Nov 26, 2017 |
by Molly Jo Realy @MollyJoRealy

Frankly, On Faith.
God is not a game player in the sense of messing with us. He doesn’t tease or do a bait-and-hook.
But He’s a great Team Leader. He’s honest from the get-go. Transparent in His game plan for us.
God gave up His star player so the rest of the team could win.
He has never changed the rules. He didn’t replace you with a better athlete, because He knows you are His better athlete. For this game you’re in, for the piece on the board that you represent, the cards you’ve been dealt, the track that you’re on.
He’s in it with you. 100%.
You don’t have to worry about being left behind. You’re not going to be forgotten. The bus isn’t leaving without you.
“So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them.
For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
~Deuteronomy 31:6 NLT
Never forget who’s team you’re on. Never forget who picked you first. And never forget you’re not alone, ever.
TWEET THIS: Frankly, On Faith: God is Not a Game Player, He’s a Team Leader. @MollyJoRealy #faith #God #team

Frankly, On Faith: God Wants Everyone to Win
And Frankly, My Dear . . . : That’s all she wrote!
Jul 15, 2017 |
by Molly Jo Realy @RealMojo68
It’s a little known widely recognized fact that I may or may not be a fan of having all my ducks in a row. Remember the peace I mentioned yesterday with my multitude of Happy Planners? And if y’all follow me on either Facebook or Instagram, you’ll occasionally see what my cousin lovingly refers to as a “perfect” house. Boy, did I laugh when she sent that message!
Well, it’s true I’m not a fan of chaos in any form. I like a clean house, a structured schedule, a dependable paycheck . . . You get the idea.
And so I was just as surprised as you are, when I was cleaning out the game closet and found this gem still around:

Game of Perfection
I was even more surprised when I took to playing it every night for the past week.
Now don’t look at me like that, Mother! Yes, I know it’s a kid’s game. But I also know it’s good for adults.
Don’t believe me? Let’s run down the benefits of game playing:
- eye-hand coordination
- tactile recognition
- memory and cognition
And the most important:
Yes, this is where I admit that I still jump every time the board pops up and the little pieces fly. I’m happy to announce yesterday I beat the clock!
Sure, I like the phone games of Candy Crush, Paradise Bay, and Disney Emoji. But there’s something about playing childhood games that continue to bring me back to a place of happiness.
The laughter of young friends, the taste of Mom’s cookies, the scent of summer.
What games do you still like to play?
TWEET THIS: Frankly, My Dear . . . The Game of Perfection. @RealMojo68 #game #perfection
And Frankly, My Dear . . . that’s all she wrote!
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Aug 21, 2016 |
Saturday, I had the opportunity to present “Growing Your Social Media Swarm” to the Writers of Kern, a branch of the California Writers Club. I was excited to learn the audience also had non-writers interested in learning better building techniques.
One of the first slides in my presentation is one you’ve seen for years on this blog.

If you build it, they will come.
Remember back in the day when I revamped my blog, and my brother created this wonderful graphic for me? It’s years old, and it still thrills me.
It’s a reminder to take those steps toward better social media. “If you build it, they will come.”
Social media (emphasis on social) is more than just “look at me.” It’s a mutual support.
Many years ago (okay, we’re gonna pretend I didn’t use the word “many” here, okay? Thanks.) in college, I attended a reading and lecture by W. P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe, which became the inspiration for the movie Field of Dreams. Mr. Kinsella and I spoke after, and he encouraged me to keep writing. “It’s a special gift that takes years,” he told me. “Don’t give up.” To this day, Field of Dreams is still one of my favorites.
When you place your focus on “social”, “media” is just the means by which you connect. As writers, we are the first generation to have instant worldwide access. [You can thank Al Gansky for that soundbite.] Why wouldn’t you want a piece of that pie?
Before building your social media platform, it’s important to know a few things:
- Facebook and Twitter are da bomb. That’s where you’ll reach 100% of your target audience. The other sites are just icing on the cake.
- What do you want to be known for? If it’s being a creative, design your posts to share creative ideas. If it’s business management, you may want to share ideas on personnel, budgeting, and the like.
- Who do you want your target audience to be? This is the money shot. Find a unique way to present who you are with what you know, and you’ll be set.
Running a social media platform takes time. Effort. A little brain-powered creativity. Here’s the good news: You don’t have to do it alone.
Remember the emphasis on “social”? It works both ways. You want to share content to help connect you to a broader audience, right? Well, reverse that. Someone else out there has information and links you’re interested in. Find them, promote them. By sharing someone else’s posts and pages, you’ve still supplied your audience with information, while helping someone else gain status in the social media foray.
See? They built it, you came. Now it’s your turn. Build it, and they will come.
This is where I pat you on the back and say, “Good game. Now, go get ’em!”
And Frankly, My Dear . . . That’s all she wrote!
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TGIF: A-P-P-R-E-C-I-A-T-I-V-E-L-Y
Social Media for the Anti-Social
Oct 5, 2015 |
Last month, I took Ursula to the shop. She’d not been driving right for a while but like a person without health insurance (hey, even in this day and age, it happens), we postponed the mechanic’s diagnosis until I was afraid the visit would be more of an emergency than a check up.

