These are the Ways You Love Yourself
“forgive yourself for not handling it all better, for feeling like you let others down. the path is not done, the road is not finished, why are you trying so hard to rush the whole thing? celebrate the fact that your story has some major departures.”
I love Meg’s posts. I bookmarked this weeks ago, but after writing yesterday’s post, it seems relevant yet again.
13 Practical Ways to Face Your Fear, Take Control, and Conquer Anxiety and Phobia
Just remember, fear is natural. It’s normal. It’s there to protect you. It’s your friend. Don’t beat yourself up for being afraid, try instead to be kind and thankful for it. Face it. And love it.
Respect it. Play with it. Make yourself comfortable with it.
Speaking of self-care, I thought this article from The Freedom Experiment about conquering legit phobias offered a lot of small, practical tactics for just calming yourself down when you’re feeling a bit too keyed up. “Breath in squares” feels much more tangible to me than “just breath.” Worth a read if you are a high-anxiety type.
15 Fights to Have Before You Get Engaged
Honey, I was watching this Oprah show about a beautiful family with forty foster children…
I found this exceedingly old article the other night and it was probably the funniest piece of relationship advice I’ve read. I like reading about how to effectively navigate major romantic relationships, but every article is the same, you know? This one hits all the obvious points, but the humor hits the points home a bit harder.
25 Things I Want To Say to So-Called “Aspiring Writers”
Agents, editors, reviewers, readers, trolls on the Internet, they’re going to say things you don’t want to hear. A thick skin isn’t enough. You need a leathery carapace. A chitinous exoskeleton. Writing is a hard-knock career where you invite a bevy of slings and arrows into your face and heart. It is what it is.
Repeat what I said above, but replace “relationships” with “writing.” I’m trying to keep this particular quote in mind this week because I am feeling too much like a delicate flower.
These hard-working committees can miss something simply because of how overwhelming their tasks are. They can miss something because they miss something. Human error happens. But anyone who reads can pitch in and do their part, too, so books like Imaginary Girls don’t unfairly slip between the cracks.
Even though the 2011 book award frenzy is dying down, the process for handing out Newberys and National Book Awards and such is really going on all year. Kelly’s article on Stacked talks about YALSA awards and a little known way that everyday readers can “lobby” for a favorite YA underdog.
Advocating for Contemporary YA Lit
Contemporary ya lit doesn’t get the marketing or publicity bucks behind it that so many other genres do. Pay attention to the advertisements you see around for books — do many of them look familiar? Do they target the same few books over and over?
Another Stacked article! This one is a bit old, but I am taking this YA Lit class that has me thinking all about how to keep up with what’s new in YA without getting buried/discouraged – believe you me, there are SO MANY BOOKS! This article, though, presents the task as more of a professional responsibility than the simple act of “keeping up with those kiddies” – it’s important to support quality lit so that publishers will continue to support quality lit, rather than publishing Twilight knock-off after Twilight knock-off.
I’m sure everyone and their 90-year-old grandmother have already seen these videos, but they are SO hilarious, SO amazing, that I’m just going make extra-double-sure that EVERYONE possible has seen it.
Did you see it?
Good. Aren’t you glad?