Welcome back to the iPad Advice for Writers series. I have a whole list of iPad apps for writers and editors I'd like to review, so stick around, fellow iPadders and those jealous of our considerable awesomeness. Upcoming reviews include Pages, Noterize, Office2 HD, My Writing Nook, Split Pea, iAnnotate PDF and more.

Today I'm going to start with Bashō, a writing app exclusive to the iPad.

It took me way too long to find the ō to use in the above app's name, henceforth it shall be known as Basho.

Basho advertises itself as a distraction-free writing environment for the iPad. If you are a Mac user, think WriteRoom, or the nirvana-inducing Ommwriter.

Let me first say that I'm not typically an early adopter. I got my N64 after Gamecube was already out. I still use my scroll-wheel iPod and I have never had an iPhone. I usually wait for something to be cheaper or refurbished or 2nd generation before I jump on board. I'm not afraid of the early experience, I just don't mind waiting and enjoying what I have at the moment.

Ah, not so with iPad. And I'm not sure why. When it was first announced I thought it was a giant iPhone that couldn't make calls. But then I played around with one. And my kid played around with one. And I was hooked. I told myself I didn't need anything, just the dirt cheap 16GB Wi-fi only one. And maybe I could figure out how to make it work for me.

I've recently been bitten by the twitter bug and have found a wealth of writing-related resources there. From agents posting helpful advice, to detailed articles on writing craft, twitter has it all. What it also has is a rather steep learning curve, especially for people who weren't born with a computer mouse in hand. I spent most of my college years immersed in the precursors to today's social media sites (ISCA BBS, anyone?), but twitter threw me for a loop. Now that I've got my sea legs, I've put together a quick guide to the growing phenomenon of twitter chats: Why they matter, how to participate, and which ones are best for authors.

First, a quick overview of how to use twitter.

If you don't already have a twitter account, you will need to create one at twitter.com. Once you have an account, you can either read and post tweets from that site, or use one of the many third-party tools to access your information. I prefer tweetdeck, but hootsuite is also popular, as are many applications for mobile devices. Many tweets are labeled with the name of the software the author used, so use that as a guide and find the one that works best for you.

The most important (and frustrating) thing about twitter is that you are limited to 140 characters at a time. That includes spaces, hashtags, and anything else you might want to type. Hashtags are words or phrases preceded by the hash symbol - #. Hashtags act like a filter on twitter. You can click on a hashtag, or enter it into the search box, and only posts containing that hashtag will be displayed. This is how twitter chats work. Each chat has its own hashtag, and you need to know that tag--and to add that tag to your posts--to participate.

You might have more self-confidence than I, but on the bookshelf across from my desk at home, there's a line of books on writing.  From the beat up copy of Strunk and White I accidentally kept from my high school journalism class to a few I'm not even sure I've ever opened, I suppose I think one of these books has a secret formula that makes bad writing good, but that really isn't the case.  From any book, you hope to learn a few things and reach the last page a little better for the trip.  Roy Peter Clark's Writing Tools isn't some sort of miraculous gift from the writing muse, but it does manage to have something useful on nearly every page for any writer, regardless of your level of experience, and that might be all you can ask for a book of this sort.