1. 5 Simple Tips for Time Managing Social Media:

1. Designate a time or times to use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and any other social media, and then limit that time.  Personally, I lose all sense of time the minute I pull up Pinterest.  I’ve learned to set a timer as a reminder.  Here’s an online one you can use.

http://www.online-stopwatch.com/countdown-timer/

2. Plan some of your tweets, posts, pins, etc.  There are some things you can put out there like great quotes or funny pictures that don’t require you to respond constantly once posted.  So have a favorite quote Monday, a Tuesday Tip, or a Funny Friday that you can plan well ahead of time.  That way you can sprinkle the personal things that require you to reply to comments, Likes, and retweets at times it’s more convenient. Oh, and as long as we’re saving time, here’s where to follow me on twitter Follow @debbie_kaufman

3. Use a social media management tool such as HootSuite, Tweetdeck, Socialoomph, or one of the many others out there.  I’ve been playing with HootSuite lately, the free version.

4. Hook your Facebook or Twitter up so that a post to one is a post to the other.  Here’s the FB how-to page: https://www.facebook.com/#!/twitter/  And, as long as you’re on Facebook, check out my author page www.facebook.com/debbiekaufmanfanpage

5. If you have a personal and business (i.e. Author page) post on one page and tag your other page in the post.  One post, both places.

Please share with us here if you have a favorite tip for preventing the time suck of social media.

If you want to know more about me, visit my website: www.debbiekaufman.com

It takes remarkable courage not to give up on your dreams; don’t let anyone ever tell you that it doesn’t.

Take my writing career for example. I’ve read stories, blog posts and seen interviews with various writers who have had their first novel bought by a major publishing house after one submission, writers whose manuscripts editors thought were perfect and required no rewrite and writers who have signed multi-deal contracts for seven-figure sums. Of course, none of those things happened to me—I just don’t have that kind of luck, karma, whatever you want to call it and that’s okay because what I do have is resolve, perseverance and belief in myself and my work.

From the time I started writing seriously years ago with the goal of publication by Harlequin Romance; I knew in my heart that it wasn’t going to be a fast, easy journey. People told me I was being unrealistic to set my goals so high. They said I’d never receive a contract from Harlequin—the biggest publisher of romantic fiction. I simply smiled at them and said, “We’ll see.” Now my friends weren’t deliberately trying to be cruel; they just didn’t want me to set myself up for what they thought would be imminent failure. However, I believe in dreaming big or not dreaming at all and I’m not afraid of hard, exhausting work, so giving up wasn’t an option for me.

The first question I asked myself was did I really want to pursue a writing career; was it something I just had to do? The answer was yes; writing was in my blood and I could no more stop writing than I could stop breathing. Therefore, I kept reading, writing and submitting even when the rejections continued to roll in because I was steadily working towards my goal being a published Harlequin author—I visualized myself as a Harlequin author and I continued believing in myself and in my stories. I promised that no matter how difficult it was or how long it took, I was going to reach my objective and on November 10, 2010, my hard work paid off when opportunity finally knocked on my weather-beaten door in the form of Harlequin Kimani—yes, Harlequin and they offered me a two-book contract! I had finally achieved my objective and it felt wonderful!

As you pursue your ambitions, there will be days when you want to throw up your hands in defeat, days when you think to yourself, “What’s the use?” Believe me I’ve lived through plenty of those trying times, but I refused to let them break me and honestly, where would I be if I had given up? I wouldn’t be here blogging with you; I wouldn’t be proudly staring at the copy of my debut novel that’s sitting in a place of honor on my desk; I wouldn’t be a few short days away from the publication of said novel and I wouldn’t be putting the finishing touches on my second novel for Harlequin, while outlining a third.

It’s my contention that much too frequently in life we give up far too easily on our goals and dreams because the path is not as quick as we had anticipated or would have liked, but I’m here to tell you that determination does pay off. Whatever your aspiration, I hope you endure and overcome any obstacles thrown in your path and that one day soon you experience your moment of triumph. However, one thing I know for certain is it won’t happen for you if you give up—so don’t, not ever!

CONTEST:  For a chance to win an autographed copy of my book (2 copies will be given away), hurry and enter today only (January 25, 2012). I will pick the winner in a random drawing tomorrow (January 26, 2012) at 12:00 noon central time and list winners on my Facebook Author page.

