I’ve been twittering for almost 2 months now. And while it has connected me with a lot of people, it has really helped my writing.

Twitter forces me to make an argument or develop a thought in no more than 140 characters. In a world of digital verbosity, that’s hard to do.

But how much can one communicate in such small chunks, including spaces and punctuation? A lot of people tell me it’s too restrictive.

But it has compelled me to focus on the power of words, using them deliberately and effectively–painting a clear picture with few strokes.

As a former college teacher, I expected my English composition students to get to the point quickly and give their readers a reason to read on.

In a time of endless blogs and social networks where prose flows unfettered, a well-crafted thought has the opportunity to rule the day.

Twitter is not about more; it’s about better. It’s like the difference between an eau de cologne and eau de parfum–quantity vs quality.

Here’s a few examples of recent tweets. Some are funny, some thoughtful, some mundane, but all of them succinct:

• Proverbs 16:32 I wish it didn’t speak so powerfully to me, but it does. As a parent to two teens I need to plaster this to my forehead.

• New seat cushions on my southwest plane. First reaction: excitement, then sadness that I actually noticed and cared. The crew was amused.

• Met a huge spotted eagle ray on my morning swim. Never seen anything like it. Thankfully, he seemed less interested in me.

• Being transferred like a cow to the airport in a shuttle while @michaelhyatt takes a nap by the sea. But I’m not bitter at all. really.

• It’s only 6:30 pm, but it’s 7:30 in CT and I’ve been at it for 17 hours. Would I get the official old-man card if I went to bed now?

There you go, another reason to give Twitter a try: you’ll be more selective in your word choices and become a better communicator.

PS In case you didn’t notice this blog post was Twitterlized by keeping paragraphs to, well, as you’d expected, 140 meaningful characters.