20+ years ago, fresh out of college, I, like everyone else in Nashville, wanted to be a songwriter. I had one published cut and just knew I was destined for fame and fortune. During that time I got to write with some very gifted songwriters who taught me much about the craft. I took away two things from that experience that have served me well through the years; 1) the importance of re-writing and 2) distill, distill, distill.
Fast forward to 2008. There’s this new thing called Twitter that everyone is encouraging me to try. At first I was skeptical, but slowly I began to see the potential in those 140 characters. Now what I learned as an aspiring young songwriter 20 years before has helped me to more effectively use Twitter. (After all, when you only have 140 characters to work with, you’ve got to make every one count.)
Step 1. Re-writing
As a songwriter I learned that re-writing is just as important as writing. So I’ve tried to carry that lesson into the twitter-verse. I often begin a tweet with an idea that needs to be reshaped into something more clear and concise.
Step 2. Distill, Distill, Distill
I remember many writing sessions when the ideas that I thought were strong in reality needed to be distilled, distilled, distilled. This too is a great practice for Twitter which forces me to distill my thoughts into as short and concise a form as possible.
Re-writing and distilling your tweets is not difficult and doesn’t take a lot of time, just a few seconds of whittling, an objective perspective and you too can be more than a “One Tweet Wonder”.
