There’s a new podcast for writers who tend to get distracted. Created by Candace J. Thomas and myself, Jodi L. Milner, the aim of Squirrel! is to support, educate, and entertain.
Candace and I are both highly distractable people. We’ve both got families with kids that need our attention. She’s got a day job I have clients I consult with to help them reach their writing goals. We both volunteer way too many hours of our time for our local writing organization. And – we’re both published indie authors trying to continue to bring new books into the world.
So, yeah – you can say we understand what it’s like to really want to work on writing projects and getting distracted by life constantly.
But, there’s one thing that we’re both passionate about, and that’s helping other writers succeed in their creative efforts. We love attending and teaching at conferences and conventions and delight when writers come up to our table wanting to know more about the craft.
So, making a podcast where we can collect all this awesome information that we’ve gathered over the years simply made sense.
If you’re a creative person who needs a bit of encouragement and support in the pursuit of your own creative projects, Squirrel! was made just for you.
Each episode has a specific focus. Popular topics include productivity, craft, mental health, and character development. We aim for each episode to be between 20-30 mins – the perfect length for your commute or while working around the house.
Find Squirrel! Podcast for the Distracted Writer in the following places:
The annual awards banquet of the League of Utah Writers was held on a warm night in August. I’d attended this event every year for nearly a decade, applauding the winners of the various awards and enjoying the company of my favorite fellow writers. While I’d entered more categories this year than I had in the past, I was very aware of the talent level I was competing against.
As the night progressed and the various categories were announced, I was happy to get a third-place win in the YA first chapter category all while trying to ignore the other categories where my work was completely ignored.
The end of the evening is reserved for the announcement of the big winners, including the Quills contest for published books. Back in 2019, I’d entered Stonebearer’s Betrayal and won a Recommended Read. In 2021, Stonebearer’s Apprentice won a Silver.
While I really liked how Stonebearer’s Redemption had turned out, I knew that as a third book in a series, it would be hard for a judge to understand any of the references to the other books. I crossed my fingers for a mention, as even a recommended read would have made me very happy.
As the Quill Awards for all the different categories were announced, and my category came and went, I tried not to be disappointed. Part of being a professional writer is understanding that some people might not like my work. Lurking at the edge of possibility was winning the last and largest award, the Diamond Quill.
This award was always announced after all the others, meaning that everyone who entered whose name hadn’t been called was now on the edge of their seats for this one last chance at recognition.
They called the winner, and it wasn’t me. I was prepared to be okay with it. Annoyed, but okay.
Except – this year they had a tie.
I’d already mentally packed my bags and was eager to leave when a very familiar book cover flashed on the screen and my name was called. Shocked isn’t quite the word for what went through my system. I was floored. Speechless. Stunned. Hubby dearest captured a picture moments after that says it all.
It took a few days to even believe that it had happened. In some ways, I’m still in denial about the whole thing. Perhaps that’s why it took so long to write this post.
To all of you who stood by me through thick and thin, thank you. Writing Stonebearer’s Redemption was possibly one of the hardest projects I’d ever embarked on and required every ounce of skill and inspiration that I could find. It was one of those books that fought back and challenged me to do better, be better. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my family, my writing community, and of course my amazing editor who called me on all the ideas and concepts that weren’t working.
Thank you to the League of Utah Writers for this honor.
Find the entire Shadow Barrier Trilogy, including Stonebearer’s Redemption, in this amazing ebook box set!
After a year of tumult and avoiding crowds, or to be honest, avoiding people in general, being back at FanX was a welcome step back to normalcy. That said, it was really weird to interact with so many friends and strangers in person after so long of not feeling safe to do so. I was pleased that the majority of attendees chose to respect the mask rule as I know it helped keep us all safer.
This year was a number of firsts for me, which made my FanX experience that much more exciting. I wasn’t until recently that I was able to join the panelist group, thanks to a dear friend who advocated for me. Before that, I’d always bought a ticket and spent my time attending panels in the audience, walking the vendor floor, and finding friends who were actually working the con. Throw in an occasional cosplay, and that was the extent of my experience.
The Booth
In previous years, I’ve never committed to selling my books at any particular booth, mainly because I didn’t really have that many books to sell. Way back in 2019, which feels like forever ago, I got to sign books with my favorite indie bookstore, The Printed Garden. And while it doesn’t hold a candle to the work of running a booth, it was the perfect way to stick my toe in the water.
This year I buddied up with two fabulous authors, Candace J Thomas and C. M. Adler, as well as one amazing artist, Julie Gallegos to make up the Local Fantasy Author Booth #1236. All I can say is, what a learning experience. I got a much greater appreciation for booth design, inventory management, and patron interaction than I ever expected.
Moderating my first panel
It’s one thing to be invited to talk about different topics, it’s quite another to guide the conversation. This year I participated in three fascinating panels, Spirited Away, Flash Gordon, and The Witcher.
