A Swiftly Tilting Experience

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Jodi

What a week. Between the constant fear of exposure to COVID and witnessing the protests, there has been plenty to worry about. People are justifiably angry. Any action, including inaction, is met with such criticism that many people feeling trapped and helpless in trying to figure out how they should respond.

Know this, you are not alone if you feel this way.

As for me, the best I can do is be kind and fair in all my dealings and teach my kids to do the same.

This week has also been filled with lots of positive experiences. Both my own kids and close family members have made it through another school year and they deserve to be celebrated. Seeing these kids grow up to be confident and capable adults carries a bittersweet joy and is a constant reminder that life is precious and always changing. The cousins and nieces I watched grow up since they were babies are heading off into the world to make their mark.

It is a new month and a time to be thinking about goals and things that I want to get accomplished. The production of Stonebearer’s Apprentice is all wrapped up, which is a goal five years in the making. I started drafting the first ideas for this book back in 2015 during that year’s NaNoWriMo challenge. I’m thrilled for it to be hitting the shelves next Friday, June 12th. You can preorder the ebook today!

The next big project is the third and final book in the Shadow Barrier Trilogy, Stonebearer’s Redemption. It’s already drafted, but since I do a lot of discovery writing, editing is a long and involved process. It’s the best part, because this is when I find ways to bring characters, settings, and the story to life. My goal is to spend 5-7 hours a week working on this project with the deadline of finishing the edit at the end of July.

As for everything else business wise, I still plan on writing my usual weekly articles, spending time seeking out marketing opportunities, and there are a few shiny projects on the side I get to play with as well.

My biggest challenge this week will be to figure out how to best manage my time now that we don’t have school so that everything gets done without an undue amount of stress or burning myself out.

If you have a magic solution for that, let me know!

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Jodi L Milner is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Time Management for People with Better Things to Do

Posted on November 8, 2019 by Jodi

Time. It’s one of those fluid things everything thinks they can control. Funny thing is, no matter what you do, it keeps sliding by. This morning, I’ve had to sneak down to my evil lair two different times to finish different tasks due today. Normally, my Friday mornings tend to be chaotic as I work to get kiddos out the door on a different schedule. Getting any writing work done is usually not on the table until well after 9:30.

Today ended up being different. I know I’m going to be super busy the rest of the day and therefore needed to get my two small deadlines finished and scheduled before heading out on errands. Yay?

Should I have done those two deadlines yesterday when things weren’t as chaotic and not wait until the last minute? Yeah… but I didn’t. If this whole authoring business was easy or predictable, everyone would do it. Now if the voice of reason would please shush? Thank you.

Instead of enjoying my bonus sleeping time that I normally sneak in on Friday, I got my whiny behind up and marched it down to my office to finish task #1 – a scheduled post on the Strong Moms Facebook group. Every Friday I leave a mom friendly tip helping and encouraging women to go reach their goals and life a fulfilling life. It doesn’t take long, but it does take time.

After my first two headed out to school and my oldest was well on his way to being ready, I ran down stairs again to write this lovely post for my regularly scheduled Friday blog. Yeah, not sure if this one is paying off, but it’s something that’s important to me. Not every post can be wonderful or insightful – but every once in a while, I surprise myself.

My other big writing goal for the day is to knock out more words on my NaNoWriMo project and continue pushing forward on that goal. I’d like to do 2000 so I can stay ahead, just in case there are days later in the month, like Thanksgiving, where it will be that much harder to sneak away and write. Knowing my schedule, I’ll be happy with 500, as long as something gets on the page.

The bottom line is, everyone has different time constraints and scheduling needs. If you’ve got a goal and keep putting it off because you can’t find the time, I urge you to reconsider what that actually means. There are weird pockets of time sitting around waiting for you to grab them. Some of them might be funny looking, some might be inconvenient, but they are there.

Now, go do the thing – and then tell me all about it!

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Power Word: Strive

Posted on June 19, 2019 by Jodi

Everyone knows there are goals worth working for. These goals are as unique as the person who sets them. They are what you spend your free time on, what you think about when you are drifting off to sleep, and what excites you when you hit milestones.

Striving to achieve these goals isn’t only important to overall well-being, it also brings intense satisfaction.

For me, I have plenty of goals I’m working toward as well as other areas where I want to excel. The most obvious is with my writing career. I want to achieve success as an author. Other things are equally important to me as well. At home, I want to be an awesome mom, a decent chef, have a beautiful yard, and keep an organized home. In my personal life, I’d love to learn character sketching and graphic design and take up karate once more.

It all has to start somewhere. For me, the word strive means to work with a goal in mind. It means spending time learning, practicing, and applying new skills. It means stepping closer toward mastery. It means sacrificing free time and sleep.