How to enter:

1. Leave a comment on my post for this blog OR
2. Go to my Facebook author page and like it or leave me a message OR
3. Follow me on Twitter

If you do all three, your chances of winning will increase as you’ll be entered into the drawing three times!

Good luck everyone!

About Judy

Judy L. Hubbard is a native of Dallas, Texas, and a graduate of Southern Methodist University with a degree in Psychology. She acquired her love of romance novels at the age of 14 when her sister gave her a Harlequin Romance book to read and from that point on, she has been an avid romance reader because they always tell the emotional type of stories that she likes to read and write.

Her first book, These Arms of Mine, is scheduled to be released in February 2012. Her second Harlequin Kimani novel, Our First Dance is scheduled for release in July 2012. She is, of course, already working on her third and fourth endeavors.

Judy is a member of Romance Writers of America (RWA) and Dallas Area Romance Authors (DARA). Judy’s promise to her readers is to always do her best to create wonderful characters and compelling, sensual stories that take you away, place a smile on your face and fill your heart with joy.

We open our mailboxes and three-fourths of it is junk mail which goes straight to recycle bin.

We open our Inboxes and see spam filling the box every day. Even my Instant Message feature gets sexy women wanting to talk to me. Thanks. I’m sure you are hot for me (who wouldn’t be [rolling eyes here]) but bu-bye, Ms. hottie4u.

You’d think that people would be sick of spam. If you have a free e-mail service, you get bombarded with ads. Our Facebook sidebar is filled with ads. That’s not so bad. We get the service for free, that’s the downside. But when my Facebook ‘friends’ send me spam on purpose… well, it boggles the mind.

Today the following popped up on Facebook:

MAY I ASK MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS, WHEREVER YOU MAY BE , TO KINDLY COPY, PASTE & SHARE THIS STATUS FOR 1 H0UR TO GIVE A PRAYER SUPPORT TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE FAMILY PROBLEMS, HEALTH PROBLEMS, STRUGGLES, AND JUST NEED TO KNOW THAT SOMEONE CARES. DO IT FOR ALL OF US FOR NO ONE IS IMMUNE WITHOUT GOD. I HOPE TO SEE THIS ON THE WALLS OF ALL MY FRIENDS! JUST FOR MORAL SUPPORT. I KNOW SOMEONE WILL… MANY BLESSINGS!!!

Really, you have to shout? Post this on my wall for an hour? (Actually, it’ll stay for a good, long time, but I digress.) I can’t imagine how my posting this will uplift anyone. Did you sneak God in there just to guilt me more? Won’t work. Ask me to say a prayer for someone specific or even a group and I’m game, but my compliance with this ain’t gonna do diddly except spam more people.

Also posted was this:

T’was the night before school started, when all through the town, the parents were cheering – a riotous sound!! By nine, kids were all washed & tucked into bed while memories of homework filled them with dread! New pencils, new folders, new notebooks too! New teachers, new friends – their anxiety grew! The PARENTS just giggled when they learned of this fright and shouted with glee “GO TO BED!!!! IT’S A SCHOOL NIGHT!!! Pass this on to all parents cause “It’s time to take back the living room!!”

You take back your own living room. Mine’s been mine for some time.

But this one topped them all:

Dear friends! Please copy & paste this to your status if you are constantly being asked to copy & paste something to your status by friends who copy & paste things to their status. Many people won’t copy & paste this, but my true friends in need of more crap to copy & paste will copy & paste this to their status.

That one I was actually tempted to copy & paste because it kinda echoes my frustration. LOL!

I’ll bet some of you are annoyed because most of my post today is made up of copy & paste items. Sorry. I was trying to make a point and won’t make it a habit.

Did you know there’s even a Facebook ‘page’ titled: “Please don’t ask me to copy and paste to my status.” I kid you not. It warmed my li’l ol’ heart. See for yourself: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=330796322302 Love the owner’s philosophy about the subject and I concur. If you don’t have an original thought to share, don’t share.

So…Is it just me and that guy, or do you find this practice annoying too?

And here are three reasons why.

