Booing Never Helps Anyone

Dudes! Monday. MONday. MONDAY! My cover reveal happens on MONDAY! I am very excited about this. It makes me want to cheer and dance and sing. I believe I shall do all three.

*cheers*

*dances*

*sings and sings and sings*

I hope you’ll stop by one of the participating blogs and say hi.

On a different subject, I want to talk for a minute about children and sports, and how it’s possible to sabotage a child’s chance for success.

As a parent, I want my kids to do well in their sport of interest. Be that sport basketball, soccer, chess, art, or basket-weaving. I want them to get to do that thing, or play that sport, as often and as well as they can. And I want them to be happy doing it.

To me, that means cheering for them when they do well. And perhaps offering pointers when they don’t. Pointers being constructive criticism of the non-damaging variety. As in: Hey, that was a great shot you took. Maybe next time you can try doing it like…xyz. It does not now, nor will it ever mean yelling profanities, or screaming about what they’ve done wrong or uttering, yelling, or even thinking, the word, “Boo.”

And yet. I know a lot of parents who do. I sit in the stands and hear them booing their kids, and their kids’ teammates and the coach and the referees. And then they start back on the kids. These people do this from the position of sideline spectator, in the presence of other parents and spectators.

I hear them booing their kids and glare at them, and on occasion, manage to restrain myself from punching those parents. Because I believe that booing a person will never, ever, ever, ever help them improve anything. It will never make them better. Ever. Ever. Ever. But it will destroy their self confidence, and possibly sabotage their ability to continue.

I am the parent who yells and cheers and screams for the good things players do, whose goal is to build them up and make them love to play, regardless of whether they win or lose. (And it’s possible I’m the parent who is gaining a reputation for giving the death glare to the above-mentioned spectators. Because, seriously, who would want to keep playing while their own parents are up there booing them off the field?)

The point is, I challenge you all to resolve to be that person (parent or not) who always cheers for the good things, and never boos the mistakes. To my knowledge, booing has never helped anyone.

Thanks for listening. Off my soapbox.

See you Monday!  

A Funny, Some Encouragement, and Perspective

First, a little funny for my friends fighting in the query/submission trenches.

Next, a little encouragement.

Some perspective. 

No matter where you are or where you go, it's always possible to find a lucky star (or starfish, as the case may be). 

And no matter how hard things get, the sun will keep rising and setting, and so will you.

 

And now that I've fulfilled my job as cheerleader, get back to work. 

Carry on! 

It Begins

Ladies and gentlemen, November is officially here, and with it, the beginning of NaNoWriMo. Yes, I am writing, and yes, I intend to complete a 50,000 word manuscript this month.

Because of that (and other things, like going out of town and stuff), I’m not going to write a long missive of encouragement this year. But I will say this:

You. Can. Do. It.

It’s not about winning, but about proving to yourself that you have what it takes to work hard toward a specific goal and accomplish that goal to your own satisfaction. The end product or result will not be the same for everyone, but everyone will get results that matter to them. And that’s really the whole point.

Never underestimate your ability to accomplish something important.

*waves pompoms and cheers*

Now get off the internet and get to work!

Cheerleading

A friend of mine once called me a cheerleader for writers. At the time, I wasn’t sure it was a compliment, but in the years since, I realize that friend was probably right. I have a tendency to want to encourage others, cheer them on, make them remember why they should keep trying when they’d rather quit.

I wish I could tell you why, other than it’s just the kind of person I am.

Everyone needs a little encouragement once in a while, and we all want to succeed at something, so of course we’re going to try. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we work harder than we’ve ever worked and lose. But sometimes we succeed, and those are the times that keep us moving forward, keep us working hard. This is why we try.

But it takes faith.

And patience.

And every so often, encouragement from a cheerleader who believes in your ability to be the person you are.

I’m willing to be that cheerleader for you. For all of you. So if you’re lacking faith in yourself, I will have faith in you. If you’re lacking the patience to keep moving forward, not knowing when or if you’ll ever succeed, I’ll loan you some of mine. And if you need someone to shake pom-poms in your face and scream and cheer while doing cartwheels, I’ll do that too. (Well, maybe not the cartwheel part—I’m getting a little old for that.)

In the meantime, here is a little something to remind you what it means to be strong. (By the way, this is the true story of my cousin Jodi—who is also a cheerleader, apparently. I guess it runs in our family or something.)

Now you have no excuses left. Get to work!

This is Why

This.

This is why, and how, and because. It is the motivation, the knowledge, the encouragement.

Every time one of my friends has the privilege of making such an announcement, I am encouraged. Because I KNOW that one day soon I will make one of my own.

It is announcements like this that remind me to never, ever give up.

Back to work!

*In case you didn't click both links, they're different--TWO of my friends had big announcements this week. You should check them out. Seriously.  

Never Say Die

I’m totally watching Goonies as I write this. One of my favorite movies from my childhood. A bunch of great one-liners.

Remember these ones? “Goonies never say die.”

And.

“Up there it’s their time, but down here it’s our time.”

I think those two lines are relevant to Monday’s post. I had another blog all scheduled for today, but after some of Monday’s comments, I had to touch on this subject once more. (Well, I didn’t have to, per se, but I wanted to, so.)

The thing is, about the time we’ve spent a handful of years working hard, paid a small fortune towards education, and maybe even started families, we’ve unknowingly somehow lost that childlike confidence we had as teens. It’s not something any one person did to us, or even something I think we can avoid necessarily. Life happens. Sometimes things suck. We have to learn, and so learn we do. Up here, it’s our time.

But down there, in teen-ager-hood, life is all about who likes who and who said what on FB, and who attended what party and who got arrested for possession (yes, I said possession). But that’s not all. It’s also about discovering their strengths, their interests, and at some point, figuring out what they really truly want to do with their lives. A great many of them make a lot of these discoveries through books, music, arts, sports, and other mediums often explored in the halls of a high school. But those mediums can only take them so far.

That’s where we—the parents and grownups in their lives—come in. Regardless of what we have chosen for our life paths, we have the power to give them the tools they need to choose their own. By taking risks, by working hard, by doing all the hard things we never thought possible, we teach them by example to never stop pursuing that dream—however elusive it may seem. And rather than telling them, “That’s too hard,” or, “You’re not good enough,” maybe we should be telling them, “It’ll be a lot of work, but you can handle it,” and, “Keep going. I believe in you.”

It’s a win-win, don’t you think? Because we all need someone to believe in us, someone who will remind us to never say die.

Who is that someone for you?