Tag: writing

On Twitter

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[This post is written in response to one of my lovely NerdSquad tweeps, @AnnieLCechini, of The Ink Phantom.

http://twitter.com/AnnieLCechini/status/556100357197826

Realizing more than ever that brevity is not my strength, this post is the first of what seems to be a mini series.]

Twitter.

Some say it’s a complete waste of time.  Some view it as a marketing tool.  Others see it as a way to network (read: gossip).  And, most of the time, it’s a little of all of the above.

Lucky for me, I primarily use Twitter for fun.  I enjoy following certain people or businesses for information that I deem is important (for example, @HealthRanger), or because I love their products (@TropTraditions has the BEST certified organic virgin coconut oil!) But, I also love meeting new friends, and admittedly have found a lot of my nearest and dearest writing buddies via Twitter.  (I still remember the day that Melissa, aka @melissaveres and I found each other and bonded over Mockingjay.  Le sigh.)

So, how can you use Twitter effectively so that you can balance having all the fun with the business of finding more friends on Twitter to follow (or follow you), so that the fun just keeps being had?  Well, I’m glad you asked!  Here are some ways that I use Twitter to keep it fun for me, and hopefully, for my friends (admittedly, I don’t care so much about the number of people following me; unless the number ends with a “9”, then I will beg for someone to follow me. Must Have. Round. Numbers.).

I’m going to assume that you already know the basics of Twitter (though, I’ll be writing a little bit about that in the future), and are a generally nice person who won’t flame other users.  And, let’s just say that you just want to find more friends to chitchat with, and don’t necessarily care about your follower count (though it would be nice if you did get more followers.  The more friends, the merrier, right?).

The More You Give The More You Get

First of all, the more you acknowledge and interact with your followers (or with those whom you follow) the more likely it is that you will get followed back, and will be acknowledged by other twitter users.  I see many twitter users that state that they don’t auto follow, but they do @reply.  I think it’s safe to say that 99% of Twitter users are like this.  I know for me personally, I don’t even see new followers since I tweet almost exclusively from my iPhone, so @replying to me would be the best way to tell me, “hey I’m here, please followback!” (without actually saying, “please follow back.”  You have no idea how much that annoys me.  I follow people whom I find interesting and don’t, you know, act like spam.  But that’s just me.)

There are several ways to find and acknowledge new-to-you tweeps on Twitter.  Replying to a tweep who mentions you is, of course, the most obvious way.  But, other methods include retweeting a user’s tweet, or acknowledging a tweep who retweets something of yours.  It’s not really necessary, but I find it complimentary that another user liked my tweet so much they wanted to retweet it.  I found a lot of fun friends that way that I wasn’t originally following, like, off the top of my head, @soulwindow and @clarakensie.

Another way to acknowledge fellow tweeps is to recommend them to your friends, the most popular method being Follow Fridays (denoted by search hash tags #FollowFriday or #FF).  (Twitter has also broken down follow days to #MusicMonday and #WriterWednesday, too if you REALLY want to spread the love.)  Please note, I find it a lot more meaningful to be recommended by tweeps who 1) actually follow me and 2) aren’t recommending EVERY user on their following list.  Besides, I only recommend those tweeps that I find truly enjoyable and have had either great conversations with them, or have acquired great information from them, or both.  This way, I can really personalize why I follow and recommend those tweeps above the other nice folk I play with on Twitter, even if it’s to say they’re sweet.  Better than being lumped together on a list just because.

Finally, one of my favorite ways to interact with tweeps is simply responding to a tweet that I found particular funny or moving or whatever.  For example, shortly after I discovered Annie on my follower list, I saw this tweet on her timeline:

http://twitter.com/AnnieLCechini/status/24667373774

to which I replied:

and then, she said:

http://twitter.com/AnnieLCechini/status/24668475515

Our very first conversation, after which, a friendship (and blog post) was born!

As you can see, if I laughed or snickered at it, I feel the need to reply to the user in some manner (even if it’s just to say, “LOL”).  Usually, I retweet with a comment, so if other users or followers of mine find it interesting, it will be easier for them to follow the conversation, and possibly join in.  (This is Twitter!  The whole premise IS to join the conversation!)