2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the Japan release of Spirited Away, so I thought it would be a great year to celebrate. As the panel was my idea, they let me moderate which is something I’ve done a bunch in other smaller venues, but nothing as big as FanX. My fellow panelists were terrific and the discussion ranged from thematic elements of the show to how Miyazaki ties his creations to folklore and culture, to my favorite question – which character each of the panelists felt represented them the best.
The other panels were also great fun. For Flash Gordon the moderator brought some slides that compared the Sam J Jones movie to the original Buster Keaton series. We then talked about our favorite scenes – definitely the tree spider scene – and also brought up all sorts of interesting trivia, like how the role of Flash was originally offered to Kurt Russell.
As for the Witcher panel, I got to let my inner geek shine as only myself and one other panelist had read the novels and many of the questions had a lot to do with how the different medias compared with each other.
Selling out of my book!
As authors, nothing makes us happier than connecting with people who love the subjects and genres we write about. Selling my fantasy series at FanX was a dream come true. I’ve never been in a situation where people would walk by and see the books we offered and say, “I want that” and then buy it. Talk about feeling validated.
Again, this whole event was a learning experience. Part of that learning was all about how many of a title I should ideally bring. Had I brought more, I could have easily sold more. I don’t feel bad. As a first time, I consider the whole experience a raging success.
My one regret
Most years I spend far more time roaming around and seeing the other tables and booths. That said, most years I have my amazing hubby to keep me company as we look at all the cool cosplays and things for sale. While he came this year to visit, I was too overwhelmed at all the newness of working the booth to spend much time with him. When I did take a minute to wander around, it wasn’t the same.
Next year for sure I will make the time to roam the conference and see all the amazing stuff with hubby dearest and perhaps pick up a few more sparkly goodies along the way.
Well, my pretties, we’re here at the end. If you’re reading this then you’ve made it this far. Congratulations. This has been a different year for everyone, myself included.
At the beginning of this year, I had some pretty big dreams. I was going to power through editing and publishing the rest of the Shadow Barrier series and had two more books on stand by just waiting for attention. With enough good planning, I was going to get those out this year as well.
And, that didn’t happen.
But, I did get two books out:
In January, I rereleased Stonebearer’s Betrayal, with it’s fabulous new cover. And in June, it’s much awaited sequel – Stonebearer’s Apprentice. The third book in the series, Stonebearer’s Redemption, is a few months from completion. Huzzah.
I don’t think I missed a single week of posting on the blog which resulted in lots of book reviews, movie reviews, and some deep thoughts as I figured out how to live with all the COVID changes. It’s always fun to look back through the work of the year, and this year it’s interesting to note the change in tone of the personal essays as the months of isolation started to take effect.
Thank you dear reader for stopping by! If you’d like to be notified of future posts here at JodiLMilner.com, be sure to ‘subscribe’ using the handy links. Or, even better, sign up to be part of my mailing list.
Seven weeks ago, back in the heady early days of this thing we call virtual schooling, my son and I planted a bean to observe the plant lifecycle in action. Honestly, I didn’t even think the seed would sprout. The packet of green bean seeds had been sitting around in my basement for the last decade with my other gardening hopes and dreams, just waiting for something to happen.
The original assignment was to stick the seeds on a wet paper towel in a plastic baggie so the kid could watch the roots grow and the stem and then the leaves, if you were that lucky. I swear growing up, my seed was always the one that rotted and grew florescent mold instead of actually growing.
So when it fulfilled its seedy destiny and definitely grew, I was both surprised and thankful. I had no desire to explain that sometimes things die to my kiddo. It’s literally last thing on my list of things I don’t want to do during an already insanity causing year.
But, it couldn’t live in that sandwich baggie, it needed to be in dirt – as kiddo so helpfully told me. Every. single. day. Change means risk. Transferring a delicate baby plant that’s clinging for its life on a paper towel to a Solo cup of dirt could very well kill it, especially if I relied on the elephant-like grace of my 3rd grader. At the same time, it was his project. He had every right to do the transfer himself.
Long story short. Our combined efforts didn’t kill the thing. If anything, it might have encouraged it. I have a proud adult bean plant living in my office window that’s ACTUALLY GROWING BEANS.
The big decision now is whether we eat the three whole beans when they are ripe, or let them grow to maturity and repeat the cycle again with the seeds we collect?
The moral to this story is that you might be a bean seed. You might have been stuck in a position where you couldn’t really do anything for an excruciating amount of time until one day you finally got your chance. It might be a wet paper towel in a baggy kind of a chance, but it is better than sitting in an envelope with a bunch of other dry seeds.
You choose. Do you grow like a crazy 3rd grade science experiment? Or do you accidentally let the furry blue mold get you?
