The Big Pause

A writer always writes.

That's a crock of shit. 

I'm a big fan of taking breaks. It's something I learned to do when I got into running - knowing when it's time to let the muscles and tendons relax and heal up. That rest prevents injury or burn out. It helps you bounce back for the next big run in a better way. 

I'm coming off the longest time I've ever spent without writing in nearly decade - three weeks - and you know what?

It feels good. 

Not to write again or to find the rhythm I miss, that's obvious. It simply felt good not to write. I read. I got my affairs in order (of which there were many). I concentrated on everything but writing and it was a relief. That relief, as I sit here typing about it, translates to a better mental state. I'm not feeling stressed as I type these words. I'm not thinking about other projects or items in the pipeline that I need to be patient about because its simply not time to deal with them.

We need to be allowed to stop. To understand when we're reaching a breaking point and take the time to ensure our health, be it physical or mental, is taken care of. Especially relevant with recent Olympic and tennis headlines, no? If even the elite among us can be hurt by overworking; shouldn't we begin acknowledging that NOT writing is just as beneficial as the act of writing?

If you know me, though, you know I'm also not the biggest fan of catch-all advice. If grinding away works for you, by all means, grind. I'd just consider giving yourself a day even. A little time to simply not write. To be the anti-writer. Go read. Take a walk. Rest those muscles.

Then come back and grind away again. No time to be lazy.

Underdog Glory

By Claire Booth

I love the Olympics. One of my favorite things to do is root for the underdog. After all, what’s better than an underdog story? Each Olympic Games always has some, and this one – in PyeongChang, South Korea – has been awesome.

First, Ester Ledecka. Wow (and screw you, NBC, but we’ll get to that down below*). The Czech athlete won gold in the women’s Super-G alpine skiing race. Astonishing? Yeah, considering she’s primarily a snowboarder. She’s the first athlete (male or female) to ever compete in both disciplines in the Olympics. That was going to be enough of an accomplishment – until she made it down the mountain faster than the entire field, including American superstar Lindsey Vonn and 2014 gold medalist Austrian Anna Veith. I still grin when I think about it.

How about a bobsledding team from Africa? Seun Adigun, Ngozi Onwumere and Akuoma Omeoga are the Nigerian team. They’re Americans with Nigerian parents, who – like many other athletes throughout the world – have chosen to represent their parents’ countries. They finished last, but acquitted themselves well considering they built their first bobsled out of wood 15 months ago, according to ESPN.

This year there was even the chance for me to have the best of both worlds. Rooting for the underdog and my country at the same time.

The USA women’s hockey team hadn’t won gold since the first time the sport was in the Olympics, in 1998. And this week, we did, beating four-time winner Canada in an overtime shoot-out.

On the men’s side, the German national team defeated powerhouse Canada to reach the gold-medal game. Germany men last medaled in hockey in 1976, and that was a bronze. Now they’re guaranteed at least a silver. As of this writing, the game against the Olympic Athletes from Russia hadn’t yet been played. Either way it turns out, it’s a stellar underdog victory for Germany.

The Hungarian men’s short track held off China and Canada in the 5,000 meter relay to take gold. It was Hungary’s first Winter Olympic gold medal ever. How cool is that?

USA's Red Gerard, only 17 years old, unexpectedly won gold in men’s slopestyle, a snowboarding event.

American Chris Mazdzer won a surprise silver in men’s singles luge, which was the USA’s first medal in that sport.

And finally, well, holy buckets. Just yesterday, the USA men’s curling team won gold. Yes, curling. To get to the gold medal game, the team bested Canada, which has won multiple golds in the sport. As you probably know, curling’s not the exactly the hottest sport in America. To get together a team that good is underdog-inspiring. Just as every Olympics should be.

* NBC, the Nincompoop Broadcasting Company. They declared a winner in the women’s Super-G when one-third of the field hadn’t even raced. They didn’t even qualify it with a simple “as things stand, Anna Veith of Austria looks likely to win.” How hard would that have been to do? Instead, they flat-out announced Veith the winner and switched over to another event elsewhere at the Games. They then were forced to come back and show their audience Ledecka’s winning ski on tape delay (after showing the top-ranked women live). Good for you, Ester, for making them look like the asses they are for covering the race like that. 

You don't deserve a trophy for showing up

by: Joelle Charbonneau

There is this weird trend that I don’t understand – giving kids trophies for just showing up to their sporting event or whatever other activity they’re in.  They show up.  They get a trophy.  For….showing up.  Which really means the parent probably deserves the trophy because they’re the one who brought the kid to the event.

When I was a kid (back in the days of big eighties hair and New Kids On The Block), you didn’t get a trophy for getting dressed in the morning and being dragged to your activity.  You had to earn it.  Oh – don’t get me wrong…at the end of whatever sporting season you would get a certificate signed by your coach saying you were a part of the team, but you didn’t get a trophy.  Trophies were a big deal.  Trophies were earned not because you simply showed up – you practiced hard, you improved and you put that effort into play and won.  The trophy rewarded those efforts and getting that trophy meant something.  Not simply that you had won – because – duh – winning is kind of a huge reward in itself.  NO…the trophy was a reward for all the things that went into the victory.  The practice.  The frustration.  The striving to be better.  The failures (because as we improve there are always failures).   And the ability to pick oneself up after disappointment and get back to work.  

