People either get Twitter or they don't. I was slow to it compared to some, and it was only when I heard that the notoriously internet shy @ememess was tweeting that (once I'd stopped laughing..) checked in with my other guru of all things writerly @chadbourn and asked him whether I needed to be doing it or not. Back then, it was about another promotional tool for writing rather than a replacement for Facebook or about engaging in ridiculousness with new people.

When making this 'business' decision to sign up, I forgot for a nano-second that I am the girl that can't smoke without it being 40 a day, by-passed marijuana and went straight for the cocaine, and am eternally grateful that the one time I tried Crack, it just didn't float my boat.

Let's be clear, the days of my vices are long gone, but Twitter hooked me in the same way as Marlboro Red did back in the day, and within weeks I was tweeting an INSANE amount. I love the people I've met via it (my blog wouldn't be my blog without a mention of @elliottbeth these days), and feel like I've known many of them forever - some of them I now do know in the real world and count among as good friends - in fact, I met my new best friend and writing buddy, @juliansimpson through dicking around on Twitter.

BUT -

Let's face it - anything that is primarily a series of updates on your daily routine is going to appeal to the hugely egocentric. Anyone that knows me, (@porthouse, I see that raised eyebrow) will know that I'm firmly in that bracket. Yeah, us Twitteraddicts aim to be funny or clever, but sometimes it really is as banal as 'Off to the gym.' Oh yeah, trust me - I have sent that tweet, as if the Twitterverse REALLY needed to know my exact movements, because frankly I am THAT important.

HOWEVER -

There are some Tweeters that are using the whole system to do some good. For them Twitter is actually about drawing attention to OTHERS rather than themselves and have seen the potential market for attention that Twitter can create for smaller charities that can't afford the national campaigns of their larger competitors, for want of a better word. It's a couple of those people I want to mention here. I hadn't heard of either of their fund-raising and awareness work until somehow our Follows crossed paths, but I'm totally inspired by both of them, and in awe of what they do.

First: @paul_steele

https://www.anthonynolanevents.org.uk/paulsteele

This man is constantly climbing mountains and raising money to combat Leukemia and raise awareness for the need for bone marrow donors. He's made me want to go and get registered. On twitter he's funny, energetic and always ready to help promote other good causes as well as his own. This one is a real diamond geezer, I reckon. Last year he summited Kilimanjaro for the VSO as can be seen here, and then wanted to do something for the Anthony Nolan Trust. I might have gone on a 24 hour sponsored starve or something - this man is going to climb Mt Aconcuaga in Argentina. Check the photos - Now that's commitment and inspirational in itself.

Paul on top a mountain..........and one he's yet to scale!

Second: @jessicastrust

http://www.jessicastrust.org.uk/

This charity has been set up by Ben Palmer who lost his wife to childbed fever. She was 34. He now has nearly 3000 signatures on a petition to the government to do more to raise awareness in health workers that childbed fever is still a real threat to pregnant women, even those who are young and healthy.

This man campaigns relentlessly and it's been amazing to see the people who have signed his petition and re-tweeted about his campaign. Jonathan Ross and his wife, and even the God of Twitter himself, Stephen Fry have helped this man in his aim.

I'm not a mother, and I've kind of reached a peace with myself that there's a pretty big possibility that I never will be, so although this charity doesn't affect me personally, as a writer I find it totally fascinating. If I was @carolematthews and could do the 'people story' stuff I'd write a book about this man and his wife and tell their story. This is a charity that has been born from lost love and there is something achingly lovely about how relentless this man has been in promoting this charity. In fact, when I see La Matthews on Thursday for coffee I might just suggest she thinks about it.

Anyway - if you're on Twitter check these boys out. Follow them. Show your support. Go to their websites and do what you can.

They're the kind that give Twitter a GOOD name..

me x

I had a road to Damascus moment this weekend. It hit me on Saturday night at about 8pm in a darkened room. Sounds dramatic? It was. Literally.

Let's be clear so you can stop worrying- I have not suddenly found the good Lord (which comes as quite a relief to me) - this was a revelation about someone's writing - something much relevant to what makes me tick.

I finally got Hamlet.

You know. The play. That one by Shakespeare.

As anyone who knows me or has taught with me or has been taught by me will testify, I will often declare in a mutter, 'I fucking hate Shakespeare. Shakespeare and poetry. Meh. Get over it. Move on. Write a fucking paragraph.'

