Twitter is a beautiful, dangerous thing. If you use Twitter—really use Twitter—you know what I mean. It’s interactive. It’s fun. It keeps you in constant contact with people all over the world, not like you need to be in constant contact with people all over the world, but you can be, and so why not be! On Twitter, you can learn up-to-the-second news not even on the news sites. Or rumors, which are even better. You can find out what your literary agent had for breakfast. You can spy on friends and enemies, keep tabs on cute boys, stalk celebrities, discuss all the many places in New York City to buy a cupcake, and discover, if you dare to, just exactly what your coworkers are thinking on the other side of that cubicle wall.

Oh, for authors there are professional reasons to be on Twitter, too. Yeah yeah yeah, you can promote your book and stuff. You can connect with editors and agents and librarians and bookstore owners and book reviewers and prospective readers—and especially with other writers. If used properly, and in moderation, Twitter is a wonderful tool many authors make great use of.

Good for them.

Me? I’ve been known to spend an hour discussing cupcakes when I should be writing chapter 8.

Fact is, I love you, Twitter.

I love you so much, I have to quit you. At least for a little while.

See… there’s this little old manuscript I just shook up my whole life to have some more time to focus on. It is—no exaggeration—the most important thing I’ve ever written, ever, and I have a contract that says it’s due in three months. And so I sit down to write and what do I do? TWEET RANDOM NOTHINGNESS AT RANDOM PEOPLE.

Help.

I am beginning to think that Twitter kills novels—or let’s say the chances are that Twitter could kill 1 out of 1,000,000 novels, then mine might be the unlucky 1 killed dead, and I will not, I CANNOT let that happen.

So I’m taking a break—the first step toward tweeting like a grown-up.

This is why Suzanne Young—the author of the upcoming deliciously naughty Razorbill novel The Naughty List—and I have decided to face our shared addiction head on. We will be on Twitter Recess from November 1 through November 7 and we’re calling on other writers to join us. We can’t be the only ones with this problem. Hey, did you hear Twitter kills novels? Don’t prove it true!

So if you think you have a problem too, why not do it with us? Stay off Twitter for a week. Have some restraint. Your novel will love you for it.

November 1-7 may well turn out to be the most prolific week of our entire lives. We may just look back on this week and perhaps we’ll miss what everyone had for breakfast, and probably we won’t be able to discuss vampire soap operas with random strangers, and maybe all the editors of the publishing universe will reveal all their secrets they never tell writers and we’ll be missing out… but oh the pages we’ll write!

Stay tuned for updates on being Twitter Free. And check in with Suzanne Young too, help us stay strong! (Cupcake deliveries accepted; email me for my mailing address.)

Oh, and p.s., we’re staying off Facebook too.

Are you with me? Leave a comment with your Twitter name so I know how to find you.

Are you not with me? Tweet away. Just please try not to be too interesting while I’m gone.

Wish me luck,
@novaren