Category: Encouragement
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Dancing Like Elaine…
I love to dance. Am I good at it? Does it matter? Recently I met friends at a local dive for live music and beer. Walking into the dark bar brought waves of nostalgia from school days in New Orleans, back when eighteen was the legal drinking age and still we used fake IDs. Ah,…
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Learning to Learn…
School days. I couldn’t wait for them to end. No books. No tests. No schedule. No teachers. Did I really think I could just coast through life on the limited knowledge gained in high school and college? Me living in the world today, stuck in that no-more-learning mindset would be a disaster. Can you imagine?…
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Floundering Founder…
Lifelong learning can be hard. And frustrating. Best to remain in kindergarten where there are snacks and nap time and the hardest thing you have to do is tie your shoes. My dad was a lifelong learner; he died at 95 with 1500 books waiting on his kindle. Like him, I itch to learn so…
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Lifelong Learning…
My good friend Linda is an excellent example of the tenth ELAN Principle: Be a Lifelong Learner. Semi-retired, she has dedicated three weeks this spring to travel to Paris for the sole purpose of immersion in all things French. She teaches French at the college level so I would call her fluent, but she recognizes…
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Big Girl Pants…
I hate these baggy, grown-up Big Girl Pants. I’d rather be lounging in my jammies. Wrapped in well-worn flannel can make me feel like the status quo is where it’s at, where I want to be. But then why the heck have I been writing and rewriting a novel for years? Jammie pants will not…
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And the Winner is…
Raise your hand if you have written a novel. Put it down if it has been published. Congratulations, you have done the work of writing, rewriting, editing, revising, pitching, promoting, suffering rejections (or worse, crickets) and/or followed the steps to self-publishing. Those of you with your hand still in the air, raise it higher if…
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Running Downhill…
Is week two of the new year too early to feel a loss of momentum from that wide-open-to-every-possibility optimism we held last Monday? When we told the world we would go ahead and make our own day by honoring that which matters to our creative selves? Even though I’ve made great strides in preparing novel…
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Go Ahead, Make Your Day…
Happy First Monday of 2023. What do you hope to accomplish today, this week, this year? Perhaps some lofty goal set in the fresh perspective of a new year already seems overwhelming. This is the time to honor that goal, lofty or not. Tend to it. Nurture it. Break it down to daily divots of…
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EOY Countdown…
Happy Last Monday of 2022. It is time to celebrate small things, which through the power of dedicated and daily moments have grown to mighty accomplishments at the crescendo of year’s end. This is a sneaky way to talk about goals and (gasp) dreaded resolutions. (I have only ever kept one resolution and that was…
Patty Mayeux Blog 