Writers in the Storm

by Fae Rowen

Who wouldn't want a sneak peek at 2014? A chance for insider information about what's in store?

Well, as the resident science and science fiction geek here at WITS, I'm going to share what my friends in the know, in particular Jeanine Just, have to say about the next 365 days.

We're talking about potentialities here--the physics of energy. So don't take anything as set in stone. (Though, I looked back at the suggestions for 2013, and I wish I'd taped the page to my wall to remind myself of them.)

1. First, on January 31, we'll celebrate the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Horse, Wood Horse to be specific. This is a year of youthful vitality and freedom, a year of balanced emotions. This is a year to settle down and commit to long-term plans. It's time to start the writing project that's been languishing in the wishful thinking area of your brain.

2. This is a seven year. A year of intellect, with chances to wax philosophical and feel the rhythms of life. Use your time for solitary reflection, dreams, analysis, and intuition. Plan on spending more alone time this year. This will boost your creativity. When you're with others, take advantage of the opportunity to cooperate and teach others what you know.

3. Forward is the only direction to go. There is no room for you to wiggle your way out of your destiny. Be businesslike, efficient, and prepared to take advantage of the opportunities awaiting you.

4.Let go of old ideas about things and people you know. You are likely to feel like you're –cliche alert!– between a rock and a hard place, but everyone will be, because there will be a lot of change this year.

Be prepared for lots of misunderstandings. (You can explain yourself, but allow others to work out their own "stuff", just as you will need to.) Don't be surprised if you feel differently about doing things you've previously enjoyed that just don't give you the same juice. You may cancel activities, but not for the reason you think, because you just don't feel like yourself.

5. Depend on your hunches to lead you down the path of success this year. Expect synchronicity, destined connections, and many interesting, unusual experiences. Seek deeper meaning, perhaps by spending time in nature. Ask yourself what makes you come alive--then go get it! Your inspiration is at an all-time high this year. Take advantage of it.

6. It is a year for writers to write, particularly if you are sharing your wisdom about life. Do the necessary research, analysis, observation and investigation. Your creativity and inner desire to live your destiny will override your fear. Speak to people and groups about your writing, even if you aren't published yet. People want to know about your projects. Connect with like-minded people.

7. Take care of your health. Sleep when you're tired. Don't work too hard. Find time for rest and relaxation. Take mini-vacations that nourish your soul. Consider meditation to open a path to the wisdom, simplicity and unlimited possibilities awaiting you in 2014.

I am energized and excited about 2014. It feels like it's time to reap the benefits of all the hard knocks and work from last year–and the ones before! I just know good things are going to happen for me. And for my friends. Here's to all of us having an amazing year with many wonderful dreams coming true and an order of magnitude of sharing good news unprecedented before on Writers in the Storm.

Happy New Year!

How are you feeling about the coming year? Do you have additional insights into this year? Something great to share?

by Jenny Hansen

If you know everything about Twitter, detest Twitter, or plan to never use it, you can probably skip this post.

For the rest of you: This is one of the most easy-to-implement social media posts I've ever done here at WITS. Enjoy!

It's the beginning of a new year this week, and a great time to form some new social media habits.

One great New Year's step is to update your profiles on your various social media tools. Make sure your achievements and links are up to date.

A few months back, I did my yearly Twitter clean-up in Tweepi, which is something I recommend you try.

Mind you, I don't advocate doing this very often. It's time consuming to go through all the people you follow 20 at a time. That's all you can see at once on the free version of Tweepi, so this will yearly clean-up will take you an hour (or more, depending on how many people you follow).

Why do I recommend you do this yearly?

• It immerses you in who you followed and why, encouraging you to reach out to some people you might not have talked to for a while.
• You need to periodically clean out the bots and people who have abandoned Twitter - they're skewing your numbers (more on that later).
• Tons of people follow others to get the follow-backs, then they unfollow everyone. This rude behavior leaves the Twitter newbies stuck with really high following numbers with a bunch of people who will never follow them back.
• If you do a lot of mass following/unfollowing, it can get you thrown into Twitter jail.

Information on Twitter follow ratio rules can be found here. I recommend you click that link and read it well. Or, if you need hand-holding, take Marcy Kennedy's Twitter classes...they're excellent!

Back to the yearly Twitter Clean-up...

Do I believe in unfollowing everyone who doesn't follow you?

NO. This is as rude as those narcissists spam-bots who follow just to get the follow-back.

There are people like J.K. Rowling and Harlan Coben, who I follow just because I love their books. I follow some agents and publishers because I need their information. I follow The Bloggess because she makes me laugh. I don't expect any of them to follow me back.

Which leads me to the next part of this post...

What is my criteria for unfollowing someone?

After spending more than an hour cleaning things up, I was pretty clear on this.

The three things most likely to make me unfollow someone:

1. They've never tweeted.

Ditto for someone who hasn't used their account in 6+ months. I start giving people the hairy eyeball at about 2-3 months of inactivity but if we're mutually following each other, I'll cut them some slack for life craziness.

Did y'all catch that?

2. Someone who ISN'T following me back gets closer scrutiny.

Hey, I'm human just like the next gal. We're all children/parents/workers/bloggers, etc. Our time is limited, and incredibly valuable, and we want to spend it with people we have a connection with.

If you've conversed with me, re-tweeted me, followed me or generally blown some sunshine my direction, I'm going to follow you. I just am. It's something nice I can do to say thanks.