There might be risks and dangers. You might risk everything to move up to something bigger and better (with actual dirt!). There might be someone with the grace of a pachyderm there trying to help you, but might actually crush you.
Grow anyway.
And when your three green beans are long and fat, harvest and remember that you once were a little seed.
Hi everyone! Jodi here. I’ve been enjoying writing these little Friday tidbits for the past while and sharing my thoughts on life, the universe, and everything. But, like all good things, it’s time for a change. At the end of October, these Friday notes will shift exclusively to my newsletter and this blog will be dedicated to weekly book and movie reviews and the occasional important announcement.
Don’t miss out – join my newsletter today. You’ll get updates, freebies, links, and all sorts of fun stuff.
Remember how last week I was so wonderfully excited about the coming of fall and how I loved all of the cozy comforts of snuggling and cocoa? Yeah, I taunted karma, and she came after me with a stick.
I forgot it would be midterms for my kiddos this week.
With virtual school this is a whole new beast to figure out. Some teachers are doing great and it’s easy to figure out what their expectations are. For these classes, its easy to have confidence that we are doing what needs to be done to stay on target.
Then, there are a precious few teachers who are trying really hard to teach virtually, but haven’t mastered communicating, well, anything. My kids want to do a good job, and heaven knows I want them to do a good job. But for a few classes, we aren’t sure what that looks like.
That means that this week I get to spend lots of extra hours helping kids write essays, research topics, learn Spanish, take videos for virtual PE, and for my youngest, stay on his Zoom calls.
And karma wasn’t done at that.
Several important appointments also ended up being scheduled all this week. These are the kind of appointments that in a perfect world I’d schedule at least a week apart because they really stress me out. But at least they’re over now, right? It’s like ripping off a band-aid to do them all at once, right? Maybe. In this instance it feels like the stress is cumulative. Instead of suffering low grade stress for longer, I get to have massive stress spikes that feel like you need to scream but can’t because it would freak out your family, so you push it all way back down instead.
Because that’s super healthy.
Thanks Karma. I know I brought this on myself, but the irony of it all is amusing.
Hi everyone! Jodi here. I’ve been enjoying writing these little Friday tidbits for the past while and sharing my thoughts on life, the universe, and everything. But, like all good things, it’s time for a change. At the end of October, these Friday notes will shift exclusively to my newsletter and this blog will be dedicated to weekly book and movie reviews and the occasional important announcement.
Don’t miss out – join my newsletter today. You’ll get updates, freebies, links, and all sorts of fun stuff.
I’ve taught a class about how to overcome creative roadblocks several times over the last few months. It’s become more and more relevant as the stresses of COVID and the political atmosphere have made creativity harder to find. The largest part of the class is learning to ask yourself questions and then allowing yourself to answer them honestly.
Questions have a power all on their own. They demand answers. Good questions lead to a greater understanding. Vague questions lead to more confusion. If you can learn the skill of asking yourself the right questions, you can solve a whole host of problems.
The other night I woke up to a panic attack. When it was happening, all I knew is that my mind was spinning and I couldn’t shake the feeling of being overwhelmed. It felt as if I had too many things on my plate and there was no possible way to get them all done. What was worse, it also felt as if there were invisible things on my plate that I needed to figure out, but no clues as to what they might be.
The attacks don’t happen often, thankfully. This one was caused by being overtired. The night before I hadn’t slept well because we were camping and I was too hot. Piled on top of that was the coming of another Monday and still not feeling confident about how online schooling was working for my kiddos and if they had the support they needed from me. I know the teachers are doing the best they can and I’m grateful for them. All I need now is for them all to agree to use the cool virtual teaching tools in roughly the same way so I can easily find what the assignments are and make sure they get done.
In a funny way, being part of online school has taught me far more about my kids personalities than anything else.
When these panic attacks strike, it’s time to start asking questions. What are my biggest worries? What of these worries can I do anything about? What of these worries can I let go of? What plans do I need to make to address the things I can change? What needs to be added to my to do list so I can stop trying to hold it in my head? What needs to change in my schedule to accommodate these needs that hasn’t already been added?
As the questions keep flowing, the answers start coming. I write down everything with the intention that no one will see these words besides myself. This writing is a tool, not a product. Once all the questions have been asked and answered and my pages are full, I know what direction I need to go.
There are still stresses, and if I don’t take better care of myself, there’s a chance of another attack in the near future. But, I have a plan in place and the confidence in knowing that the plan works.
Here’s to conquering each and every one of life’s challenges, both big and small.
For the past year and a half, I’ve been sharing my store of motherly wit and wisdom with a group of women who affectionately call themselves the Strong Moms. These posts go out once a week under the wide umbrella of “Strong Mom Tips” and are usually focused on good psychological advice ranging from productivity, to health, to anger management.
