Small Kindnesses, by Danusha Laméris

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk

down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs

to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"

when someone sneezes, a leftover

from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons

from your grocery bag, someone else will help you

pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,

and to say thank you to the person handling it. To smile

at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress 

to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder

and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now. So far

from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these

fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,

have my seat," "Go ahead--you first," "I like your hat."

Danusha Laméris

Powerful quote by Rachel Camille Terrell / Richard Oscar Terrell

"It can be easy to assume that your worldview is everything that exists in the world and that something outside of your own experience isn't real, however, it's important to remember that there are ways of experiencing the world that you're not going to have any concept of and that if you aren't experiencing the world that way, you are not in a good place to judge the needs and difficulties of people who are. No one is making up labels for attention. The attention is not positive. No one is asking to have a life that is more difficult. If a person is going through the danger, discomfort, and difficulty of telling you or anyone that they are an identity that falls outside of the heteronormative range of acceptability, it's likely that it's a core part of who they are, important enough that pretending to be something else is more painful for them than all of the trouble that society is going to give them. Please, take it seriously. They are likely facing trouble on a lot of fronts. Please, at the very least, don't add to the trouble, and if you can do something to make their lives easier, choose to do that. If you want to have a conversation about someone's experience of gender, let it be a conversation, not a debate or an argument, and remember that no one is obligated to explain who they are to you either. If they are taking the time to talk you through it, listen, learn, and say thank you."*

By Rachel Camille Terrell / Richard Oscar Terrell 
*This was written in a post for the Stonewall Employee Affinity Group, which is a group that promotes inclusion and awareness of the LGBTQIAP+ community in the workplace.

Pep talk, by Erin Brook

"Pep talk from a singing teacher (me):

"I don’t know if you have talent. I don’t know what talent is. To me, talent is just desire. Do you want to do the thing? Does it make you feel sparkly? Great. That’s enough talent for me. Everything else is skill, and that I know about."

By Erynn Brook (@ErynnBrook)

(See full thread: https://twitter.com/ErynnBrook/status/1235917243856412672)

From singer / songwriter Jewel on comparison for creatives

"Don't compare yourself with what's popular. Doing so is like one child comparing himself with another. Greatness is never achieved by trying to imitate the greatness of another. Greatness is hipping away at all that does not belong to you and then expressing yourself so truly that others can't help but recognize it. It is in silence that we discover ourselves. The silence and the unknown can be frightening, but with time it stops feeling like there is nothing there. The darkness and silence will begin to feel like a void in a positive sense--the womb of creation. It is the magical nothing that something is birthed from. Feed yourself a diet of great work, and then go away by yourself and listen alone to your soul speak to you. Silence will be your greatest teacher." Jewel, from her book "Never Broken: songs are only half the story"

 

Quotes on Writing

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
― Terry Pratchett

“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”
― Jodi Picoult

“If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it.”
— Wally Lamb

"If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die."
Mik Everett

“Don't be 'a writer'. Be writing.”
William Faulkner

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
― Thomas Mann

“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”
― Sidney Sheldon

“Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.”
— Anonymous

“Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.”
— Gene Fowler

“We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.”
— Anne Lamott

“Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publication.”
— Fran Lebowitz

“There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are.”
— Somerset Maugham