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My writer friends and I often talk about the tools we’ve discovered to actually help us put words on a page. Those tools range everything from hardware to software, pens to moleskine journals, settings to environments, snacks to libations. I’ve been singing the praises of a few of my writing tools here in a series of posts. You can revisit posts on hardware, software, references & resources, and accouterments.

With these next couple of posts in the series, I am happy to share with you some of the technology and apps that save me time where social media and platform building are concerned. You’ve heard it said ‘Writers write.’ That’s true. But if writers are to have an audience they also need to give attention to their platform. Simply put, ‘Publish it and they’ll come’ is folly. This day and age, you’ve got to go and find them.

Good news, the advent of the internet and Social Media have made this easier than ever. But there are some risks. Chief among them is time consumption. Nothing can suck hours out of your day more subtly than meandering around the web and indulging in social media. A couple of clicks and … look what time it is!

Twitter is my social media platform of first choice. I love it. And it works well for me. Facebook, Google+ and others, not as much, though I dabble there because a significant part of my audience does. Some of the tools I’m going to share with you here work across several social media platforms. So experiment. And a disclosure at the top: There are new social media clients and apps dawning daily. I’m aware, and usually test new toys out. But I’ll be upfront–I’m pretty much a creature of habit. And if it works for me, I tend to stay with it. So my favs have been around a few years. You’ve heard of them all before. Here are three of my most helpful social media clients:

HootSuite is my workhorse. I use it to manage several social media accounts. I use it to schedule my tweets and posts. I use it to filter what I read and what I receive notifications about. I use it to monitor different streams of my social media involvement–mentions, retweets, favorites and so on. It saves me a ton of time because I am able to be ‘on’ without actually being ‘on.’

ManageFlitter is a fine tool for monitoring and managing your crowd. You can view your followers by the frequency of their posts, their primary language, inactivity and several other metrics. While it’s a great thing to see the number of your followers grow, it’s more important to have real and valued followers–followers who appreciate what you’re sharing and will share with you. I use it to weed out spam accounts that follow me. I usually use ManageFlitter twice a week. Yes, I stay on top of my follower list. But the beautiful thing is that this takes literally less than five minutes to do. Quick. Easy. Effective.

Twitterfall is a search grid that I use several times a week. You can put any words or phrases into the grid you want to search out and track. You can also filter the search–so if, for instance you want to search for the words “please pray” so that you can find prayer requests, but you don’t want to see all the tweets that say, “Please pray that Justin Bieber will ask me to marry him” you simply filter the Biebs out. Voila! (And then you pray for all the confused kids out there.) I use Twitterfall most for this very reason–to find people who have similar interests, or who ask for prayer, or who are in my area–the social part of social media is made much easier with this tool.

Give those three a try. Let me know what you think. Do you have any social media apps or programs that are useful to you?

I’ve never been big on New Year’s Resolutions. But there is something invigorating about a threshold and a fresh start. Sky’s the limit. So as I say look into 2014 I’ve sketched myself some aims–and I’m pretty excited to pursue them. Here’s my list. Perhaps, my writing friends, some of them will resonate with you.

1) I resolve to make time for writing. How’s that old saying go? Writers write! Yes they do. And yes I will. I intend to be more disciplined in 2014 about getting my B.I.C. and W.O.P. with set aside time in my schedule. I will set and maintain daily, weekly, monthly and project writing goals.

2) I resolve to make more time for reading. The truth be told, setting aside time to read each day has been a very healthy thing for me. When I read, I am happier and more thought productive. So in the coming year I shall make it a higher priority.

3) I resolve to be more intentional about encouraging other writers. I recognize how much it means to me when other writers serve up encouragement and assistance. I aim to give back. More reviews. More social media kudos. More words of encouragement. More resources to share.

4) I resolve to meet the deadlines. Whether project/job imposed or self-imposed, I tend to do well when there is a deadline calling. So this year I’ll take note of when it’s due, and work to be on time.

5) I resolve to call myself a writer. This may seem silly, but for twenty-one years my identity (after being a husband and father, of course) has been pastor. Now’s the time. Writer. It has a wonderful ring to it, methinks.

How about you? Are you a resolution type? Not so much? What resolutions would you suggest for writers?

Previously, I’ve endeavored to share some of the writing tools that I’ve found useful. This week I thought I’d give it a twist, and suggest some gift ideas the writer in your life might enjoy. And while I’m at it, were you looking for a gift idea for THIS writer … uh …

I suppose I could start with those tools I’ve already reviewed: hardware, software, references & resources, and accouterments. Methinks any of these items would be thoughtful to give a writer on your list. But wait! There’s more! Here’s a list of seven suggestions you might consider.

1) A Coffee Subscription ~ Several great services to choose from if you search it out. I would suggest Storyville as the company has a creative artistic soul feel about it. Nothing inspires like java.

2) A Houseplant ~ No, I’m not kidding. Plants = oxygen. Oxygen = a good thing. But make a durable choice. If the writer in your life kills said plant … well that would be a downer.

