JOMO to Improve Your Writing

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

JOMO stands for “Joy of Missing Out.” It means putting down your devices and rediscovering the joy of just being in the moment. Clearly, that can aid any author in sparking creativity by watching the world around you. It’s the opposite of being plugged in FOMO “Fear of Missing Out." which means being constantly connected and watching the world thorough all your devices. In author speak it's the easiest way to fall down "Alice's" rabbit hole of technology. If you have a crick in your neck you probably are doing FOMO instead of JOMO which may be the reason you may have lost your writing mojo.

Heads up. A new app MILK could help you and reward you for staying off your phone. “Milk the Moment” is to help you break from your electronics, especially your phone. It helps you live in the moment. Per the information on the MILK website, “Courtney ``Coko`` Eason is the Founder and CEO of Milk The Moment. Coko worked in the music and entertainment industry for many years. While hosting her own concerts, showcases and live events she noticed that the audience was becoming less and less engaged due to cell phone interruption. People were too busy scrolling, texting, snapping, taking selfies or recording the entire performance instead of being present and living in the moment. Coko was inspired to create the MILK App in order to encourage the world to return to real life connections and interactions. Her mission is to start a movement where people become more present by disconnecting from digital devices and reconnecting with one another.”

While this is not an endorsement for the app, it’s a reminder in the value of unplugging in order to actually write. If you never have time to write because you’re constantly plugged in, just put it in another room. If you use the MILK app, you could rack up some rewards.

So, enjoy what you are doing in the present. Write. Stop being a slave to your electronics. Stop being on social media, constantly, checking out other people’s lives, unplug daily to increase your productivity.

One pivotal quote throughout the 2018 "Christopher Robin" movie, the character, Winnie the Pooh says to Christopher Robin, "Doing nothing often leads to the very best kind of something." That Pooh bear knows a thing or two about JOMO. How do you find your JOMO?

Happy 90th Birthday, Winnie the Pooh

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

It’s been a big year for Winnie the Pooh. He helped the Queen of England celebrate her 90^th birthday with a book featuring her grandson, Prince George. I blogged about this book debut entitled, Writing for Royalty. Of course this is only possible from the genius of author, A.A. Milne children's book series featuring Winnie-The-Pooh, a stuffed bear of the author's son Christopher Robin and his toy animal friends which debuted 90 years ago this week. 

These books have some of the best advice for adults who read these stories to their young charges. A unique ability for a children's book author. The Guardian interviewed author Brian Silbey who was commissioned by the Milne estate to expand the Winnie the Pooh stories with his book titled, The Best Bear in All the World. In this book you will find many of the beloved characters as well as a new one. 

It's tricky to write books with generations of readers who know the characters so well. Silbey acknowledges in the interview his job was,"about capturing the style of Milne’s writing. What makes … these tales so memorable is their ability to work on two different levels: the child listener to the story always understands what is happening just before Pooh and the others do; while the adult reading to the child engages by recognizing that, under their fur and feathers, the characters are just like people we know among our family, friends and colleagues."

These are some of my favorite Winnie the Pooh quotes found in the books of author A. A. Milne. Good advice for writers and adults in our too real world. 

“Love is taking a few steps backward maybe even more… to give way to the happiness of the person you love.”

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”

“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.”

“Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.”

My two all-time favorite Pooh quotes are inscribed on pendant charms on my well-worn bracelet with these words; 

“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” and

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”

What about you? On this Winnie the Pooh's 90th Birthday what words of Pooh wisdom resonates with you?

MY VOICE—SQUEAKY OR SWEET?

By Darlene Franklin

My mind is blank today, blank as an artist’s canvas with only cloudy grays for a palette. Maybe that’s what happens when laryngitis turns my voice into a squeaky toy. At least my writing voice is doing okay, as I close in on the final quarter of my book, Hidden Dreams.

I have a hard time describing my writer’s voice. The question “To whom would you compare yourself?” still stumps me. Gulp. With twenty books in print, have I come far enough for people to start comparing themselves to me? Overall, people describe my writing as sweet, and I’m not sure if I like that. When people say too much frosting makes a cake too sweet, I laugh. I love the corner pieces with frosting on two sides as well as big flowers on top. The more sugar, the better as far I’m concerned.

There are books like that, with so much sweetness that the layers of plot disappear. I certainly don’t want to write like that.Various dictionaries define “sweet people” as thoughtful, winning, charming, having a gentle good humor. That’s not so bad. I can’t write humor, but I do write with good humor. If my characters are winning and charming without being perfect, maybe that attracts readers.

Ok, so I’m sweet. In the process of writing Hidden Dreams, I learned a few other things about my voice. I tend to emphasize internal conflict over external. Hidden Dreams includes a heroine in danger and a grand chase scene—all in the last quarter of the book.

People often speak of my eye for detail. I’ve developed a theory about that. I don’t go looking for details, but I do research specific questions. In Hidden Dreams, I searched for children’s books published or popular in the 1920s. I discovered Winnie-the Pooh. I chased the rabbit trail further. Where did the word “pooh” come from? Further research led to Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the Lord High Everything Else from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. All of those facts added depth to my heroine’s character and worked into a fun scene that is full of lovely detail.

I’m also beginning to wonder if I will become known as more of a New England writer than a Western author. Hidden Dreams is my fifth book set in Vermont, with two more coming in the series. I may write a final three contemporary books with the same setting; Vermont has become the subject of my magnum opus.

  

Although I was born in New England. I’ve lived most of my adult life in the southwest. I’m a westerner by choice, but a New Englander by tradition.

A writer’s voice is defined as “the, the quality that makes his or her writing unique, and which conveys the author’s attitude, personality, and character.” It’s what keeps readers coming back for more. Write long enough, and read enough, and you’ll learn to recognize the sound of your own voice.

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Award-winning author and speaker Darlene Franklin has published twenty titles including her two latest releases, A Bride’s Rogue in Roma, Texas, and Merry Christmas, With Love, in Postmark:Christmas. She has also written two books in the Texas Trails series with RiverNorth Fiction, Lone Star Trail and A Ranger’sTrail. She’s a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Oklahoma City Christian Fiction Writers

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