Jeffe's Earliest Writing (More or Less)

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is a challenge. I'm not sure who proposed this, but it goes: "Share tiny snippet from earliest writing of yours that you can get your hands on. This is kind of a dare, and also I'm nosy."

It IS quite the dare because it's kind of scary to show this super old stuff.

Fortunately, about the oldest thing I could find is SERIOUSLY old. I'm not exactly sure how young I was but I think this poem is from when I was about eleven. I'm pretty sure this is the summer before 17th grade - and I turned twelve right before school started - when I'd gone to a summer enrichment program for gifted and talented kids. I'd taken a poetry class there and had just learned this kind of free form style. I entered several poems into a library contest, at the branch that I could walk to down the street.

(Back then I went by "Jennifer Mize" because I was trying on "Jennifer" as being more adult than "Jeffe," my childhood nickname, and my stepfather hadn't yet adopted me.)

And I won 3rd Place! I have no idea who the judge was, but they were generous to me.

For those unenthused about slogging through the photo, here's the text:

Night

The lady Night is a sorceress, appearing
  joyously in her magic,
    touching things to make them hers.
Her gowns are rich, dark velvets,
                her crown is woven of stars,
                               her wand is a shaft of moonlight -
                     transforming what she wills.
Donning grey, or black, or purple,
               (depending upon her mood),
    she ventures forth forever
                                 dancing in her age-old spells.
Some creatures know her beauty through stirrings
                                          felt in the soul,
               but others know only her darkness,
                                  who can't see the rich black glow.
And her dress lightly rustles as she glides
                                on through my life.

I resisted any edits or corrections. Weirdly enough, I recognize a lot of my current themes and imagery in this.

An interesting exercise, nosy SFF Seven mate!

I'm Open to Swiping Right on New Social Media

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Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Keeping up with trends and changes in social media."

I was late to the social media world. At the day job at NASA/JPL I was often an early adopter of new technology and new applications (I worked on the business side of the house, not the science and technical). I remember consciously deciding at a certain point that would be one of my career strategies there and it did lead to my being involved in a lot of interesting projects and teams. But at home, I kept the internet at bay and my daughters probably have still not forgiven me for not letting them be active in the social media of the time.

Once I joined the author world, one of the first things I was told was to start a blog, put up a Facebook page and have a twitter account. (This was in late 2011.) I did all three, discovered I loved blogging and twitter was my absolute thing and Facebook was meh for me. Over the years since I’ve maintained my love of twitter and it’s definitely my primary social media tool, even as the nature of the platform and the discourse there evolves. 

I’ve gotten much more into FB because of various scifi romance and other groups I’ve joined, and the many author/blogger/reader friends I’ve made there. I also reconnected with my high school graduating class group last year and that’s been fun of a different kind.

I enjoyed blogging – I had even done a blog on business-related topics behind the NASA/JPL firewall for about a year long before I became published as a romance novelist. I still enjoy the activity and also still write for the AMAZING STORIES MAGAZINE blog, although my much beloved USA Today Happy Ever After blog where I was a contributor sadly closed down at the end of 2018. And I’m still here at SFF7!

The thing I discovered about blogging was that I had to be careful not to pour too much energy and creativity into the posts, in order to be fresh for writing my novels, which after all is what pays my rent. I do three or so posts a week on my author blog – one of which is the weekly New Releases post, one of which is a weekly snippet hop and then maybe a third post about one of my books or a fun quiz or the like.

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I eventually realized at the old day job I’d stopped being an early adopter but I didn’t worry about it too much because by then I knew I was on my way out the door of that career, moving on to becoming a fulltime author and frankly I saw no need to get up to speed on the latest thing. Out here in the author world, I make an effort to try new-to-me things. Yes, I freely admit what's new for me is old hat for many others! I’m edging into Instagram and getting a feel for it, I think. I tried Pinterest but the copyright issues of using other people’s images frankly bothered me and I’ve drifted away from it. I never did Tumblr. I did Google+ half-heartedly, signed up for MeWe mostly to  ensure that I had my author name (and wow, every day I STILL get 3-5 invitations from ‘guys’ wanting to be friends)…I tried doing a podcast in 2018 with two lovely ladies but found it stressful and my local internet provider’s technology didn’t support it adequately….I tried Books+Main but their requirements for posting images and ‘bites’ was a pain and the audience of readers there for scifi romance pretty much didn’t exist – the people running it are lovely and tried to be helpful but ultimately it just wasn’t a good use of my time…

Really what it boils down to for me is whether I’m going to enjoy using the new social channel or media, am I a good fit for it and vice versa and does me spending time on it help me find readers. I stay open to new things, I listen to my daughters about what they’re seeing as social media trends, I pay close attention in the various author groups and I do consciously experiment  with a new social media opportunity IF it feels like something I want to do with my time.