It's not that I didn't understand that there was some beautiful language in the man from Stratford's plays and it's not that I didn't understand the stories; I could see both of those things quite clearly - they just didn't touch me. It was all a bit out of date for me- I'm a Stephen King girl and proud of it.

And then along came Saturday. And blimey, did I change my mind.

@Elliottbeth (see mac-buying escapade) text me last week to see if I fancied going to a preview of Hamlet with Jude Law in the lead and her BFF Kevin McNally as Claudius and then go for some wine. To be fair, it was the word 'wine' that grabbed my attention rather than 'Hamlet'. I had a slight internal wince when she said the performance was about 3 hours long, but I stuck with the image of the wine glass and some giggles with my new fab friend and hopped on the train in the glorious sunshine.

We grabbed some food, had a natter and then wended our way to the Donmar to fight our way to our seats. As the theatre darkened, I let out a little sigh and fully expected to be wriggling in my seat and examining the lighting rig within twenty minutes.

And then the play started.

The problem I'm going to have from here on in is not to sound like some gushy American, (apologies to all non-gushy Americans, and in fact to any gushy Americans who buy my books), but even four days after the event I can get tingles thinking about it.

It was fucking brilliant. End of. The set was beautiful and the performances were outstanding. Jude Law was a totally breath-taking revelation (and I speak as one who was firmly in the Clive Owen camp in Closer) who owned the stage throughout, and the supporting cast of Claudius, Gertrude and Polonius put in exceptional performances that kept me gripped.

I've read Hamlet, studied it and taught it until the mere mention of that word could cause me to sick up a little in my mouth, so the turnaround in my opinion has more to do with the actors and director of this version than the words themselves. But it was the words that they breathed life into. Words that I'd thought were dead and done and had their day.

Suddenly, as the action unfolded, I could clearly see the arcs of every character and the damage they did to themselves and each other as the tragedy unfolded. Each performance was so well-drawn that even when it was revealed that characters such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, normally just the butt for a Tom Stoppard joke, were dead, my breath hitched a little. Every nuance in the language was clear, and the layers in the story filled the stage. During Claudius' prayer scene, my heart ached for this man who was tormented by his self-awareness, a feeling that only served to make his cold brutality more chilling. The 'to be or not to be' speech, delivered in drifting snow, was astounding. Jude Law IS Hamlet in my head now.

When the interval came and the curtain lifted, I couldn't believe an hour and a half had passed. I looked at @elliottbeth and saw my own somewhat dumbfounded expression staring back at me from her face. I think we both muttered 'Fucking hell, it's brilliant,' which was about all we could manage. The second half was equally so, and if it hadn't been for @elliottbeth's stomach launching into a loud grumble in the last five minutes...I think I might have cried.

I suddenly saw the passion of the play. The interplay between the characters, the mix of hate and love and self-loathing that brought them all to their ultimate conclusions. The cynical weariness of the old, versus the hot-headed passion of the young, and the parallels between the two.

I came out of the theatre feeling an urge to write something brilliant and beautiful about characters people would care about and feel for. I'd been inspired by Shakespeare. It was real; it was alive, and it still mattered. I felt like I'd watched a perfect movie. I wanted to talk about it to everyone I knew. I wanted to write a screenplay rather than a book, something I could create the bones of and then a group of other people could bring to life in the flesh and blood way that Hamlet had been brought to life by the people on that stage for me.

Like I said. Road to Damascus and all that.

This blog wasn't supposed to be a kind of review, but it's somehow turned out that way. It was supposed to be about how I'd suddenly seen the point of Shakespeare and how I wish I could have found it earlier, when I was teaching or starting out in writing, or even when I was at school. It was supposed to be about the enduring nature of good characterisation and gripping plots. It was supposed to be calm, cool and rational analysis of brilliant writing suddenly discovered.

Sorry about that. Sorry that I've rambled, but maybe that's all you can do when you're hit with something that changes the whole way you think about something. Maybe those kind of emotions can't be expressed clinically. Maybe they can just be felt.

Before I go off and try to crystallise this inspiration, I'd like to end with an apology and a thank you. Firstly, apologies to you Mr. Shakespeare, late of Stratford and the Globe. I know you're dead and everything, but sorry for being so dismissive about your stuff. I take it all back (well, about Hamlet at least...let's start slowly). But better late than never, eh?

Secondly, a huge and heartfelt thanks to the director and cast of this production of Hamlet for sharing their brilliance with me, and bringing something so long dead so vividly to life. I owe you. You rock.

Me x