Be Yourself

Just an obvious note worth mentioning: while you’re friending, following, and otherwise interacting with tweeps on Twitter, please remember to be yourself (or, more specifically, act like a real person).  I know.  EVERYONE says “Be Yourself.”  But, it’s really true.  No one wants to follow, or will continue to follow, someone who just posts links to who-knows-where, with no explanations.    No one wants to follow spam.  (And, I KNOW I don’t want to be followed by spambots…they’re creepy! *cringe*)

Also, think before you tweet: would you think it’s acceptable to act this way in real life?  No?  Then, maybe it’s best not to do this on Twitter.  (If the guy I unfollowed because he wouldn’t stop listing his followers EVERY DAY of the week actually DOES walk around yammering off the names of ALL his friends in real life, as if he were reading a phone book, to EVERYONE he knows, then I will need to amend my statement.)  No one wants to follow someone out of obligation, either, kinda like no one wants to feel like they’re being sold to, even though they were in the market to buy something.  (Random User: “If I follow you, will you follow me?”  Me: *pushes block user option*).  This is especially true if you actually NEED to have a certain amount of followers for whatever work/job/industry you’re in.  Don’t make me feel like I’m a sale. However, if you make a personal connection you’ll probably end up getting a follower.  (Just like in real life sales, imagine that.)

Me?  I’m nerdy, goofy, and love a wide variety of random things.  I like finding and following other random and funny tweeps.  If tweeps want to follow me, that’s great, and more likely than not, if they start talking to me, I will follow them back.

Oooh, Shiny!

Twitter is my shiny toy that I like to play with when I’m not pulling my hair out with my work in progress.  And, I like being able to share my joy over it with you.

This is just the first, general post, so to speak.  My next Thoughts on Twitter post will cover how I handled not being overwhelmed by all the shiny, aka, my a-ha moment that gave me the ability to follow more tweeps without missing out on all of their fun tweets and possibly driving myself insane.

Also, please help me name this series, since, you know, I like to label stuff, and my “Thursday thoughts” category is more for insights from current events that inform my writing, whether to preview another blog post or work in progress.  Thanks!

Unconquerable

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I had a lot of false starts this morning with my writing.  I almost decided to stop and just let it go for tonight, the next day.  Later.  Just, not now.

But then the last two lines of Invictus floated to the forefront of my consciousness, and I couldn’t help but smile:

“I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul.”

W. E. Henley

Do you know what invictus means in Latin?  Invincible.  Undefeated.  Unconquerable.  I like that.  Makes me feel like though I may be battered and bruise, I still survived the battle.  And, am ready for more.

Invictus is my word for November.  I will own it.  I invite you to do the same.

Have an invictus writing day, my fellow dreamers.

Simplify. Focus. The Author I Want To Be

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Brand Image

“Real is just a matter of perception.” Peter Bishop, Fringe

It’s not a big secret that I work in retail as a Store Manager.  Part of my role/responsibility is to ensure that my team upholds The Brand’s image.  Consistency is important for customer loyalty and overall satisfaction, not only for The Brand (as a company of over 1700 stores across the country), but also for My Specific Store.  You see, not only do I want my customers to receive the level of service that they expect from The Brand, I want them to have the “Fun Personalized Service” that I’m cultivating in my store team to deliver.  Fun Personalized Service is what I want my customers to expect whenever they come to My Store.

Just as I want my customers to expect a Fun Personalized Service experience when they enter my store, I want future readers of my books to expect a certain kind of story from me as an author.

The Author I Want to Be

“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become. “
C. S. Lewis

I said last week that the Story I Want to Write was tied to the Author that I Want to Be; the brand image of the Writer, so to speak.  And, I decided that the Author I want to be needed to be Fun.  Not the “life is always happy and fluffy, cue the smiling flowers and woodland creatures” Fun, but more lighthearted, hopeful, and dare I say, entertaining fun.  The type of fun that I deliver in my store.  The type of fun that allows my customers to relax and enjoy themselves and forget their busyness for a moment.

I want to write the story that readers will seek out to remember that life is beautiful, and yes, you are invited to rest here for a time, and after doing so, you will feel refreshed and ready to face more of life.  In Dean Koontz’s novels, he would refer to this kind of respite as “moments of grace” (and if you’ve read what he puts his characters through, you would understand the beauty of those moments).  I would like to be able to say that my books can be your Moments of Grace in the midst of storms.  High expectations for me to deliver, but things worth pursuing are rarely easy to accomplish.  Finding Fun in the Challenge is my outlook on this journey.

Stop Thinking About Problems

“You can’t solve a problem at the same level of thinking that created it.” Einstein

“You can either make excuses or get results, but you can’t do both.” Tom Venuto

So, what prompted all this self-analysis?  Well, it all started with Tom Venuto’s The Body Fat Solution, which introduced  neuro linguistic programming in basic terms as a way to overcome mental roadblocks to achieving successful body recomposition.