Note: The only exception to this are the spam-bots who are doing these things to get followers. They're pretty to easy to spot once you've been on social media for a while.

When I do my once-a-year foray into Tweepi to look at who I'm following, if I see you in the "I'm Following" category (rather than "Mutual" which means we follow each other), I'm going to take a peek at your Twitter profile. Why do you think the process takes me so long?

Because I'm just as busy as everyone else, and have 3-4,000 people to wade through, if we're following each other, I'm probably just going to look to see if you're an active user, as I discussed above.

Just by tweeting every week or so, you are spared a closer look by most people during their clean-up. How easy is that??

3. Someone I know I've interacted with, who isn't following me.

If I've interacted with someone online, I follow or friend them. Ditto if we're in a writing chapter, Triberr group, or online chat together.

I know everyone doesn't engage in this sort of friendly behavior, and I don't expect everyone to love my stuff. It's okay if someone doesn't reach back out to me. If I dig them and they're an active user of that platform (in this case Twitter), the two of us stay connected.

But what about those evil people who make nice with you and/or follow you, and you KNOW once upon a time the two of you were connected and had a chat?

They've earned a closer look in Tweepi by not being on the mutual follow list and Eeeeky! When you look at their Twitter profile, they've got 4,255 followers, but they're following 300 people. That one makes my blood boil.

I call social media party foul!

Why is my time so much less valuable than yours? It's not like you have four hundred thousand followers, and the huge demands fame adds to one's life. There is absolutely no reason why your Follower/Following numbers aren't closer in alignment.

Aaaaaand, I've just cleared you off my list.

I'm just one lowly blogger/writer/tech trainer. Y'all don't have to listen to a single word of this, though I hope you will.

Others have done great posts on Twitter. Kristen Lamb, Marcy Kennedy, Penny Sansevieri and Chuck Wendig are all people who have nifty stuff to say on the subject.

In fact, a few years back, Chuck summed up Twitter as follows:

Nobody can really tell you how to use Twitter. Twitter is a conversation and you can join it as you like. That’s the joy of it, and that’s the hell of it. Sure, I think the things I said here are true, but I can’t make you do differently. However you want to enter the conversation is up to you. My only suggestion is, do it. Have the conversation. Engage. Be social — “social” is the key word of “social media.”

Are you active on social media? Do you ever "clean up" your accounts? (Why or why not?) Do you have a social media game plan/strategy? How did you develop it? I can't wait to see what y'all have to say down in the comments!

~ Jenny

Need a Monday pick-me-up? Hop on over to More Cowbell for 8 Fun (Mostly True) Facts About Mondays.

About Jenny Hansen

Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after her toddler Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 18 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing.

When she’s not at her blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at JennyHansenCA, on the SocialIn Network, or here at Writers In The Storm.

by Jenny Hansen

Today I'm sharing some rockstar writing resources -- we'll just call it an early New Year's gift.

First up: Inky Girl, aka Debbie Ridpath Ohi. I adore Inky Girl! She does gems like this in her Will Write for Chocolate series:

Inky Girl also introduces me to amazing writing teachers like Martha Alderson, who wrote a book called The Plot Whisperer. Inky Girl's review:

And finally, Linda Joy Myers at Memories and Memoirs, interviewed Martha Alderson and pried out the following seven questions for YOU to ask as you write:

For each scene: 7 Essential Questions of Plot:

1. Does the scene establish the date and setting?

2. How does it develop the character’s emotional makeup?

3. Is the scene driven by a specific character goal?

4. What dramatic action is shown?

5. How much conflict, tension, suspense, or curiosity is shown?

6. Does the character show emotional changes and reactions within the scene?

7. Does the scene reveal thematic significance to the overall story?

I originally came across this article because I write memoir, and it was fascinating to look at the story from Martha's more objective point of view:

Memoir writers think they know the plot because they already know “what happened.” Can you talk about this issue a bit—is that way of thinking useful or should they revise their attitude toward plot.

Plot embodies quite a bit more than more than just what happens in the memoir or a sum of the events. Plot is how the events in the story of your life directly impact the main character or the protagonist, in other words, you.

Always, in the best-written memoirs, the protagonist is emotionally affected by the events of the story. In great memoirs, the dramatic action transforms the protagonist. This transformation makes a story meaningful.

Keep in mind that, yes, you lived the story and the story comes through you. However, when you decide to write that story down, you turn from the one who experienced the events to that of a writer. Your job, then, is to present what you have lived in a pleasing and meaningful form to the reader.

This takes setting yourself aside and means opening your mind to receive the greatest good of the story.

I don't know about you, but that last sentence lights me on fire.

Note: If you'd like to read the rest of the article (and I recommend you do), click here. You can also find The Plot Whisperer on Amazon.

Last, but not least, I'm also a huge fan of Lisa Cron who wrote Wired For Story. (Here's a kickass article of hers titled Why Good Writers Sometimes Give Bad Advice.)

What books, bit of knowledge or writing instructor has lit you on fire lately? Is there some other question you ask, besides the seven above? What are you working on right now? It's almost the new year, and we're sharing here at WITS. :-) See y'all down in the comments!

~ Jenny

What's Jenny up to at More Cowbell? Latest post: How Much Love Can Fit in a One-Inch Picture Frame?

Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after her toddler Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing.

When she’s not at her blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at JennyHansenCA, on the SocialIn Network, or here at Writers In The Storm.