Diagnosis, please.
I was wonderfully surprised, then, when the call came that Ursula could come home with nothing more than a fluid flush and new power steering fluid reservoir. Sure, it wasn’t the band-aid price I was hoping for, but it was still a lot cheaper than, say, a transmission overhaul.
I was impressed with how much better she ran in such short a time. What had I been afraid of? She didn’t look any different, but boy, howdy! does this baby drive better. A little time, a little investment, and my nearly ten-year-old car received that much desired mechanic’s statement, “You have an excellent car.”
It right there and then squashed my desire to purchase a Chevy Equinox (although I wouldn’t turn one down as a gift. Just sayin’.).
Does that ever happen to you? You think you need a replacement, when all you need is a check up? A little look under the hood, a little TLC to get things back on track? Yeah. So, we’re not gonna count how often that happens to me, okay? Let’s just say this once was the trigger for something else.
I’ve been pretty disorganized for a while now. Pretty afraid to get into the dirt; afraid I might not make it out alive. I’ve been pretty chaotic now and then. At home, with the editing, with the writing. My peeps are always telling me I have too much on my plate. Aaron’s always offering to get me a new plate. Go figure.

MoJo Chaos
In the back of my mind, I knew how to get things straight, but couldn’t make the leap. Happily, it happened a few weeks ago. One thing led to another and instead of rabbit-holing into more chaos, I discovered the one puzzle piece I needed to fit the others around.
It all started with moving my treasured cedar chest into the living room, and moving the computer desk out. I’ve designated about forty square feet in my living room as my writing space. There’s my writing desk and chair, reading chair, rug, bookshelf. I’m set.

MoJo Writes
I was inspired. As soon as the living room and writing space were complete, I realized how easy it would be to finally conquer the room that shan’t be opened the room formerly known as Dot’s. It’s been closed off since she left in February. Until now, I’d not been able to bring myself to go in there and clean it out. Sure, she took care of most of it before she left. But I couldn’t go into that half-empty room and face the reality that my daughter moved out and I was alone.
I could, however, face the reality that I had an extra room in my house to fix up the way I wanted. And that’s what I clung to. I opened the door, surveyed the not-so-messy mess, and got to work. With Mom’s help, in just two days, the Narnia Spar Oom and the room now known as the Peacock Room are in order. One is my library. The other is my crafting/activity/game room. The changes are subtle, but empowering.
So naturally it doesn’t stop there.
I’ve been controlling more of my schedule instead of letting things flow. This has opened doors for me to take on new projects and clients, as well as continue the work I’m already doing. Writing. Editing. Social Media. I can do it all, and do more of it, now that I’m organized physically and mentally.
But then there’s this.
I’d been unhappy with the Blog for a while now. Frustrated. And for the better part of three weeks, it wasn’t working right. I couldn’t post. I thought about just giving up and going with a whole new blog. Is this a midlife crisis about to happen? All this let-go-and-move-on-to-something-new way of thinking? Let’s hope not.
With guidance from my webmaster, I decided to take a look under the hood. I spent all of last weekend streamlining pages and categories and fixing photos. That’s no joke. 834 posts. A crazy amount of tags and miscellaneous input. After several restless months and seriously thinking of a change, I like love LOVE Frankly, My Dear . . . and don’t want to leave it.
Remember this?