1. Research!

So I’m writing along and after a workout, my heroine, Miranda Steele, is getting dressed a locker room with two other IITs (Investigators in Training at The Parker Agency). I’m not that up on the latest fashion, so I zip over to Yahoo (sorry Google, it’s my fav), and look up “women’s clothing.” In minutes, I have descriptions of the color, fabric, and lines of all of their outfits as they tug on sweaters and pull up slacks and slip into heels. Works for guns and blood spatter, too.

And if that’s not enough, there’s always…

2. Connection!

Facebook, Twitter, blogs, websites, email. How did we ever get along without these things? I wish someone would pay me for reading blog posts and websites. If they did, I’d be rich (but not as rich as Tami Brothers would be.)

The lonely writer is lonely no more. At any hour of the day, all I have to do is shuffle over to my computer, and I can be chatting with hundreds of people in seconds. Isn’t that amazing?

If you’re a member of Romance Writers of America, you also have access to online chapters, like the fabulous Kiss of Death, where people pose and answer fascinating crime questions all the time. If you’re a member of Georgia Romance Writers, you have access to their portal on their website.

Last but not least, there’s…

3. eBooks!

Amazon.com, Smashwords.com, BarnesandNoble.com. Not only can you read some terrific new (and old) writers, download their latest books to your ereader in seconds, but you can… (you knew I was getting to this) SELF-publish.

And now for the commercial (you knew that was coming, too. Right?)…

Last month I made the “big announcement” that I had taken the plunge, and released my first full-length novel Someone Else’s Daughter on Smashwords. Today, I’m announcing that Someone Else’s Daughter, along with its sequel, Delicious Torment, are both available on Amazon as well. (Someone Else’s Daughter is also now on B&N.)

So what do you like about the internet? Are you as addicted as I am to it?

Photo credit: The Opte Project

Reevaluation of Time

By Tami Brothers

Time. 

We either have too much of it or too little.  I tend to fall into the too little side of the equation.  Like all of you, I have multiple things going on.  Work, family, kids, writing, blogging, reading, photography, scrapbooking, running, classes, pets, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring the kid, doctor appointments, sports, clubs, friends…  I could go on and on.

I could also complain every minute of every day.  Dwell on the fact that I don’t have enough hours to do everything I want to do.  I could.  But that only results in wasting some of that precious time.  Instead, I need to learn how to better manage what time I do have amongst everything I want to do.

Reevaluating 

I started the 2011 year Reevaluating every part of my life.  My family graciously (ROFL) came along for the ride.    So far we’ve tackled:

1) The too big house (see post about the beginning of our reevaluation process)

2) The nonexistent budget

3) The clutter that has invaded our lives and home

4) Our diet habits and exercise routines (or lack of)

5) Our attempts to reconnect as a family

6) My Career and Job Choices

With July being the midpoint of my Year of Reevaluation, I looked back at everything I’ve done to this point and saw a pattern with my time management; or lack thereof.  I realized that if I want to stay on this new path I’ve taken, then I needed to find a way to fit everything I want to do into the limited amount of time I actually have to do it.

Sounds like an easy task, doesn’t it?  Not so much.

Things to cut

Over the years I’ve gotten into a rut of sorts, doing a lot of different tasks that take up quite a bit of time.

When money became tight, I found ways to continue my love of reading. One of those was by doing book reviews.  You’d be surprised at how many different sites or opportunities there are to do reviews for free books. This can really get out of hand fast.  I knew I had to cut out 75% of the reviews I do.

I also cut some of the volunteer time I put in for The Kid’s various activities.  For this one, I feel a lot of guilt.  I was the go-to person and people liked that because then they didn’t have to do as much.  But, I started saying no and found I had a LOT more extra trime.  Another good thing that came from this is that I found it works in other areas of my life, too.

TV.  I can’t begin to tell you how much time I’ve gained by cutting out most of my TV time.  I still watch a few programs with my family.  It’s cheap entertainment, so it’s hard to give it up completely when it does bring us together.  Still, I honestly haven’t missed out as much as I thought I would.

Things I need to work on

Although there are a few other things I’ve cut, I have to admit there are so many more I need to work on.

