What Can I Tweet For You?

By Tamara Girardi

I woke up this morning in New York City. The sense of confusion when you open your eyes in a different place and wonder where you are doesn't last long here. The beeping taxis and cars rushing outside your window remind you pretty quickly.

I'm here for a writing conference, and I'm thankful to be here.

Yesterday, I had dinner with college friends at Dos Caminos in midtown. An open-faced shrimp quesadilla. A shared pitcher of sangria. A blueberry margarita with sugar on the rim. I was very thankful for all of those things.

My fabulous and recently agented critique partner emailed me her thoughts on the final 30 pages of my manuscript yesterday. She challenged a weakness in them, and I plan to spend the entire day either at a bookstore or Starbucks working to employ the changes she and I brainstormed. I'm immensely thankful for her and the fact I can spend the full day working on my writing.

But being thankful is not just about saying the words. It's about doing something about them. Let me explain.

Tomorrow, the Backspace Conference begins at the Radisson Martinique on the corner of W. 32nd and Broadway, and I will be the official Twitterer for the conference. I'll spend all day Thursday and Friday hanging on the words of other writers and literary agents, finding the gems that will be helpful to others who cannot attend the conference, and tweeting about them to my followers (@TamaraGirardi) and followers of Backspace (@bksp_org).

I'm thankful for this opportunity, and in order that you and other writers might be thankful of it, too, I'm asking for your help. If you knew a woman who was spending the next two days in a roomful of writers and agents (ha hemn, that would be me), discussing query letters, opening pages of manuscripts, and writing in general, what kinds of things would you want that woman (again, me) to look for and tweet about?

I'm thankful for your responses.