I’m a voracious consumer of online news in a wide ranging spectrum of topics so I do see discussion of what apps are up and coming, what Gen X, Y and Z are into (GenAlpha is only about 8 years old at the oldest so we probably don't overlap much) – I stay current but I don’t prioritize sampling every single thing to come along.

I’m happy with what I’ve got in my life at the moment, social-media-wise, but open to swiping right on new opportunities!

Keeping Up with Social Media

On any given week, you can run across videos or blog posts or Twitter threads by someone laying out the dangers of social media (without any hint of irony over the fact that they're using social media to make their argument). Whether is someone like Cal Newport with Deep Work pointing out that our brains need empty tracts of time in which to ruminate and to think, or some guru du jour pointing out that social media is stealing your most creative self by filling you full of algorithm-curated images and ideas designed to keep you scrolling for more.

It may be true that social media can have a negative impact on our mental health and it seems to feed FOMO - fear of missing out. But in a world were technology is designed to solve problems (albeit problems you maybe didn't know you had) social media, appropriately handled, has its uses.

1. Connection - technology has given me the power to have friends in places I have never been and where I am likely to never get to go. Yet we swap stories, recipes, and care about what's happening in one another's lives.
2. Tribe - social media brought me to my tribes - the people whose priorities and concerns match my own. Social media allows me access to those families that would otherwise be denied. Those of you young enough to have never lived in a world without internet, let me say it's damned alienating. Social media is a gift that gives you back some small measure of validation by hooking you up with other people who relate to your lived experience. Granted. We're seeing the down side of that as social media platforms count the cost of giving White Nationalists safe places to radicalize. It's also giving voice to the resistance and to calls for political action.
3. Conversation - at it's best, social media gives us a few moments out of every day to engage in conversations that have the power to change our view of the world or of ourselves.

So how to keep up?

First, decide if it matters to you. Are you indulging in FOMO? Or do you genuinely have an unmet need that technology might be able to fill? Make certain to count the cost of privacy loss as you're evaluating. Be aware that you're nothing but a data point to be bought, sold, and tracked. Your political leanings are absolutely inferred whether you banish all political content or not. Factor that into your decisions.
Second, listen to kids, especially teenagers and twenty-somethings. Keep your ears open in the coffee shops. You'll hear what apps and platforms people are using. Then search on 'em. Want to know how to master something? Search YouTube. I swear to you there are How-To videos on THE most arcane subjects.
Third, ask questions of social media. Search for the demographics of the places you hang out. Know that Facebook caters to an older crowd. Twitter is slightly younger. Quora seems to have a good mix of ages and knowledge bases. But once you know that, you can ask what new stuff is getting used - are teens still on WhatsApp? Or have they moved on? You'll get answers from their parents, and from the teens themselves.
Four, check out the technology blogsites. Most of them write mostly about computer science and robotics, but you will still find articles about new social media platforms, usually with solid run downs of the pros and cons of each. Sometimes they even include demographics.

As always. Keep in mind that you use social media. Don't let it use you.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Social Media

Hey folks!

I've been notably absent from SFF Seven the past couple months, at first informally, and then an official hiatus in July when I had ALL THE THINGS happening, including launching some new projects, working a writer's workshop and being Toastmaster for ArmadilloCon.  And that all was great-- I even saw Vivian at ArmadilloCon.  And so all you fine SFFSeven fans don't feel like I abandoned you for nothing, here's the text of my Toastmaster Speech.  I think it went pretty well, many people spoke highly of my speech afterwards, so that's all very nice.

Anyway, don't know if things are Back To Normal, but I'm at least trying to be back to normal here.

So what's new here?  We're talking Social Media?

Here's my personal opinion on the value of social media for writers:

Facebook: Near pointless.
Twitter: The watercooler for people who don't ever meet in person.
Instagram: Still trying to suss it out.

Really, I think it's a valuable tool, not for promotion per se, but connection.  At least, Twitter is for me.  I don't think it's very useful for getting new readers, but it's a good way to broadcast things to the readers you have, like, Hey, New Book Coming.  But you don't need to constantly broadcast Buy My Book, because of the people who follow you, either they are already reading your work, or they're probably already not going to.

But forming connections with people over Twitter has proven valuable.  Not necessarily in terms of career or monetary value, but given me a way to feel part of a larger community when most of my day to day involves being at home, not talking to anyone who isn't immediate family.  So I quite like it, even if some days it stresses me out.

So drop me a line there.  Or here.  Or even on Facebook.  It's all good.  But in the meantime, it's back to work for me.