3) A Corkboard ~ Nothing says you believe in your writer more than giving a tool that helps organize and mold the creative strands of his or her story. Stick it to ’em.

4) Noise-Cancelling Headphones ~ Help them tune the world out, and inspiration in.

5) Supplies ~ The usual suspects: notebooks, pens, pencils, post-it notes, journals, notecards and etc. It sounds ridiculous, but we writers use these things up! And we appreciate having them around.

6) Snacks ~ Anything from a candy dish to healthy snacks–when we write it’s great to have something at hand to pop in your mouth. As I type this, there is a dish of Sweetarts to my right. Love the blue ones.

7) A Quill Pen ~ What? I know. No one uses them anymore. But still, they’re cool. And nothing says writer quite like the old standard. Whether they use it to journal or simply as desk decor, they’ll love it.

Are you a writer? What would be a great gift idea for you? Do you have a writer in your life? Share your hits and misses with us?

I am presently participating in a writing class offered through the Literary Kitchen and one of my writing mentors, Ariel Gore. Among our assignments each week is a ‘Quick Write’ exercise, which is to be completed in eight minutes or less, in response to a prompt. For this week’s QW, the direction was to ‘Read the prompt. Allow an image to come to mind from early in your life and write to that image. The prompt: A piece of jewelry. Here’s my QW assignment:

It’s one of my earliest recollections. I’m not sure how old I was—four, maybe? I was lying across my dad’s lap, watching Saturday morning cartoons. Dad was rubbing my back.

His hands were rough; scratchy on my back. I turned back to him and said something about it. He opened his hands in front of me. I could see the rough skin, nicks and callouses across his palms and up and down each of his fingers. I also noticed the gold band—his wedding ring—that rode, loosely, his ring finger.

“What happened to your hands?”

“That’s from hard work. They’re like that because I work hard with my hands to take care of you and your brothers and sisters, because I love you.”

I twisted the ring on his finger. “And why do you wear this?”

“It reminds me that I made a promise to your mom to be the best husband I can be.”

I forgot about that conversation immediately. Cartoons were on, after all.

It came flooding back some twenty years later. Having proposed to my girl, and in the excitement as I shared that news with my family, my Mom pulled me aside.

“I wonder if you’d like to have this?” she said, retrieving my dad’s wedding ring from her jewelry box. “He’d be proud to have you wear it. It comes with a lot of responsibility—he was a great husband and father. You’ve got big shoes to fill to be a husband like that.” I flashed back to the back rub, rough hands and that gold band on his finger: “… Hard work because I love you … I made a promise to your mom …”

“I’ll be honored to wear his ring. Thank you!”

I don’t think a day passes apart from my seeing that ring on my hand, or twisting it on my finger—thinking of Dad—and remembering the promise I made to my wife, and the promise we made in bringing our children into this world. It’s an invaluable piece of jewelry—the only piece I own.

“Take it easy, Ma’am. Just tell me what happened.”

“I always put on my glasses before I brush my teeth–ever since I used my husband’s hemorrhoid cream by mistake. So I put on my glasses. I picked up the tube. I looked real close–you know, to be sure. And there it was! Right on the side of the tube! See for yourself, officer,” she handed over the evidence. (See photo.)

The officer was astounded at what he saw. “This is very serious, Ma’am. I’m afraid this is a job for … Grammar Man!”

The Case of Everyday Confusion

You see this mistake every day. And if you’re wired like Grammar Man, this everyday oops launches a migraine every time. People, please! The one word modifier everyday and the two-word phrase every day are not interchangeable. Say it with me: NOT interchangeable!

You see, it’s this simple: the one word everyday is an adjective while the two-word phrase every day is an adjective coupled with a noun, and together they usually work adverbially. Voila! You with me?

The adjective everyday means ordinary or commonplace. Listen to Sly and the Family Stone? They sang, “I am everyday people!” What kind of people? Everyday people. Regular. Ordinary. Like everyone else. Race, ethnicity, heritage, creed–can’t we all just get along? That’s his point. We’re all everyday people. Sly knows his grammar!

Buddy Holly? Not so much. Consider lyrics from the B-side of Peggy-Sue, a song unfortunately titled ‘Everyday’: Everyday, it’s gettin’ closer … Everyday it’s gettin’ faster … Everyday seems a little longer … When our great grandparents told our grandparents that the longhaired music of the 50s would corrupt them, now you see why! What Buddy meant to convey was that with each day, love was one day closer. So, then, let me help: Every day, it’s getting closer. Every day, it’s getting faster. Every day seems a little longer.

So, back to the Crest tube. Should you “Use everyday for whiter teeth” or “Use every day for whiter teeth”? Aha! This is why Grammar Man uses Colgate.

And here is a key, my friends: If you can substitute the phrase ‘each day’ in the sentence, than ‘every day’ needs to be the two-word phrase. Everyday–of the one word adjective variety–could be substituted for with ordinary or commonplace. Use these simple little tricks and you’ll never get this one wrong. And you might just spare Grammar Man a migraine.

What gets your grammar dander up?