DARIN MICHAEL SHAW

Health Inspectors mandate that signs be posted in restaurant and grocery store restrooms reminding employees to wash their hands before returning to work. Misplace the sign, and the establishment will be fined. Misspell the sign, and, well … it becomes a job for Grammar Man!

The Case of There, Their, They’re Confusion.

There, there! It will be okay. I am a trained professional. As a trained professional, I’ve seen more than my share of there, their and they’re abuse. Would you look at that sign? Meant to enforce health standards, while at the same time numbing our culture’s literary senses at the same time. To the rules we go!

There is primarily used in our language to represent a place. Consider it in comparison to the word here. It’s either here, or it’s there. Now–steady yourself–there can be used as an adverb, a noun, a pronoun, an adjective and even as an interjection. There, there! But primarily–say it with me–there represents a place.

Their is a possessive pronoun. It is used to show possession, as in ‘who does this belong to?’ It’s theirs. Some grammar geeks recognize their as a possessive adjective where contrast is inherent in the sentence–this is our car; that is their car–because it stands in adjectival description. (And just so you know, moms and dads will light up with pride when their son or daughter uses the phrase stands in adjectival description in a sentence. Try it sometime.) A clue: if you can ask the question ‘whose ____?’ then their is your word. Too bad our sign maker didn’t ask that question. Whose hands? Employees? Oh–so THEIR hands. Voila!

They’re should be the easiest not to confuse. It’s a contraction. The apostrophe replacing the missing letter is a dead giveaway. They’re is short for they are. Only use they’re if you’d be able to say the same thing using they are. But–and here’s the real gem–be sure to use they’re if you’re meaning to convey they are. Most common of all the there, their, they’re confusion is for people to mean they are and mistakenly choose there or their. There coming for dinner. NO! Their on their way now. NO! They’re coming. They’re on their way.

Be vigilant about this, my dear friends, because spell-checker won’t be. It’s true. When you write a document and spell-check it, unless it has a grammar component to it, your spell-checker will fail to point out these misuses. If they’re spelled correctly, though they are there in your document, their particular grammatical usage may go unchecked. So there is no substitute for you knowing how to use there, their and they’re. Get it right. Make Grammar Man proud. And don’t eat in an establishment that gets the hand washing sign wrong. I mean, if the sign is wrong, how much confidence do you have in their ability to wash their hands?

What grammar gaffes have you spotted recently? Egads!

I’ve got a pet-peeve. I’m not alone. In fact, if you spend any time on social media I know this irritates you, too. I’m talking about those people who use social media for nothing more than promoting their business or product. They’ve seized the media part of social media. Hourly (or more) posts about their wares or ventures fill your feed.

Come to my pampered chef party … Only three spots left … Yes! Now we’re down to two … Hurry! Last chance … Demand is so high, we’re having a second party … Better get in on this one! … Want to pamper the chef in your life? … Pampered! … Chef! … Give me a ‘P’ … Give me an ‘A’ … 

And that’s all before noon. Be honest. You’ve grown weary of people for this reason. You’ve hidden people from your feeds for this reason.

Here’s a solid piece of advice for my writing friends who have a book or a book tour to promote: Embrace SOCIAL Media. Don’t be lured into the trap of seizing the media opportunity to pepper all your friends with your promotional materials. Instead, invest in the SOCIAL side of social media. Engage in dialogue. Comment. Reply. Like. Follow. And do so genuinely. Because it’s YOU your friends and followers want to connect with, not your sales campaign. Then, because they’ve found a real connection with you, your latest book or happening will be of interest to them. They might actually follow that link, or read that post, rather than blindly dismissing it.

In his book Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, Michael Hyatt shares his social media strategy using the equation 20 to 1. That’s twenty useful or meaningful interactive posts or tweets to every single push of a product or call to action. He’s posting things of value and connecting with friends and followers in meaningful ways, not simply leveraging his reach into their lives for his own benefit. (That’s a great book, by the way. Highly recommend it.)

Some people ask me ‘How do you make time for the social stuff?’ My reply is to ask, ‘How is it that you don’t?’ When you litter the tweet-o-sphere with your promo–do you expect people will spend their valuable time following your link? Give Michael Hyatt’s 20-1 strategy a try for a few weeks. You’ll see a difference–not only in people’s response, but also in your own appreciation for your friends, followers, audience and your niche.

Do you have any social media strategies to share? Other social media pitfalls to avoid? Social media tools that help you do what you do more effectively?

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?