Happy Write About It Wednesday, Writers!

So, it is actually 11-ish Tuesday night as I am writing this. I’ve been putting off writing this week’s WAIW post because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about this week, or what topic I wanted to give to y’all to write about. So, here I sat just a few minutes ago staring at my computer screen, which was open to Facebook, because that’s the best way for any self-respecting writer to spend their procrastination and brainstorming time. I had just posted a beg for my friends to drop me topic ideas, when the topic came to me as I was shooting dagger eyes at a certain name on my screen.

Text messages.

You are either pro-text or con-text. I am pro-text. I love texting. Mostly because as someone who is an introvert and has a lot of social anxiety and I SWEAR a case of phone induced PTSD, I hate talking on the phone, but I LOVE communicating with people. I love getting to know people. Texting is so convenient for these purposes. You can text multiple people all day long, but still get everything done that you need to. At least I can, because I am extremely good at multi-tasking.

But texting has a down side (besides the obvious texting and driving scenarios). The down side? Being left on read…………. I paused there to allow all of us to process the negative emotions that just washed over us. I don’t know about you, but I HATE being left on read. I hate being ignored. I find it extremely rude and disrespectful. To me, it is no different than ignoring someone who is standing in front of you and trying to talk to you. I would rather receive a text message telling me that the person is too busy to talk at the moment, but will text me when they are done, or for someone to just text me aren’t busy, or straight up someone tell me that they have no desire to text me than just ignore me.

Also, text messages run the risk of completely being misunderstood, because there is no voice inflection or body language helping to get the message across, just the words. If you are like me, you have a tendency to be sarcastic or to joke around a lot. Unfortunately that doesn’t always translate well via text.

Okay, no more ranting on that subject, but that is what has led to today’s polarizing Write About It Wednesday topic: Text Messages.

Write about witches and wizards using text messages.
Write about your feelings on text messaging and text messaging etiquette.
Write about text messages that were misunderstood.
Write about a couple fighting over text.
Write about a private investigator following leads obtained through text messages.
Write about a character’s reaction to being “left on read.”

Are you pro or con texts? How do you feel about being left on read? Is it poor text etiquette? Tell me your thoughts in the comments.

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Until next time,

Write on, Writers!