An Unexpected Discovery
This rather labyrinthine story begins the night before last, when the children decided – after I had already washed up, and cleared the kitchen – that it would be a good idea to do some “Christmas Baking”. It transpired that “Christmas Baking” really translated to “use every damn pot, pan, baking tray, saucepan, spoon, fork, knife, or whatever the hell else, and leave it all out”. I ran away and hid – happy in the knowledge that the children were making happy noises in the kitchen, and fearful of what I might discover in the morning.
It's probably worth noting that I had to be at work early the next morning, so got out of the shower, got dressed, and left without even looking at the kitchen.
Fast forward through a typically breathless working day (read: spent headbutting the desk, and wringing my fist furiously at the laptop), and I returned home in the early evening to an unfolding conflict in the middle of the kitchen. No washing up had happened, nothing had been put away, and now Miss 15 appeared to be trying to make something to eat in the middle of the devestation. When she helpfully asked my other half “what's for dinner?”, I thought it best to retreat to a safe distance and start looking for hard hats and sandbags. Of course I didn't DO that – I walked through the middle of everybody, and quietly started washing up. I might have said a number of words under my breath too.
Where was I going with this?
Oh yes. After washing up, eating dinner, and then washing up again, I snuck off to the junk room to grab an hour of peace and quiet. While noodling around on Twitter, a writer I follow posted someething about a writing community that was blowing up – and that's how I found quite possibly the best internet rabbit hole I have discovered in quite some time.
I'm not entirely sure how these things happen – how the tides of the internet work. I'm guessing somebody posted a hashtag while efusing about their circle of online friends, and it caught on – and then their friends posted it, and their friends, and so on – before long it became a flag to post in the ground, signalling to kindred spirits that among the millions pouring through the social internet, “we are here”.
This chance discovery was made within Twitter – the #writingcommunity hashtag. I lost the better part of the next hour reading, smiling, following, liking, and replying. Somehow in the most basic of all the social networks, a community had formed itself – you might almost say it had evolved. I think it's kind of wonderful that such a thing might have happened – that in the middle of the political hellscape that Twitter has become in recent years, a well-spring of ordinary folk have brought each other together.
Go check it out. Head to Twitter, and search for #writingcommunity – be warned that you might not get anything done for quite some time afterwards though.