Recently the Strong Moms have started their own website, specifically made to contain all the awesomeness of the best of their posts, mine included. If you’re a mom who needs a lift and would like a friendly place to go for a virtual hug, the Strong Moms site has all the warmth and love of a chocolate chip cookie still gooey from the oven.
The last few weeks I’ve sharing several different ideas that are important to me, especially as we enter school season once again. The first demonstrates the importance of stepping back and letting our kids learn to entertain themselves from a young age to help them learn self sufficiency and independence. Another post explores the psychology behind finishing the goals we start, even if it doesn’t turn out the way we expect.
A few of the other articles that have recently been posted on the blog include a beautiful piece one called “Becoming” which explores how we can shape our experience through the power of our thought patterns. Another discusses the very practical issue of when one should consider supplementing an infants feeding with formula.
With new articles being posted daily, there’s always something new. You’re sure to find a helpful article, and inspirational story, or a shared experience to make you laugh.
Thank you dear reader for stopping by! If you’d like to be notified of future posts here at JodiLMilner.com, be sure to ‘subscribe’ using the handy links. Or, even better, sign up to be part of my mailing list and get a signup bonus of one of my short stories for free.
You can also find updates and post notifications on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – chose the one you like the most!
As the summer rolls on, it’s becoming harder and harder to hide in my cute little office and work. There are exciting things to do, things to see, and I might be a teensy weensy bit stir crazy. When the crazies set in, it’s time for a change of scenery.
This weekend that drive to adventure took our family up Big Cottonwood Canyon to explore the Mill B area. What’s great about this spot is that the water from the river cools down the canyon floor making it a welcome break from the summer heat. There are stunning waterfalls, comfortable short hikes, and plenty of rocks for the kiddos to scramble around on.
On a recommendation from a family member, we found Hidden Falls which is marked only by a tiny sign. It’s not even a hike, but rather a climb up the side of a hidden stream that leads to a lovely isolated grotto. The kids had a great time climbing and traversing the stream on half submerged rocks like a real world “floor is lava” game, and I was thrilled to get them away from their screens for a while.
To finish up the afternoon, we hiked Mill B South which is also a short well-maintained and nearly flat trail that leads to a larger staircase waterfall at the end. It’s a perfect place to bring a picnic and get away from things.
A lot of this area is what I imagine the dramatic canyons and mountains in Stonebearer’s Betrayal to feel like. There are steep slopes and hidden gems just waiting to be found. Maybe if I go far enough, I’ll find an immense castle occupied by magical immortals.
Hey, a girl can dream.
What are your favorite outdoor activities?
Thank you dear reader for stopping by! If you’d like to be notified of future posts here at JodiLMilner.com, be sure to ‘subscribe’ using the handy links. Or, even better, sign up to be part of my mailing list and get a signup bonus of one of my short stories for free.
You can also find updates and post notifications on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – chose the one you like the most!
As an ambitious person, I tend to go overboard when it comes to setting goals. A good goal should force you to stretch yourself to reach, but still be doable. They require real effort. This is a good thing. Reaching for a goal means that even when I don’t complete it in its entirety, I still work harder and get more done than if I hadn’t set the goal at all.
The problem I keep running into is setting too many goals at one time. When this happens, I spend each day scrambling to try to reach the most important ones and lamenting the ones I didn’t have time to work on. It’s a nasty cycle. Without fail, I’ll say stupid things to myself like “I can catch up on that tomorrow or over the weekend” fully knowing that the time fairy isn’t going to grant me more hours, even if I promise to slip her into one of my stories. Sometimes it’s not time that causes the problem, but energy. It doesn’t matter how much free time you have if you’re too tired to think or work.
I started July like I start every month, by looking over what I really wanted to make progress on and then setting goals that would help me do so. Turns out there were plenty of things I wanted to be more consistent doing that included house and yard work, personal health goals, and of course, authoring pursuits.
When I counted the things on my list today, I found sixteen different tasks that I needed to accomplish if I wanted to reach all those goals today. Some only take a few minutes, but most take anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours each. It doesn’t take a genius to do the math there. Even on a great day, there’s no way I’d have the time. Especially since I’ve also got the kiddos at home and need to give them attention as well, not to mention keep everyone fed.
Yep, just thinking about it is stressing me out a little.
Will I learn my lesson when I set goals for August? I surely hope so. The good thing is that every time I work through one of these challenges, I do learn a few things. This time I learned that tracking that many goals becomes stressful and tedious. It’s best to limit goals to the things that are truly important and then do the best you can with the rest.
My question to you is, are you a goal setter? If so, what does your goal setting practice look like?
Thank you dear reader for stopping by! If you’d like to be notified of future posts here at JodiLMilner.com, be sure to ‘subscribe’ using the handy links. Or, even better, sign up to be part of my mailing list and get a signup bonus of one of my short stories for free.
You can also find updates and post notifications on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – chose the one you like the most!
Jodi L. Milner, Author 