Many people have this belief that someday they’ll find the time to do the things they’ve always dreamed about. It could be after their kids have left for college, after they retire, after they get their next bonus, or after they pay off a debt.

What usually happens is that they keep putting off their dreams until they no longer have time or energy to be able to live them – and that’s tragic.

Some dreams require significant investment, like traveling abroad. Some require huge amounts of time, like writing a book. Some require additional schooling, like getting certified to be a life coach. Every single one starts with a baby step in the right direction.

While there are many things I would love to dive into right now, I know what my time limitations are. I also know the power of small consistent effort over time.

For now, I’m striving to be a successful author by spending time everyday writing, editing, and producing my next books. I spend time every week communicating with other authors and learning and growing. I make time to attend conferences. Every page finished, every new skill honed, every effort brings me that much closer to my goal.

What are you striving for?
What dreams are you willing to take the first step in accomplishing?
Let’s discuss it all in the comments below!

If you want to read my other power word posts, head over to Power Words of 2019.

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Positive Messages in Stonebearer’s Betrayal

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Jodi

While there are a lot of books out there with terrific messages, there are also a rampant amount of books out there that idolize unhealthy relationships and glorify questionable life choices.

While Stonebearer’s Betrayal is far from perfect, it does contain several positive messages that I think are important for everyone.

#1 – The power is in you

Perhaps the most important message in Katira’s story is that everyone, regardless of if they have magic or not, has the power to change a situation. Choosing to be brave and make hard decisions can be scary, but in the long run it’s ultimately more rewarding.

#2 – There is a special magic that can only happen between people who have been together for years and years.

Katira’s parents, Jarand and Mirelle, have been together for almost two hundred years.
They share a magic bond that helps them feel and understand what the other is feeling. Throughout the story we get to see the beautiful give and take of their relationship and how close they are to each other. While magic like this doesn’t exist in the real world, this kind of closeness and empathy can be cultivated when a couple is willing to continually work on improving their understanding of each others needs.

#3 – If a relationship isn’t working out, it’s okay to part in friendship.

Sometimes things don’t work between people. It happens. Pop culture constantly shows us that this break up calls for drama and nastiness, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Often, all that’s needed is a heartfelt conversation where each person feels safe to talk about how they feel. It takes a lot of courage to do this because as we all know, feelings hurt. The more people can see this happen in the media they consume, the more likely they will be willing to try.

#4 – It’s okay for things to go badly, it’s not okay to endlessly wallow in it.

Most fiction does an admirable job showing that those who wallow in self-pity only manage to prolong their own suffering and cause themselves additional problems. However, sometimes stories reinforce the message that the sad person gets all the attention while the person who chooses to move on is portrayed as heartless or uncaring. There can be a balance. It’s okay to feel bad when things go wrong, in fact it’s healthy to allow a moment to mourn or be angry. It’s not healthy to remain there longer than necessary.

#5 – You don’t have to be a princess or specially chosen to do something amazing.

There is this very damaging idea that ordinary people can’t do important things, that they need special permission or the perfect opportunity or the right people to guide them. This is far from true. Anyone can take steps to work toward a challenging goal. It takes courage to step out of the box, to break the mold, and to do the incredible – and that’s why it’s powerful to see when others succeed. You can succeed too!

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Power Words of 2019

Posted on January 16, 2019 by Jodi

No, this isn’t a goal writing post. I swear it. No one wants to read yet another one of those. Besides, it’s mid January, trendy goal-setting posts are not allowed past this point.

This is totally a motivating “set your intention” mindful living kind of post.

And I’m all about motivation!

This year, I didn’t want a set of structured goals looming over me. It’s not that the goals aren’t helpful – structured goals are a powerful tool – it’s that I tend to get carried away with the details and that causes anxiety. If I create all those details, then there’s the pressure that I might get it wrong. Instead of spreadsheets of detailed goal planning, I’m embracing a single word:

‘INTENTION’

As a busy mom, everyday brings with it a new set of challenges. Instead of fighting the never ending tide of changes and feeling like I’m constantly behind or missing out, or doing it wrong, the focus instead will be on what I want as the desired result.

It sounds super hippy, that’s why I like it. It’s not going to solve my problems, just my mindset. And a healthier mindset can move mountains.

In addition to reminding myself to live each moment with intention, I’ve created a series of power words to help focus that intention from day to day.

For this year, these words are the following:

In the morning, somewhere between making breakfast and checking if everyone’s teeth are brushed, I take a moment and consider my day and the challenges I might face. One of these words will best encapsulate what I need to focus on and I stick it to my monitor as a reminder.

Stay tuned, every third Wednesday of the month is now power word day here on the blog, where I discuss what each word means to me and how it has helped me work toward my goals.

