Writing Demons, begone! And, trying Facebook.

I've spent a fair bit of the past couple of days doing the best thing I know of to banish the Writing Demons (the exterminators had a four-month waiting list, so I decided to take matters into my own hands): sendouts. Stories, a flash piece, a short play, to various markets. At the moment I have a dozen pieces out (including my first book, The Associates). The more pieces I send out, the more sullen the Writing Demons become. They only actually fall silent (temporarily, alas!) when I get something accepted. But I'm more than content when they just keep their voices down.

In other news, I've signed up for Facebook. Personally, I'm pretty sure social-networking sites are a false god — how, precisely, do they add value over Google, email, and email groups? — but I'm giving Facebook a shot so that I can at least know what I'm talking about when I excoriate it (or not, depending on whether it does provide added value). So far I've friended (new-verb alert! new-verb alert!) a few people, although I'm not trawling all over the place to find more. I'm happy to have found an old high-school friend (and there weren't that many; I tended to have few, but deep, friendships), and a few colleagues whom it is now easier to reach and keep up with. And I found out about (and consequently entered) a short-play competition that I may not have heard about otherwise. So far, so good. Life-changing? Hardly. A mild convenience at best. So far. If you think Facebook and its ilk are the best thing since chopstick rests shaped like little sumo wrestlers, you're welcome to state your case in the comments!