Blogs are a biggie.  I’ve subscribed to more than 350 blogs via my tamibrothers Google Reader acct.  That’s a lot of reading every day.  Although there are reasons I want to read each one of these, life tends to get in the way.  I’ve actually had to open another account so I could follow my friends and specific industry blogs without getting distracted by some that aren’t as important to me.  I still need to find a way to manage my time here.

Twitter/Facebook/MySpace or what some might call Social Networking.  I’ve found a few time savers, such as TweetDeck, but I’m still working on finding a balance with this.

Writing.  I have ideas crammed inside my head, but I also have a habit of sitting down at the computer and opening my Google Reader acct, my e-mail accounts, or any number of other things that seem much easier to deal with than putting those words on paper.

Prioritizing.  I tend to pick the easiest things to do first.  This is definitely not a good plan because my writing often gets stuck at the very bottom of the list.

Sticking to a timeline.  This is a biggie.  I used to pride myself on being on time and even early for everything.  Over the past few years I’ve taken on so many tasks that there simply is not enough time to do everything I need to do.  AND as you can see, it happened to be at the very bottom of the list…<g>…  Obviously, I’m still working on that prioritizing thing.

How about you?

I’ll be the first to admit I have a long way to go before I can get this time management thing under control.  I’ve been told this is a lifelong problem many people face, but I’m bound and determined that I will have more time by the end of this year.  I know, very big task ahead of me…

How about you?  Do you have anything in your life that sucks up your time?  Have you found a way to manage it?

Leave a comment and be eligible to win a $10 Amazon Gift Card.  And stop back by Friday, August 12^th to find out The Kid’s opinion of my new calming techniques.  Ooommmm….

A couple weeks ago, a hapless life coach published an article she has to regret by now. In it, she quoted a psychologist who claims “there are similarities between what happens to a man when he views pornography and what happens to a woman when she reads a romance novel.”

This is supposed to be true, regardless of the heat level:

The life coach went on to say, “Women are more stimulated by romance than sex, so when they read romantic stories (and they don’t have to be explicit to work) they can experience the same addicting chemical release as men do.”

“For many women, these romance novels may be more than a necessity; they may be an addiction — and Slattery [the psychologist] said she is seeing more and more women who are clinically addicted to romantic books.”

Uh, correction, more women she claims are “clinically addicted to romantic books.” I understand some readers are sensitive about the level of explicitness in the novels they read, and I respect that. But “clinically addicted”? C’mon.

I think the psychologist must have had to change her name and move her practice out of state for all the hubbub she created on the Net. I love the response of the Romance community to these charges.

Christina Dodd got 166 responses on her Facebook page when she wrote about this blog post in reaction to the life coach’s statements.

I hope you read that article. It’s hysterical. Especially the part about the new Twitter group: #romancekills. In case you don’t make it over there, I’ll just quote the last several paragraphs:

…crime writer Jason Pinter started the satirical hashtag #romancekills asking “what other horrible calamities romance novels are responsible for”.

“My plea to romance writers: please stop writing. You are destroying marriages, the fabric of society, and the entire cosmos,” wrote Pinter, going on to suggest that “the destruction of Alderaan was due to Darth Vader reading too many romance novels”, that “Maria Shriver’s marriage to Arnold Schwarzenegger dissolved because Arnold was reading too many romance novels” and that “King George VI only developed a speech impediment because he kept thinking about scandalously illicit romance novels”.

Romancekills quickly became a trending topic, with other writers and readers jumping in to defend their choice of literature. “Fleas carrying black death were imported into Europe in romance novels,” contributed romance novelist Rachel Grant. “The Titanic hit that iceberg because the lookouts were too busy reading romance novels,” added literary agent Amy Boggs. And “every time a woman reads a romance novel, her lover dies … slowly, and with great pleasure,” wrote novelist Christina Dodd.

I say romance novels can HEAL relationships, can BUILD self-respect in women (i.e. role models like Eve Dallas), and can help women to understand themselves and the men in their lives better. As for addition, maybe there’s just a lot of good writers out there how can tell a spell-binding story. Ya think?

So what’s your take on this?

Do any of you subscribe to The Smithsonian magazine?  In the April 2011 issue, on the last page, (page 100), there is an interesting and humorous article entitled, Turn On, Log In, Wise Up, written by Donald Morrison.