A huge thank you to Jenelle Stone for her class on power words and goal setting, I loved it!

Do you use focus words? What words do you find powerful? Share in the comments below.

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Love fantasy and sci-fi? Go check out the Fantasy and Sci-fi Reader’s Lounge over on Facebook. Everyday new authors visit the page to talk about their books and also their favorite fantasy and sci-fi. Even better, there are lots of contests and giveaways of the freshest fiction. Go check it out!

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Just posted today! My article “What to Expect when you are Expecting … a Book” is over at James Thomson’s blog, The Wayside. Go check it out!

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2018 Year in Review

Posted on December 28, 2018 by Jodi

Wow. What a year. While it’s true my plans for growing my blog readership didn’t happen which had everything to do with being overwhelmed with working to get my first book published, I’m very pleased with what I did accomplish this year. From books read, to posts written, to short stories submitted, to connections made, to articles shared, to podcasts recorded, I’ve been a busy little bee!

Books read from the 2018 reading list

I totally flaked out on reading all of the books I wanted to this year and again I’ll blame it on the stress of the publishing process. Finding each title, and reading it, and returning to share about it here was too much to figure out when all my time and attention was focused on staying afloat while working to make Stonebearer’s Betrayal as good as it could be. The reading I ended up doing was self-indulgent escapism in the form of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series. No regrets there. The great thing about books is the list I made for 2018 will still be there for me for 2019. Yay!

Fiction:

Bel Canto – Ann Patchett

Ready Player One – Ernest Cline

Man from Shenandoah – Marsha Ward

Heroes of the Valley – Jonathan Stroud

Non-Fiction:

Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy – David Gerrold

Stiff: Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach

Power Cues – Nick Morgan

In addition to being a stressed out slacker, I learned that it takes me far longer than it should to read non-fiction. I do much better if it’s an audiobook because I can listen while I do chores and run errands.

Submission Statistics!

Yes, even while I’ve been working to get Stonebearer’s Betrayal out, I’ve been submitting things to places. Although this year, it’s been largely in the name of marketing. Every little bit helps. I’ll note here that I’m not including the soul sucking numbers from seeking out reviewers, and I thought finding a publisher was hard. Yikes. Here’s the stats:

47 items submitted
29 response received (18 still waiting)
10 resulting in positive outcome

The breakdown of those 47 items –

26 presentations
7 panels/roundtable discussions
7 podcasts
5 short stories
2 misc

2018 Blog Statistics

3924 visits
5887 page views
21 posts

In case you missed it this week:

Here’s an article I wrote about family game night over at Guild Master Gaming. Also, Mike Thayer over at the Calling all Nerds podcast and I had a great time talking about what it’s like to be authors and what inspires us.

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Why I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year

Posted on October 30, 2017 by Jodi

It’s the end of October. For many writers it’s the time to sharpen our brains and finish up prep for this year’s NaNoWriMo challenge. I’ve done the challenge for several years in different ways ranging from full manuscripts and partial manuscripts, down to editing and revision goals. While I’d love to be in a good place to dig into the third and final book of my Stonebearer series this year, I only barely finished the very rough draft of the completed second novel last week.

My real reason for not doing NaNoWriMo this year is simple – experience. I know my working habits and how much I can do before developing a serious case of writer burnout. It’s taken a few decades to learn I’m a hugely competitive person with myself. If I set a goal I kill myself to go get it.

For my first NaNoWriMo in 2010, I crossed the finish line an exhausted wreck. At that point in my life I had one fewer child and more free time and energy than I have now. Immediately after finishing, I continued to blog and did an editing pass of my first manuscript that I had finished a few weeks before NaNoWriMo started. Looking back, I don’t know how I did it.

I learned I am not invincible when baby #3 came around in the Fall of 2011. All my time disappeared and with it, most of my energy. I stopped writing for over a year. When NaNoWriMo rolled around I watched wistfully as other writer friends whipped themselves into an excited frenzy to work on a new project. I would still set a goal, goals are good, usually to finish the revisions on my first book baby and for years not much happened.

It wasn’t until 2015 when I felt ready to attempt writing the sequel. I had both older kids in elementary school and the youngest in preschool. It was literally the first year since 2010 where I had a handful of hours free during the week.

It wasn’t enough time. I stressed myself out. Four free hours a week isn’t enough to do NaNoWriMo. My writing crept into family time and evenings and occupied every moment it could like an overfed goldfish in a bowl. But, apparently I’m very competitive. I had to finish the 50,000 words. And I did. And then I shelved the uncompleted project for nearly a year.

This year, I’m okay with working at my current pace. I have projects underway that I like and am moving at a pace that I can keep up with while maintaining a good work/life balance. If by next year I haven’t started the third book of the trilogy, which I doubt, then perhaps I’ll make it my 2018 project.

