Made the Semi-Finalist Box!
I made the front page! I've gained over 100 votes today too so now I'm third in.
I am so exhausted. The votes have been so tiring to get but a few people have been incredibly kind and supportive about passing on the word.
It's been an odd experience though. In literally a couple of days I've got about 200 or so new followers and they seem to fall into three categories.
The first - and vast majority - are intelligent, interesting people who like the idea of getting a writer into the top 25. They've taken the time to check out my blog or at least look at previous tweets of mine to find out a bit about me and are - well, they're like you lot really. Great people. Many of these send out little messages about me and encourage people to follow/vote for me and they're just wonderful. I've no idea whether or not they've all voted as I haven't 'told' anyone to vote and I've even suggested some of them 'unfollow' me until the competition is over so they don't get constant comp-updates. Some vote every now and then, others get much more involved than that. I'd do the same for them in a heartbeat.
The next set are pretty small in number and are similar to the top set but generally not as interested in books as they are in the competitive process. They send messages telling me they've stopped sleeping so they can keep voting for me. I worry about the impact on their health and I'm concerned that they're putting so much into this. I don't stay up voting for myself. I might throw in a vote a day when I remember but I wouldn't sit there at 4 in the morning, counting down 20 minute chunks so I could vote. I worry that they'll be very disappointed once the competition's over and I'm just talking about books again.
The final group are a very small number and... well... what can I say about them? Let's just say, there needs to be another category beyond 'Web 1.0 Spammers' called 'Freaky Stalky Psycho-Bunnies' or something.
The last group have sapped a bit of the fun out of the experience though as I've never experienced this on Twitter before but then, I guess, I've not had a profile this high on Twitter before.
The bit I really don't like about this experience is the way that I've had to become a bit of a 'Web 1.0 Spammer' myself. I stick with the theory that Twitter isn't for self-promotion and the whole thing makes me a bit uncomfortable but I guess the one (and probably only) time where posting self-serving links on a regular basis on twitter would be acceptable and necessary is during a twitter-popularity contest. Part of me is looking forward to the end of the competition when I can go back to the old 'I am watching Gilmore Girls on TV and noticing a new character' type tweets of which Twitter is the happy home.
I have quite an academic discussion lined up for you all when I have a chance to write the post for it but I need to do a bit of research first. See you soon.
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Speaking of the end of the competition, Rebecca, do you have any idea when that is?
Is there a way to block people on Twitter? I know it can be done on Facebook, but I haven't found the mechanism on Twitter yet. There should be some way to deal with 'Freaky Stalky Psycho-Bunnies' -and people trying to sell things.
Have I mentioned that your quest inspired me to vote for Stephen Fry, too? And then I discovered that Hugh Laurie, one of my favourite actors, was languishing on Page 2, so I'm working on moving him to the front page as well. It's a dirty job...
At least my freaky psycho stalkiness is spread around. ;>)
Very good news! That's awesome your within the top! Good luck I'll try to check it out to vote!
LOL-The internet needs "stalkers and creeps"
Sandra,
You, my friend are VERY firmly in the top category. If anything, you are the stick around which the entire top category is wrapped - like cotton candy / candy floss. :)
You can block the living daylights out of anyone you choose on twitter. It's one of my fave twitter pastimes actually. I block loads every day. You haven't been blocking them? Oh crikey - you must have some 'interesting' spambots by now eh?
The process has changed in the last couple of days - used to be so easy to see what to do but now it's tricksier.
If you click on where it says 'followers', it'll come up with a list of pics. By the right of each pic is an odd little button-arrangement. If you click the right one - arrow/sunbursty bit - it'll give you a bunch of options. Choose the bottom one - block. It will put up some kind of warning that this person is about to be out of your life forever. Click 'to Hell with them' or whatever the option is and... they'll be gone!
Great news that you're voting for Hugh. I want to but don't feel able to as Stephen has kindly sent small encouragements and it would feel bad to support anyone else. Would be nice if he'd send them on the bloody timeline rather than DM so people would see and.... doesn't matter. I'm very lucky. It's only a competition.
If you want to complete the set, my choice for animal twitterer is feline_overlord. The wittiest, pithiest cat-of-few-words you'll ever tweet.
Thanks for all your support. You've been amazing.
Rebecca
oh sorry, missed the end of competition bit. I'm wondering the same myself. I was under the impression it would be any day now but they won't put up the final day. Very, very annoying.
The bloke at the top of Mr Twitter UK has been asked onto TV shows and stuff so it's quite a big deal and I would think the media will get sniffy about it if it's seen to carry on ad nauseum so my guess would be 'any day now'
I notice that the guy just ahead of Stephen Fry is Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), and I won't rest until we've left that slime-ball in the dust. As for Hugh Grant, I don't see him catching up to Stephen, so I have no qualms about pushing him over to Page One. Mind you, I've been assuming that this is a short-lived competition -but if it's open-ended, maybe a problem will arise later, and then I'll have to make the hard choice. God, you'd think I had no life at all.
I'm glad you haven't decided I'm a Freaky Stalky Psycho-Bunny - though, now that I know you're a Gilmore Girls fan, all that may change. I love that show.
Thank you so much for the blocking instructions. I'll be down to about 3 followers very shortly!