The birds and the bees

Several times a week, I receive emails encouraging me, as an
author, to use the Internet to stir up some buzz for my books. I do have a
website – www.jacquelinediamond.com -- but publicists, fellow authors and even
Harlequin encourage me to expand to Facebook and other social media sites.

To get that buzz, I should also use Twitter, they tell me.
Maybe if, like some celebrities, I frequently got arrested or chased by
paparazzi, I’d have interesting, short stuff to tweet, laced with expressions
like OMG and lots of !!! exclamation points. But I prefer to pour my creative
energy into my characters.

Also, buzz and twitter mean something else to me this time
of year as I plant my vegetable garden. I’m also putting in Easter lilies and
miniature roses received as gifts.

While I’m outdoors, digging away in the soil, I listen to
the buzz of bees, the twittering of birds and the rather intimidating Foom! of
rapid wing beats that I feared at first indicated an invasion of giant beetles.
Then one day I followed the sound to the tiny hovering figure of a hummingbird.

Ever since I discovered that these jewel-like creatures nest
in my flowering bushes, I’ve become fiercely protective. A gardener recently
proposed some heavy pruning and I practically threw my body in front of the
bushes, crying, Save the hummers!

I love writng my Safe Harbor Medical miniseries about the
human version of the birds and the bees -- a fertility program and the romantic
entanglements of the staff. But as for twitter and buzz, let’s face it: I’m
most at home with the garden variety.