Due to this week being a bit crazier than I expected, today’s post is what I’m calling an open mic. Everyone out there in cyberland is welcome to ask whatever questions they like down in the comments and I will do my best to answer honestly and promptly. The best or most interesting questions will be used to start a FAQ page in the header of this blog.
That means shameless self promotion for anyone who asks a question. Woohoo!
Ready? Go!
Please be kind 🙂
Jodi L. Milner, Author 
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Is this on? OK . . . great.
When your crazy hectic busy life spins out of control, as if you’re on a perpetual Tilt A Whirl twirling at super-sonic speeds, what’s the first thing to go? Besides, of course, your sanity.
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Awesome question! When things get nuts the first thing to go is the housework, especially the laundry.
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Good choices, Jodi. Almost everything can be worn “one more time.” 😉
Unless, of course, your kids are M~E~S~S~Y.
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Who’s sexier: athletes, musicians, movie stars, or shirtless guys who randomly chop wood with an ax?
(“my husband’ is not an acceptable answer)
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Oooh, hard call! Are the shirtless guys ripped? Is there a “pick a cute firefighter” option? Part of sexy for me is that somehow the man has some redeeming qualities, besides being good looking. On that note, I’ll go with a country singer – I’m sure they know how to chop wood.
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Ok: Luke Bryan, no shirt, just after a workout, dressed like a firefighter, holding an ax with which he intends to do some chopping.
Got it!
😉
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Ooo…Anything? Hmm…
You cast Tarja as one of your chars…do you find music heavily influencing your writing/plots at all?
When things get crazy, how do you garner enough focus to continue the creative process and combat distractions?
And how do you properly do the social networky/generate buzziness thing? I have a blog, but all I know to do with it is post stuff to it. Somehow I get the feeling there’s more to it than that…
Oh, and for the randomness! What is the best thing about the color yellow? ::has no clue if you even like yellow:: ::quit trying to be funny, Cat, you’re scaring the village-folk::
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Wow, now those are some questions!
When it comes to music vs. writing usually the story comes first and then often a type of music will fit it best. In the case of my current WIP I’m working for something that’s both beautiful and heavy hitting so music from Nightwish is a perfect fit.
Crazy is kind of a way of life with three kids in the house. If I’m to get anything done I have to make the time to do it. There are days when I can’t get the writing flowing and those days I have to let the writing be rotten. There is always time to edit later. The more you deal with distractions the better your brain learns to work with whatever time you give it.
There is no proper way to do the whole social media thing. There are a few definite don’ts and a handful of you shoulds, but for the most part it’s up to what you are willing and have time to do. Check out my blogging for authors post – here’s the link: http://wp.me/pLl3e-PT
And then there was yellow… The best thing about it is how it is a happy color, lots of my favorite things are yellow, eggs, sunshine, dandelions, sunsets, shame chocolate isn’t…
That was fun! Thanks Cat.
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Chocolate M&Ms can be yellow! >.> Jus’ sayin’…
That’s another thing I need to work on–just letting the writing be rotten when I only have an hour or less to spare. I write so slowly that I keep thinking I need a good three hours to get any decent chunk of writing done, and so then days go by where nothing gets written and I feel all guilty and gross. Maybe if I quit trying to focus on making every sentence pretty I can speed up my writing time a bit.
And thanks for the link! Very good tips! If you don’t mind a follow-up…
It seems that in order to get people interested about your writing, you have to have a blog. But how do you get people interested in your blog? Your link has some good ideas, but not many people will click on a link in a comment and business cards aren’t always practical. Also, what’s a blog hop? ‘Cause it sounds like something that requires a poodle skirt. o.O Pretty sure I’m wrong about that.
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I’m not sure about other people, but if I get a good comment from a stranger on my blog I go and check their blog out. If it’s something I like, I follow it. Also, many people will follow your blog back if you follow theirs. If you pick a mainstream blogging service this is very straight forward, often done in a single click.
Another way of getting exposure is using Facebook, or any of the other social networking sites to push links to your blog posts to people who might be interested. Facebook has thousands of writers groups and other special interest groups that are open to whoever wants to join and you can post links to your stuff there. As long as what you post is something that you think people would be interested in reading it’s fair game.
A blog hop is where a group of blogs agree to do something together and then link to each others blogs. I just finished a giveaway hop from http://www.iamareader.com/ earlier this month and got 35 new followers in a week. These are either hosted by a blog or through facebook so you have to go and look for them. The idea is that everyone goes and checks out everyone else’s stuff in the hop (so they are hopping from blog to blog). It’s a lot of fun.
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