I guess I’m thinking about this participation trophy thing a lot because of the Olympics.  I love the Olympics.  I love the celebration of hard work and dedication and the striving for one’s best even though the odds are stacked against you to win anything.  Showing up – being part of the Olympics is its own reward.  That’s the trophy and for the majority of the athletes that go to the Olympics, the experience and memory of that experience is the only reward they will take away from the Olympic village.  They know that going in.  They know winning a medal only happens for a small number of the athlete’s there.  But that doesn’t stop them.  And when they win a medal – the Olympic version of a trophy – it means more because they had to do more than just show up to receive it.  They had to be their very best.

So, I guess my point is – not everyone deserves a trophy. 

Sorry!  I don’t think it helps build self-esteem.  Kids understand that they won it for doing nothing.  What it does is build an expectation that they simply have to show up in order to be rewarded.  No other effort is required. 

Um...NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!   I’m sorry, but effort is required in life and sometimes the effort isn’t rewarded by a big shiny trophy.  Sometimes the effort and the learning and the accomplishment needs to serve as its own reward.  Because it IS a reward.

This “win a trophy for showing up” attitude isn’t just seen in kids’ sports.  I see it everywhere.  Parents who believe their kids shouldn’t be penalized for not doing their homework on time…after all…they showed up to class.  College kids who complain that they aren’t getting the education they want, but don’t bother to talk to their advisors or to do more than the bare minimum to pass the classes they don’t like.  And writers who feel as if just because they wrote a book they deserve to make a million dollars.

Yeah – you had to know that this was going to swing back around to writing.

When I started writing, I didn’t go into it with the idea that I would be published or that it would become a career.  I wanted to write a story.  So I did.  It was bad, but it was written.  Did I know it was bad when I wrote it?  Of course not!  I was proud of that book.  When people said I should try to have it published I thought, “Yes!  I should.”  And I have the rejections to prove that I tried. 

That book was bad.  I showed up.  I did some work.  But I didn’t deserve the proverbial trophy.  So, I had a choice.  To keep writing or to walk away.   There wasn’t any question in my mind what to do.  I sat down, opened a new book and got to work.  For years, I went to conferences and writer meetings.  I wrote hundreds of thousands of words.  I entered contests and won none of them.  I queried more books and got rejected.  There were no trophies for me.  No positive public acknowledgment of my work.  Not a single one.  But still I showed up.  Because I wanted to be better.  I wanted to push myself to be the best writer I could.  To me…being a writer was a lot like being at the Olympic Games.  I was in the door.  I was competing – not with other writers, but with myself.  And it was that competition – that striving to become better – that was the ultimate goal.

With the rise of self-publishing (and I am in favor of self-publishing so this isn’t about whether or not you should self-publish…those kinds of posts have been written by others way better informed and articulate than I on the subject), the attitude of “I showed up so I should win a trophy” seems to have infiltrated the writing community.  I’ve met dozens of writers who believe that just because they wrote a book they deserve to be published.  They deserve the trophy.   They showed up.  They wrote words.  They want to be published and have hundreds and thousands of readers and they want it now.

This attitude isn’t indicative of all writers.  Not even close.  But, I have seen the “I deserve a trophy” attitude become more and more prevalent in online discussions and in my face to face conversations with other writers.  In those moments, I see people who are so concerned with how fast they can get the trophy that they discount the journey to get it.

The journey is important not just the destination.  It is in the journey that we learn.  We grow.  We become better.  As a writer that journey is about learning the craft and the business and understanding your voice.  The journey is filled with triumphs big and small, terrible failures and low moments where you feel incredibly alone and without skill, and quiet moments of success when you least expect it.    It is that journey not the trophy at the finish line that turns aspiring writers into authors.  The trophy is meaningless without the journey.  But, I would argue the journey has value above measure even when the writer never holds the trophy aloft.   

When I wrote my first novel, I was proud of showing up at my keyboard every day because there was nothing to make me.  There was no reward other than the desire to push myself.  There wasn’t a trophy that I could hold aloft and show to the world.  There was just me and the blank page and the desire to see what I was capable of. 

Are there trophies now?   Well, I guess so because there are books.  Shiny, wonderful books that I am incredibly proud of.  Books that I love and that I wouldn’t trade for anything.  But there’s something they don’t tell you about trophies.  Trophies are acknowledgements of achievements that are in the past.   They are shiny and fun to look at, but those moments are done.  The real question is – what are you going to do in the future?

Admire your trophies or sit down and get to work on a new journey where there is no guarantee of a trophy just for showing up and only the promise of learning during a new adventure?

I’m sitting down to work.  How about you?