I’m not an expert at all the nitty-gritty, but I will just say that I have been able to face down more challenges this year alone based on the principle that the words I use reflect a subconscious perception of my problem, creating limiting beliefs.  Months ago, I brainstormed many of my limiting beliefs that were blocking me from truly embracing the title of “Writer” and “Author.”  One of those beliefs was that I needed to be Serious and Deep to have any sort of chance to be a Published Author.  (I won’t analyze why I thought this, I just know that it was there, and I had to create solutions around that obstacle.)

You can imagine how (un)productive I was in my writing, believing that being an Author came with the admission price of being Serious, and knowing that deep down,  I’m not Serious at all (of course, I can be serious; don’t worry I act with appropriate decorum at weddings and funerals).  Of course, I’ve since set myself up to enable me to work through those limiting beliefs (though the feelings of inadequacy will likely stay with me for, oh, ever). I was able to realize and accept that having fun can (and should!) be part of the writing process…and the floodgates of creativity spilled forth as an answering reward.  I didn’t necessarily change any resulting behavior, I just changed my perception of my obstacle; the behaviors just ended up being more enjoyable.

I’ve learned to brainstorm better, to choose writing environments to support my writing, and turn off my self-editor so that I can “get over myself” and finish the story.  I’m under no illusions: my current WIP may never see the light of publication, but the knowledge that I will finish this story will enable more productivity.  One success, one win, fuels more success, and ever increasing challenges.  And you know what?  Because my mindset is prepared, I’m ready to meet and accept these challenges.

Focus on Solutions

“You have to know who you are before you decide how to be.” Twitter user, @IZTAES

So, I reflected on the person I am in order to realize the Author I Want to Be, the Story I Want to Write, and basically, commit myself to be labeled under the genre of Young Adult Literature (yes, a teaser of next week’s blog post).  I needed to be able to LOVE what I’m writing, and be proud that my name is associated with That Story.  And, I know it may seem insignificant, but for me, mindset is SO important to enable change.  It’s the strategic step that I needed to make before I was able to make any significant progress anywhere, because I needed to know Who I Was, and Who I Wanted To Be, before I could even make goals, let alone action steps toward that goal.

I know this process is a little foundational, but I hope I’ve been able to help someone who is struggling with their limiting beliefs over their own writing (or fillintheblank) journey/goal.  I’m obviously methodical and analytical, and have to follow certain processes; that’s just how I roll.  Thankfully, I also embrace change pretty well, and can course-correct easily. 😉


My Road to Simplicity

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A Short Epiphany, That is Explained By a Long Ramble…You Have Been Warned

So, I had an epiphany this past weekend.

I realized that I was stuck in my story, and that I haven’t really moved forward in it.  (No, that’s not the epiphany part of things.)  Because of this “block,” I was forced to analyze my story, and untangle why I was so stuck, and believe me, I really didn’t want to, because I knew the answer before I even wanted to acknowledge the problem.  I was stuck in my story because I didn’t have the amazing plot outline that I thought I did.  In fact, in the universe of plot outlines, mine would have been that barren asteroid that astronomers overlook as kinda boring and useless.  (They’d probably assign it a boring number, too.)

What I was resisting before my epiphany, I realize that I actually have to face and do: I needed to get back to the drawing board.

Back to the Drawing Board

"Well, back to the old drawing board".

What I mean when I say, “Drawing Board,” are those lovely things that other writers may have realized and completed long before they even started their story.  You know, those little things like Character Biographies, World/Culture Building, and all the other lovely background informational resources necessary to make one little street in The Story seem like a vast and habitable universe to The Reader.

I think I would be more frustrated with myself and my writing talents if I didn’t know deep down that I needed to do this, and that this was something that I have almost consciously ignored.  I knew that I needed to do this from the start.  I did this to myself.  I created this “writer’s block,” and so this whole situation is a lot easier for me to swallow.  (Not easy, just easier than what it could have been had this been an unintentional, unconscious act.)

I ignored this planning stage originally because, well, honestly, I simply didn’t realize the magnitude of usefulness that an information repository would be, and also in part because I didn’t sort out my goals beforehand.  Let me explain the second part first, because it deals with my mindset.

I have explained mindset before, and how important it is for me to have the proper mindset, and this scenario is a great example of that (Not that I like admitting how slow I am on the uptake sometimes.  I should probably create a category on here called “Face Palm Moments” celebrating my obstacles, and the overcoming thereof.  Always stress the “overcoming.”).  🙂

“Write…”

I love road trips.  Each year, I need a really good road trip to quiet that restless drive inside me that tells me to keep moving.  I have discovered in my road adventures that there are several ways to get to a particular destination, and that I have to plan my route depending on the random sites that I wanted to visit along my way to that destination.  Each stop had a purpose.  Each route was chosen for a specific reason.

