Even When the World's On Fire...
you can share your brownies. ten things so lit
Here are ten things I wanted to share with you:
Does Being a writer mean living in New York?…NO: Great read from . I live in a tiny New Hampshire town, population 2000-ish and guess what? I’M A WRITER. Wherever you are, you can write. This essay reminds me of how often I say “I can’t” do something until the “conditions” match someone else’s. Balderdash. Just do it.
There are only TWENTY DAYS until an incredibly significant and important election: Here’s an easy website to register to vote, check your registration, request a mail-in ballot thanks to our favorite Social Studies teacher (and now a #1 NYTimes bestselling author) . Use your voice and VOTE! Your suffragette sisters are cheering you on.
If I’m starting to get sick, I do two things: Take an Oil of Oregano, and chew a Vitamin C tablet (my favorite is Trader Joe’s chewable orange). Seriously, it is a POWERFUL immunity booster and I’ve caught myself DOZENS of times (think of me driving a bus full of coughing soccer players with the windows up…and I’m still STANDING). Also…I hear sleep helps. Is anyone getting enough?
There’s No Such Thing as Talent. So just get on with it already! Any skill is practice practice practice. I’m a huge
fan, and this post is golden.North Carolina artist Kelcey Loomer is a former student, small business owner, and an incredible artist and jewelry maker. I LOVE her work and have several pieces of her Seed and Sky collection Her studio, like so many buildings in NC, was devastated by the recent hurricane. Thank you for helping if you can <3
Share Your Brownies (but this just a metaphor to share your writing). Do not hoard your brownies. Please. Keeping them all to yourself isn’t fair to you, or to the potential brownie-munchers in this world who might just need YOUR specific recipe. Thank you
I know everything is on fire right now by
Please don’t forget to write. Please don’t forget to take ten minutes or a half an hour to sit down and capture your feelings in this moment in time. Go hide somewhere—even your bathroom—if you need to get away for a second. Take your phone or a little notebook with you. Whatever you need to make it happen.
I just know that whenever I’m at my most distracted or stressed out, if I can make just a little time to scratch a few things down, I always feel better afterward. Because my feelings will have been held for a moment, captured and examined, seen in a new light. Writing allows us to see ourselves when we most feel lost or consumed by the world.
I often refer of it as a gift we can give ourselves, to take a look at ourselves like that. But lately I have been thinking of it like this: as a fight for ourselves. To make time to write is to make sure we’re all still here. And we are, we are!
Freshly picked apples: It’s the simple things. They are so so crispy-sweet good.
Kate DiCamillo was in New Hampshire last weekend for the FIRST EVER New Hampshire book festival, co-organized by my friend and fellow writer
. Speaking to a crowd of 1300 school children, Kate said “People will tell you no, but it’s within your power to keep going,” she said. “I am a messy, deeply flawed human being, but I write stories, and you can too.” Read all of the writerly wisdom gleaned HERE. Thank you, Sarah!Thank you Caroline Star Rose for this Frederick Buechner quote I love:
“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” -Frederick Buechner Now and Then (1983)
Amy 🎃
The Last Part:
New Hampshire fall…
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p.s. now is the perfect time to read TEN THOUSAND TRIES. The setting is New Hampshire fall, with leaves changing, and life changing for our hero, Golden Maroni (aka “Golden Macaroni” courtesy of his eighth grade friends). Read it and then bring me to your class, library, or book club. We can talk brain, soccer, and resilience - MY FAVORITE THINGS. Plus, sometimes I like to bring along my body buddy.
My Books:
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
Thanks but thanks are not enough, let flowers express 🌹🌹🌹🙏
Hi Amy, I just wanted to say what a nice blog this is today -- even when the world is on fire! Thanks for encouraging folks to vote, as well as to take their vitamin C and eat a fresh apple!
Susan Chase