Unlock the Front Door to the Mind of a Writer

I'm offering you a key today.  It belongs to the front door of my mind.  If you decide to use it, you will gain entry to my creative process.  Consider it a back-stage pass.  My motivation for doing this is to bring our relationship to a new level.  Let's begin the tour:

1. Room #1:  My personal blog.  This is the command and control center for all my writing.  The archive section on the right houses over 1,400 daily stories.  I start all my mornings in the room.  A new visitor checks in about every six minutes, twenty-four hours a day, every day.  I write messages designed to inspire others to be their best.
2. Room #2:  My books.  The first one, "God's Black Sheep Squadron,"  is a memoir.  I sent the files over to Amazon.com after they were edited by my critique group.  The story is about re-uniting with my dad during his thirty-five day battle with terminal cancer.  The biggest challenge I encountered was dealing with memories from the past.  The second biggest challenge was dealing with loved ones once the old wounds were opened up.  The lesson I learned is that it's better to write fiction based on real-life experiences than it is to expose loved ones.  My second book, "The Caveman in the Mirror," is about a man who searches for connections to his past.  The story is unveiled, one chapter at a time, every Friday morning.  Readers are invited to insert themselves into the story if they want to become part of the journey.  Once all the chapters are released, I plan to edit it and release a paper-back version at Amazon.com.
3. Room #3:  My other blogs.  Caveman Reflections is set up as a cyber-bistro.  It's the main hub for serving up new chapters from my latest book.  Visitors can add comments or participate in the story if they want to join the adventure.  Once the book is published, I will be inviting other writers and publishers to stop in and offer guest blogs.  Free Lemonade Stories is a blog about people who inspire others.  It will become the foundation for my third book.
4. Room #4:  My social media room.  I use my FaceBook page to keep in touch with family and friends.  It's great for sending out birthday and anniversary wishes.  My Google+ page allows me to connect in a more organized format.  The only challenge is that it is not as widely used as Facebook.  I like it because it allows me to connect with people who want to get to know me on a deeper level.  I sign in to my Twitter account every morning to send a Tweet about my latest blog story.  Since Twitter limits the message to 140 characters, I log into to Hootsuite first to compose my Twitter message.  I insert the blog title in the "add a link" section and then shrink it so it uses less characters.  This gives my twitter followers a chance to retweet it and still have room to add to the message.  If you would like to follow me on Twitter, click on Twitter.com and search for @socalmulligan.  I will be happy to follow you back.
5. Room #5:  My creative center.  This room looks more like a sandbox.  I love this room.  I imagine new worlds and new ways of doing things, like writing books.  This room is always changing.  There are really no specific rules.  I challenge myself to find new ways to present my ideas.  I see myself creating more interactive books and adding video clips inside the chapters.  The idea is to make it easier for readers to connect.  I'm excited about what's ahead.
6. Room #6:  The library.  This is more of a cyber-space room than a brick and mortar room because most of my research is done on-line.  I like to visit this room once a day to learn something new that will help me be a better writer.
7. Room #7:  The mail room.  I use Disqus to keep track of all the conversations going on all around me.  Every time a reader comments, I'm notified by email.  I visit this room once a day to reply to every comment, unless it is spam.

This concludes our tour today.  Please keep the key and come back any time.  The most important person here is you.  I value your feedback and promise to be here every day.  Please share what you would like to see in the future.  I hope you use your key often.  Thanks for stopping by today.