Part of my epiphany over the weekend made me realize that if I approached road trips like I did my writing, I would never have gotten anywhere that I wanted to go, and I would never have seen all the cool things I’ve seen.  My writing before this point was the road trip equivalent of me just driving, with no thought to where I was going, and basically just logging miles per day, without any real return on the gas-mileage-investment.  No real plan.  How silly would that be, right?  (Remind me to tell you guys of an 18-hour road trip to Santa-Barbara-but-was-actually-to-nowhere that my parents took me on.  Wait, I basically just told you about it.)

At least I finally did realize what I was doing.  And, the root of all this aimless driving?  I was so trying to prove to myself that I was a writer, and felt the need to constantly validate my status by writing, that I didn’t allow myself the very practical need for background work.

“…With Purpose”

Just like I’ve given myself permission to plan in other areas of my life, I realize that I needed to give myself that same permission in terms of writing.  My mindset was that my goal was “Writing” and if that was all it was, then I’ve accomplished it, given that I have been writing everyday since I’ve first held a journal and called it “Mine.”

My goal is now clear to me (and my subconscious): I am writing a Novel.  At the end of all this work, I will have a finished story in novel form.  Writing is the process for me to get that finished product; it is not the goal.  I know this may seem little, but to my subconscious, this epiphany is huge: I honestly thought I was moving away from my goal (“Writing”) and was wasting time with the background stuff, rather than seeing the background work as integral for me to accomplish my true goal of creating a Novel.

To that end, I am now taking the time to create the detailed Biographies, History, and other lovely background tidbits that are worth the time investment upfront to guide me through the middle of my story in the future. (And, allowing myself to love this process! I’m such a nerd about this sort of thing!).

Fear of Commitment

The other reason why I ignored this process initially is really quick to explain, but I’m kinda cringing about it because the reason is so stupid.  Sigh, here goes.  Truthfully, I was a little nervous about hammering down a “fixed” history of my world, because I was afraid to commit to one thing, one event, one history. Phew, there, I said it!

I have so many random pages of “background histories” that are always evolving and shifting (and, some that are freakily exact biographies and descriptions about specific characters, even though those biographies were written months apart.  Seriously.).  It’s almost like I felt that if I “fixed” them, then I was committed to it, and that there was no changing, ever, and what would happen then??  (Funny, how I never had a fear of commitment when I was with my then-boyfriend-now-husband, but my characters on the other hand…)

But, I had to come to the conclusion, oh so slowly, that having a fixed fact helps to create conflict/movement/action that my characters need to deal with.  (insert “Duh” here).  I can go on about how obvious this concept is, and debate on why I was so slow to realize all of this, but I will quickly divert attention away from my lame-ness toward some fun resources for character biographies, which can be found at Holly Lisle’s blog here, and at Natalie Whipple’s blog here.

Have I Mentioned That My 2010 Theme is “Simplify.  Focus.”?

So, one last aspect of my “Simplify. Focus.” Theme of 2010 includes simplifying this blog and the reason why I use it.

I created this blog initially because I love books: I love reading them, and writing one would be a marvelous extension of that, and would bring the love round full circle.  (But, I could totally do all that with my Moleskine with minimal effort.)

I also like being able to connect with a writing community, and hopefully find friends here with whom to bond over Worthy Nerdy Pursuits.  But, honestly, I can do that with social media.

Well, why have I kept this up, rambling on about my mindset and thought process, and basically allowing myself to look like a fool as I fumble toward my goal of creating a Novel?

Accountability.

I don’t have much accountability on my side of the laptop to keep at my words and world building.  But here, in my Happy Place, I can write about what I’m doing, and just thinking that I have other people reading and knowing about my progress (or lack thereof) motivates me to get back to work.  I can pretend that other people can glean some kind of insight from these random snippets of my everyday; that someone somewhere will be entertained by my Face Palm moments, and hopefully, can get started on better footing than I did; that I can be of value to someone else, and inspire them to act, just as other bloggers over the years have inspired me.

With that said, this blog will not be a Writer’s Resource to All Things Writerly (but if any of you find a site like that, please share!).  I can’t promise to be helpful or insightful, because to me, that would imply an authority that would be laughable for me to claim.  I can’t promise that this blog will be time-worthy in any way.

But, I hope that as I play here, in my Happy Place, that you will pull up a chair, grab some coffee (I will allow for tea), and share in my love of books, reading, writing.

Welcome, by the way, and please excuse the mess… 😉