Field of Dreams
When my webmaster revamped FMD a few years ago, the response was staggeringly favorable.
And my looking under the hood this weekend brought back that original excitement. I like what we’re doing here. All we needed was a little check up.
So look up at the top menu. You’ll see new Page tabs, and new categories. We’re moving forward, but that doesn’t mean we’re moving. Just like cleaning up Dot’s room, a few things moved to storage. You can search “archived” for all the older, unrelated posts. Everything else has been reviewed and retagged for easier finding. There are a few new sections, too.
Sure, it doesn’t look much different. A little spit and polish is all. But the work under the hood? That makes all the difference in the world.
I hope you’ll stick around for another five years. And more. After all, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. Am I right?

Keep moving.
And Frankly, My Dear . . . that’s all she wrote!
Aug 13, 2014 |
Welcome back to “What’s the Word?” Wednesdays.
WwW was a weekly Blog Hop, where other bloggers were invited to link up their Wednesday posts and share comments on what’s going on in their worlds.
That was then, this is now. Then, complicated back links and sharing was required. Now, WwW will feature a guest blogger every other week.
This week’s guest blogger is my good friend and writing mentor, Aaron Gansky. He’s married to my long-time friend Naomi. He teaches high school English. He writes. And he plays Magic: The Gathering.
He’s teaching me how to nerd out on it, and I must say, I’m finding it to be much more than just a game. Now, I’m still in kindergarten when it comes to learning how to play, but I do know a good investment when I see one. Like those cards I found by accidentally purchasing a foreign-language booster pack.

Mana Confluence in Japanese (Magic: The Gathering)
So when I asked Aaron to be my first guest blogger for “What’s the Word?” Wednesdays and he asked if there was any topic I wanted, this was a no brainer.

Aaron D. Gansky
Aaron D. Gansky on Magic and Writing
Okay, I need to make a confession here. I play nerd games. A lot of them. So much so that I don’t even celebrate New Year’s Eve anymore. For my friends and I, we celebrate Nerd Year’s Eve. And I’m totally okay with it. Hours upon hours of nerd games is the best way to ring in a new year.
Of all the geeky past times I enjoy, however, my favorite is a fantasy-themed strategy card game called Magic: The Gathering. When I first played it, the depth and complexity of it overwhelmed me. But the more I played (largely hooked by the captivating artwork on each card), the more I got a feel for it. Now, I’ve spent far too much time/money on the hobby.
So why am I writing about it here? What’s it have to do with fiction? A few things. Firstly, since I write fantasy, it’s a great way to overcome writer’s block. All I need to do, when stuck for a lead, is flip through my binder (okay, binderS) of cards. Something there is bound to inspire me. But more so, studying the balance of power in the game helps me better understand the balance my fiction needs to have.
More than that, here’s what Magic has taught me about fiction—you’ve got to have a clear vision if you want to succeed. The best players, those who go on the pro-circuit and end up making WAY too much money on the “sport,” all build their own decks. While each player must abide by the same set of rules, how they maximize their power within those rules is fascinating. The best players, the best decks, all have a “theme,” be it an aggressive onslaught of creatures, a heavy dose of direct damage from elemental spells, or an intense manipulation of the rules, each deck does one thing really well. And while it may have a few defensive measures, the best defense is a good offense (generally speaking).
Our fiction should also have the same clarity of vision. All fiction has a set of “rules” to abide by, but how we test those rules, press up against them, bend them, twist them, and sometimes even break them, determines how successful our fiction can be. If we play it safe, we may not win. Our clear vision of which rules we’re going to focus on to manipulate and exploit can make for powerful prose. We can do it in short fiction, focusing on one rule, or we can dedicate a chapter in our novel to stretching the boundaries of what our fiction can do. Just make sure you’re doing it deliberately, for a specific purpose, and not just to show off your “gimmicky” writing. Don’t bend and break just to bend and break. It should serve a purpose, just as it does in Magic: The Gathering.
Thanks, Aaron, for being my first guest blogger, and for sharing your knowledge of nerdism.
You can follow Aaron online here:
Aaron on Facebook
Aaron on twitter
Firsts in Fiction on Facebook
Firsts in Fiction on twitter
Aaron’s blog
Aaron/Firsts in Fiction on Youtube
Aaron/Firsts in Fiction on Google+
Aaron’s Amazon Author’s Page
And Frankly, My Dear . . . that’s all she wrote!
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MoJo Book Review and Giveaway: The Bargain by Aaron D. Gansky
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FIVE THINGS FRIDAY: The Experience.
2014: BETTER.