And that’s totally okay.

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Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? I’d love to talk about it in the comments!

Surviving Being Off Track – Week 2

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Jodi

The second week of being off track is now over and we are all getting a little stir crazy. With only one week to go there is still time to make some memories and have lots of fun. The moaning about having to go back is already in full swing, especially from my oldest who hasn’t warmed up to his teacher and at this point probably never will. I chalk it up to helping him build character by doing things he doesn’t like. He doesn’t agree.

Here are last week’s highlights –

The Library – We finally made it over to the library and grabbed a bag full of new books to read and a few DVD’s to watch. Oldest son would only grab science books, and that’s okay because that’s what he loves. The rest are Spongebob and Barbie books. Nothing for me this time, Baby D started acting out before I dared venture into the grown up section. Next time I’m planning on reserving a little something for me so it’s super easy to grab.
Playing in the snow – it snowed two days last week which meant sledding and snowmen!
Movies – We love movies around here and almost watch one everyday. It gives the kids a chance to wind down for a while and gives me some much needed peace. Our favorite titles this week were “The Lorax” and “Cloudy and a Chance of Meatballs 2.”
Planetarium, again – This time we went to the dome theater and watched “Ultimate Universe.” Did I mention that having a membership is really awesome? My son is already planning our next trip.
My three little monsters on Mars
More Minecraft! – I’m now hoping that the novelty of playing together is starting to wear off. I’ve spent way more time mining imaginary rock than a sane person should. It’s still pretty fun, but so much screen time is starting to put a kink in my neck and back.

As for me, I’m still pretty happy about how the break has gone. I’ve managed to keep the house under control and have started a new goal with my writing using the Giveit100 website where you work on something for 100 days straight trying to improve. Most people have health and fitness goals, mine is to work on editing my book and get into a habit of working on it everyday. So far it’s working for me and I think it’s fun, I hope it lasts!

2013 Year in Review

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Jodi

2013 has been a fantastic year, I’ve had a great time with this new blog while continuing posting over at my blog for writers, My Literary Quest.

Here are the most popular posts from this blog this year:

Everything I need to know about life I learned from Spongebob – As with most popular memes, this post was inspired by a random spur of the moment idea. School was out for my kiddos and I’d overindulged with them on Spongebob. While watching the thought struck me that the show has a lot of positive ideas.

Summer Giveaway Hop 2013 – It’s not surprising that this post got a lot of hits, as part of a one of the biggest author hops and including a free giveaway there was good incentive to drop by. I had fun being a part of the hop and I am considering doing it again, although I might wait until I have a book to offer.

The Search is Over – Back in the beginning of the year I had a series of posts introducing my cast of characters. In this post I introduced Jarand, one of the protagonists, and compared him to the popular tenor Alfie Boe. To my surprise the Alfie Boe fan club dropped by and said hello!

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While I would love to say I’m happy with my current traffic, it’s really quite puny. I guess that’s what I get for not posting as often and not having a strong platform. The biggest problem is that I really don’t know what to say here. I don’t have that regular news about the current book I’m working on that I’m willing to share, yet. And I haven’t published yet so I can’t really post updates about that either.

One of my goals for 2014 is to find a better focus for this blog and then reach out to that audience and bring them in. I’d love this blog to serve as a brilliant way of attracting fans to my writing. Hey, a girl can dream right?

Here’s to another great year of blogging!

Jodi L. Milner, Author

Exploring the fantastic and finding magic in everyday life

Tag Archives: Goals

A Swiftly Tilting Experience

Time Management for People with Better Things to Do

Power Word: Strive

Positive Messages in Stonebearer’s Betrayal

#1 – The power is in you

#2 – There is a special magic that can only happen between people who have been together for years and years.

#3 – If a relationship isn’t working out, it’s okay to part in friendship.

#4 – It’s okay for things to go badly, it’s not okay to endlessly wallow in it.

#5 – You don’t have to be a princess or specially chosen to do something amazing.

Power Words of 2019

‘INTENTION’

2018 Year in Review

Books read from the 2018 reading list

Submission Statistics!

The breakdown of those 47 items –

2018 Blog Statistics

Top five posts of 2018

In case you missed it this week:

Why I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year

Surviving Being Off Track – Week 2

2013 Year in Review

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#1 – The power is in you

#2 – There is a special magic that can only happen between people who have been together for years and years.

#3 – If a relationship isn’t working out, it’s okay to part in friendship.

#4 – It’s okay for things to go badly, it’s not okay to endlessly wallow in it.

#5 – You don’t have to be a princess or specially chosen to do something amazing.

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‘INTENTION’

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Books read from the 2018 reading list

Submission Statistics!

The breakdown of those 47 items –

2018 Blog Statistics

Top five posts of 2018

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