Mr. Morrison said that a friend of his told him about some research “…that shows the Internet is making us all stupid.”  His article went on to say that we stay informed by Twitter, Facebook, …well, the Internet in general.  Is this true?  No one watches the news or reads a newspaper or reads anything other than fiction books?  Well, if this is true, I venture to say that the world is in trouble…since what is written…even in magazines or on the news probably contains a lot of fiction…or at least speculation.  (In my opinion, of course)

He then continued by saying that he tried to check out his friend’s assertion …by searching the subject on Google, of course, and guess what?  He found that it’s true…or at least he said he found it stated in blogs, newspaper articles and a new book entitled, The Shallows:  What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

The assertion is that we’re bombarded by the Internet stimuli and it’s having a negative affect on our brains.  It said that we’re losing the ability to read books and even retain information in our saturated brains…and here I thought it was only my advanced years playing tricks on my mind.  (g)

Consider also that we no longer have to go see people in order to communicate…or even to “see” them.  Web cams have taken care of that, but it’s making Americans spend countless hours in front of the screen.  Being social no longer means taking a cake across town to a friend…it means sending a text message or putting a comment on their Wall.  (Did I say that right?)

Now, in counter-balance to this, I suggest the following.  If someone asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to, all you have to do is ask the computer and voila!  You have the answer in record time….much easier than when I used to have to look up something in one of the many volumes of our World Book Encyclopedia or Britannica’s.  I also suggest that there isn’t a library in the world…that I know of…that could hold all the World Books that would be necessary to house all the information at our fingertips on the Web…AND those books don’t get updated with additional facts every second like the Internet does.

Now, I’ll grant that I don’t always retain every bit of trivia that I read on the tube, but why should I?  All I have to do is key in my question again…if I should ever need to know that answer again…and like a dog bringing the ball back for another toss, the information will fall at my feet.

Now, I could go out and Google a lot of trivia information, facts and figures about how much information is available on the Web, or how many questions are asked a day, or….well, the list is endless, but then I’d be falling into their assertion that I’m “stupid” and have to ask the all-knowing computer…which, in this case, would be the truth.  But don’t forget that someone once asked Einstein a question that he didn’t readily have the answer to.  He told the person that he didn’t have to know everything, he just needed to know where to go get the answer.  I’ll never pretend to know as much as Einstein, but like him, I know where to go to get the answer.

So, instead, I’ll ask you all what you think about the computer and doing research on it AND staying in touch with everyone.  Do you feel smarter since you have so much knowledge at your fingertips?

Do you ever wonder what happened to your best friend in grammar school?  High school?  College?  Maybe someone you were friends with in the military or on a former job?

Recently a friend sent me a video that got me to thinking about friends and family and how often we lose touch with those we’ve cared about in the past and the more time that passes, the harder it is to find them…or even feel that they’d want to hear from you.  Know the feeling?

Facebook has been phenomenal in helping people find loved ones or former friends (notice I DID NOT say “old” friends) and to stay in touch across the miles.  A high school friend, for instance, found me, and now that we’re on opposite sides of the country, we e-mail back and forth.  This then led me to try my hand at it and soon I found a couple more of my former friends.  A friend of mine found her brother that she hadn’t spoken to or seen for over twenty years.  I never thought technology would pave the road to mend broken heart and friendships, but I’m learning that it, sometimes, plays a big part.

But the video went a little further than just finding lost friends.  It talked about appreciating the ones you have, embracing each other in times of sorrow and celebrating life with them during all the happy occasions that you’re privileged to share.  After all, we don’t know how long we each have on this old worn out earth.

It talked about looking for the best in others.  We’re all different, but that just makes us more interesting.  In a world of negative bombardment from the airwaves—Ugly Betty, for instance, and life in general (divorces rate rising, high school drop-out rate rising, unrest and terrorist threats all over the world) the only way to combat this is to build each other up, encourage each other and support each other’s dreams and goals.  If this means encouraging your child’s love of nature, then maybe there’s a good reason to allow a rodent in your home and buy it expensive pet food.

Below is a link to that video and I hope each of you take a couple minutes to watch it and then take the message to heart.  Maybe you’ll be motivated to call a friend and say hi or mend a relationship from years ago.  Life is a journey and sometimes, life is like a train ride.  All Aboard!
Life on a Train