Functional introvert in the social media stew

I’m one of those people who doesn’t people very well. Like, I get into a physical space with a bunch of humans and I shut down. Freak out. Probably blurt something indescribably stupid. Don’t even give this girl a drink, because literally the only thing saving her from embarrassing herself is her sort of ability to keep her mouth shut.

Online communication has built-in protections for weirdos like me. I can think the indescribably stupid thing. I can even type it out. And then -- and this is the beautiful part -- I can delete it.

Sometimes even after I post it I can delete it. 

So, knowing what a life-saver social media has been for me, you’d think I’d be on all the platforms doing all the things, right? Truth is, I’m not. I like Twitter for communicating with industry folks, Facebook for chatting with friends and readers (lots of overlap there), Instagram for spamming the world with pics of my pets. 

Which is not to say that I don’t know, on an intellectual level, that there’s a lot more out there, or that the other platforms and usages can be great for book promotion. Earlier this week, Jeffe Kennedy suggested asking some younger folks for tips on finding the hip apps and tricks. And yeah, you can do that. I’ve queried the smaller people who live in my house, and they’re happy to tell me about YouTube and Twitch and “famous YouTubers,” which is apparently a thing and why-even-is-that? My reactions have varied from horror to dismay.

Remember what I said about physically being a room with people? How it’s deeply un-fun? Videoing or even podcasting myself would be exactly the same: intrusive, revealing, terrifying, and almost guaranteed to be boring for you. It’s not my comfy place. Sorry kids, I am resigned to being perpetually uncool. 

So my short answer to the question this week -- how do you keep up with the trends and changes in social media? -- is that I don’t. And I’m pretty comfortable stewing in my ignorance. (Get off my lawn.)

Social Media and Bad Apples

It's an odd week to talk about social media trends and changes in light of (yet another) round of mass shootings by young white men in the US because the one thing social media does really well is rally for a cause...whether that cause is a good thing or a bad thing is quixotic and often in the eye of the beholder. The sad truth of human behavior is where there are many gathered, so too will the bad apples gather to spread their rot.

In a tiny flicker of hope for humanity, while mainstream social media is rightly outraged at US federal ineptitude, the CEO of the company providing website security for an alt-right group encouraging community violence yanked their support, thus forcing the hate group to join their kith on a different provider, who then had their services yanked in a beautiful move called "deplatforming." TechCrunch has a great article on how it went down and how much privately-owned companies actually can control (contrary to what Zuck or Jack want Congress to believe).

Speaking of those big companies, it seems like every week we have another example of their flagrant privacy abuses enabled by revenue-blinders that allow them to ignore the ethical, social, political, and community impacts of pay-to-play participants. A year away from our next Big Election, and we're no closer to ending the dissemination of Propaganda that misinforms the public and sways their opinion all the way to the voting booth. Because the majority of lawmakers don't understand the technology, they're incapable of crafting legislation that protects the citizenry rather than the corporation. They're willfully passing the buck on blocking foreign interference because of rampant corruption.

An entirely different and unrelated kerfuffle is happening on Artist Twitter wherein mainstream social platforms are casting out artists' babies with the TOS revision bathwater. The artists are looking for a new home to connect with other artists around the globe where their art is copyright protected and interaction spaces are coupled with strong individual empowerment tools. Seems like a simple request, and yet...

When will any of this change? When will we see the next-gen of Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, etc?  When there's an evolution in technology with mainstream adoption. My money's on VR, think Ender's Game. When will regulations change to protect the individual? When corporations are no longer counted as citizens and when Congress is no longer for sale--aka, not in my lifetime. Alas.

Now, this grumpy old broad is going to go write a chapter or two about overthrowing the {fictional} government...

Keeping Up with the Virtual Joneses

I just returned from a week with my family on Lake Coeur d'Alene. So lovely and relaxing! During some conversation, I mentioned Ed Sheeran, and my aunt - who'd never heard of him - asked me how I kept up on discovering new music.

It was an interesting question, and one I had to think about. Finally I said that I see a lot of recommendations on Twitter. Instagram, too. People share Spotify lists or post YouTube videos. She nodded a little at my answer, clearly a bit daunted at the prospect of emulating me there. So, I sent her two Ed Sheeran albums for her birthday.

Coincidentally enough, our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Keeping up with trends and changes in social media." Not an easy thing to do for any of us.

It's true, in fact, of most technology. As a member of the generation that transitioned in high school and college from typewriters to word processors, I'm keenly aware of how keeping up with advances in computer technology poses greater challenges for me every year. It's a simple factor of aging that learning new tricks gets more difficult, and it seems to be true of tech that it morphs rapidly.

