Author: Judy L Mohr

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Goal Setting with a Theme

When setting goals, we are told to use SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. We are encouraged to define our goals with clearly defined constraints and requirements to achieve the goals (specific), using something that we can measure our progress against (measurable). While it's important to dream big, we should never set ourselves up to fail by shooting for the stars from word go when there are a lot of little steps that we need to take along the way (attainable and realistic), and we need to put time limits on those goals (timely).

While I strongly believe in the ethos behind using SMART goals, it's the R in SMART that I believe is a little troublesome.

Commonly, I'll see R as Realistic, but I think Relevant is a better word to use. We might set a goal based on a certain task, but does that task have a purpose that is in service to our long-term hopes and dreams? For example, building that active Twitter following probably won't be of any help to the writer whose target audience is filled with young readers.

Today, I want to talk about shifting our SMART goals into something that has a stronger relevance to not only our hopes and dreams, but with our subconscious motivations too.

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Book Doctor

8 Common Structural Issues Within Fiction

I have edited many manuscripts over the years, and there are common flaws that I see come across my desk. I see some issues so often that when I see them, I struggle to unsee them. But all issues that I see are fixable. Exactly how they are fixed will depend on what the writer wants to achieve with their story.

In today's post, I want to discuss some of the common structural issues that I see, providing insights into why they happen. And it's not just a matter of understanding the beats of a story—though that is a huge part of it. It's really about the rise and fall of action and understanding reader expectations.

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3 common “tell” constructions and how to turn them into “show”

So many writers are fond of reciting the mantra "show, don't tell" like it's some holy passage that will lead writers to the land of glory. New writers hear this being said and are always left wondering what it really means.

When I first started writing fiction, nearly twenty years ago now, I too was confused beyond belief.

"Describe the action. Describe how the character is reacting." Wasn't that what I was doing?

It actually took a fellow writer who writes fantasy to explain it to me—properly.

Imagine your book being turned into a movie or television series (the ultimate dream of most fantasy writers). A scriptwriter is going to take your book and fashion it into a script where the only way to get an insight into a character is through their actions. How true that scriptwriter remains to your book will be related to how much show you give them to work with.

And trust me when I say that seeing your words of descriptions transformed into the visual format is an incredibly satisfying feeling. (I've had commissioned artwork done based on lines of my manuscripts.)

I have written about the concepts of show vs tell before in Show the story. Tell the ride through the countryside.  and in Is First-Person Really More Intimate?

Today, I want to take this from a different perspective, explaining how to identify a tell statement and how you might transform it into one of show.

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Guilty

Should Social Media be an Adult-Only Zone?

Every so often, I encounter another teenage nightmare unfolding on the internet. It starts out innocent, but as the social media machine takes over, it's an avalanche that threatens to bury everyone alive. And I sit on the sidelines, watching all the chaos as society spirals down into another hate-fest.

For years, I've been obsessed with how social media has taken such a hold of our everyday lives. The writer in me is watching every worst-case scenario play out within the digital world, and I keep asking how it could get worse. (Because as any writer can tell you, it can always get worse.)

In the beginning, social media was a brilliant concept. It was a place where people could connect with each other and form working relationships with people who were on the other side of the planet. But as its popularity grew and more people flocked to various platforms, the social dynamics changed. In some cases, the interactions descended into a toxic cesspit needing a HazMat suit with breathing apparatus to even enter. At which point, another platform would seem to spring forth with the promise of a safe-and-inclusive environment.

Regardless of what social media has become, social media and the internet form a huge part of the world we now live in. My children have never known a life where the internet didn't exist—and my oldest is now in his 20s.

Two decades. So much of our world has changed in those two decades.

So, when I see the teenage nightmares unfolding on social media, it's not surprising to me that there is an outcry of people wanting to make social media an adult-only zone. I can understand where the viewpoints are coming from that want to classify social media usage in the same way we do alcohol and driving. But as the number of these negative events grow—sometimes, resulting in the death of yet another teen—there is only one thought that goes through my mind:

Where are the parents teaching their children how to socially behave on the internet?

If you're willing to stick around, I'll do the best I can to explain why I feel that the deplorable nature of social media is actually the responsibility of parents and how I went about teaching my children to cope with the social media cesspit.

It's an interesting tale, involving Scouts, my children, my writing, and my obsession with social media and online behavior.

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Daylight Savings… Curse you!

Every six months, the clocks change by an hour. And every six months, I go mental as I try to reconcile the clock changes on my daily and business life.

It might be only an hour, but that's only if you focus on the one time zone. If you are like me, you live your life based on multiple time zone (having an international business), so it's not just one hour that changes. Nope. It's one hour one month as Daylight Savings starts in one time zone, but it's another hour the next month as Daylight Savings ends the next month. And by the end of it, the clocks have moved two hours and you lose total track of everything.

Every six months, I face this two-hour shift, and sometimes the results are me grumpy because I'm up at all godly hours in the morning.

Let me tell you of my crazy when the clocks shifted in New Zealand earlier this month.

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