I read a post by Suzanne Giesemann this morning about how we need an outside cheerleader to tell us that we are valuable and capable of anything. She advocates that we be our own cheerleaders, that we can remind ourselves that we can do anything that we set our mind to do. Deepak Chopra’s current meditation series is on finding our own power, reminding us we have the power to create our own lives.
Last March I submitted a manuscript for a middle grade (grades 3-5) novel to the Florida Writers Association’s Royal Palm Literary Awards competition on a whim. I’d been working on this for several years, first with my grandsons as a correspondence project in an attempt to get them to write complete sentences and paragraphs, later as an independent project that took on a life of its own. My writing critique group read and commented, and read it again, adding their insight, sometimes giving me pats on the back and at others, a swift kick in the butt. Both the pats and the kicks were appreciated.
Sitting in a restaurant one August afternoon, eating lunch with my husband, I glanced at my e-mail and almost squealed out loud when I received notice that I was a finalist in the competition. I hadn’t expected my writing to be recognized as worthy. My Sisters of the Sentence at the St. George Writers’ Retreat and I had a mantra, “My writing sucks.” We all suffer from imposters syndrome. I’m not really a writer. But this designation as a finalist in a writing competition meant that I am a writer. Someone not part of my family or my writing group said my writing doesn’t suck. It is worthy.
In October of this year, at the FWA conference, my manuscript of The Boys on Mars was awarded the Gold for Unpublished Middle Grade Novel. This was the ultimate outside cheerleader saying “You can do it”.
We should all be our own cheerleaders. But there’s nothing like hearing “way to go” from that stranger who’s crossed our path.
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