Also, as with slang and other forms of social interaction, social media changes even more rapidly. The youth drive the "in" form of communication - and the older generations struggle to keep up.

The good news is, I firmly believe that keeping up with trends and changes in social media helps to keep us mentally youthful. It's good to learn new things, and communicating with those younger than we are helps to keep us involved in the world. But HOW to do that?

My advice for that is the same as with all social media: pick and choose.

When you hear someone talk about something cool they saw on some social medium, go check it out. Ruthlessly control what you see - pick and choose whose timelines or accounts you follow - and then play with it. Try to resurrect that feeling of youthful exploration.

Make it fun! After all, the second rule of social media is: If it's not fun for you, don't do it.

And it's okay if something that starts out fun stops being fun after a while. I'd really love for XKCD to do a graphic of the social media life cycle. First you find a new-to-you one, you play with it, gain a following, then creepy men send you anonymous messages. Brought to you by the person who thought Instagram was a safe space and is now receiving creepster messages. *sigh*

BUT... that's a minor part of things. Inevitable as death and taxes, it seems.

Another trick is to absolutely engage with younger people and manipulate them into helping your geezer self. It requires having no shame. I recently cornered a young writer in a bar and made him show me how to do Instagram stories. He was awesome about it.

Remember: learning something new is good for our brains! And having fun doing it makes all the difference.

I just Want Strong Characters

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Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: "Heroes and heroines – how do you write them differently."

This is a topic to which I totally do not relate.

I write people.

Every person is different.

Right off the bat this question of the week doesn’t fly with me by the way because Main Characters (MC’s) don’t have to be shoved into two boxes labelled “Hero” and “Heroine”.

MC’s can be any combination of gender identities. From the website TeenTalk: “There are many different gender identities, including male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these.”

Personally, I read and relish a wildly diverse range of books. I’d like to mention J Scott Coatsworth’s Liminal Sky scifi series as an excellent example of a reading experience during which I met and cared about and was invested in MC’s with a wide range of gender identities mirroring real life. He told the story seamlessly.

To cite my favorite movie in the entire world, “Aliens”: Ripley/Hicks. Hicks/Ripley. Ripley alone. Those two characters could be any gender identity and the movie works fine. It’s got high stakes, action, adventure, kickass MC’s and a hint of a glimpse of romance (if you’re me and you look hard for it). Just so happens the MC's were M/F in the movie but it's kind of a fun creative exercise to cast it in your head now with a wider range of gender identity choices.

When it comes to writing, my muse and I do gravitate to the male military/female civilian tropes for my MC’s, although sometimes the female character is the primary and other times it’s the male, and in some books they shoulder the load of resolving the problems I present to them pretty equally. That’s who I am, that’s the kind of romance I personally lived and it’s where my subconscious goes when I’m coming up with the plots and the people.

In many of my novels I’ve written strong women who are former military and can kick ass with the best of them. I’ve also written strong women who are singers, dancers, businesswomen, alien empaths, princesses, teachers…”strong” is the key element here for all my MC’s. Strength – of characters, of will, of learned skills and innate talents – can be found in any gender identity.

I start with the situation of the story and think about my MC’s, who I need them to be to survive and surmount the plot I have in mind and that thought process informs their backstory and their reactions to everything in the book, including the romance.

A quick excerpt from The Fated Stars, where Larissa, the tough ex-Special Forces mercenary leaves Samell, the alien empath back at the ship while she couts enemy territory:

Larissa had her first real argument with Samell once she’d landed at the small spaceport serving the planet. “I’m going out alone to reconnoiter the town, check out the fairgrounds, see what’s what with this other Kinterow operation,” Larissa said as the AI put the Valkyrie Queen into ground mode. “No one can get into the ship, but I’ve given you voice access to control the AI if anything happens to me. She can get you back to the Cherram system or she has an emergency contact to call if you prefer to try getting in touch with Sectors authorities with your situation.”

Samell stared at her, his emerald-and-gold eyes sparking with anger. “You are not going alone. Of course I’ll go too. I can use my power on any problem we encounter, or my throwing knives, or even the blaster. But I’ll not let you venture into danger without me.”

Larissa continued donning her weapons and brushed past him on her way to the airlock. “I’m the mercenary here, I know the drill on these remote worlds. I’ll give out a cover story about a phony job for public consumption, check out the bars, do the things I’ve done hundreds of times on legitimate assignments. I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, but you’re only in this situation because of me.” He leaned against the bulkhead, watching her. “I have to do my share.”

“I’m not questioning your courage or your value in the field,” she said patiently. “Me by myself, no problem. You, with your distinctive hair and skin, potential problem. "

VS: Needless to say, she wins the argument and he stays with the ship.