact, I still occasionally ponder a return to using a fountain pen to write my next book rather than a keyboard.

That would be true of my choice in cell phones as well. I refuse to get a phone that's smarter than me, though I occasionally envy the ability to find a restaurant in a hurry or directions to your destination in a strange city by asking your phone.

The Twitter thing came about while I was at the National Federation of Press Women annual conference in Chicago last year. I was one of the speakers, but I was also there to schmooze and find out all I could about how to better market my books.

One of the presentations I went to was about using "social media" for marketing, and it was put on my two highly motivated and articulate young ladies from the Chicago Tourism Board whose ages, combined, roughly added up to mine.

They were ALL over Twitter for promoting my home town, and it reminded me of just how far removed from "social media" one can be when surrounded by grass and trees and butterfly bushes.  Sigh.

So I went home with a Chicago Passport in my purse as a "thank you" from the city and the NFPW (a great thing, this passport, it's like getting the keys to the city in terms of free admission to fun stuff for a full year), and the idea hatching that I might as well dip my toe into the water. 

Not that I would expect to have a coterie of followers like those who hang on Ashton Kutcher's every pronouncement. But it seemed like a nice little writing discipline. Reduce a creative or coherent thought to 140 characters every morning. Like doing mental sit-ups.  Or committing to greeting the morning by writing a daily haiku. There just HAD to be a value there. Brevity and discipline are always good things, right?

Well, it evolved into something else entirely. While I woke every morning for a few weeks determined to do due diligence to the art form--I'm particularly proud of one I wrote at first that referred to being on the back of a Harley surrounded by bikers "coursing like blood through an artery"--it devolved within a month to a collection of links to articles written elsewhere that caught my eye. The New York Times was a steady source, as well as CNN, Yahoo, Smithsonian, the local paper.

Since I have to admit that I haven't even finished reading many of the articles, I'm looking at it now as my "reading list," things that I'll get to read some day when I quit chasing my tail.

So, come celebrate a year of good intentions with me, and take a tour through my eclectic choice of things I'll read some day! I promise, that at 140 characters a tweet, it won't take long to review.

http://twitter.com/#!/runswstilettos