“Even the bull remembers it was once a calf.”  Fortune cookie message

“What greater wisdom cn there be than kindness?”   Jean Jacques Rousseau

“Do small things with great love.”   Mother Teresa

Recently, one of my writing buddies asked for some help with a book project from some well-established writers she’d come into contact with, but came up empty. On the other hand, she wrote to someone she’d never met and that person came through in a big way.

I’ve been on the receiving end of many acts of kindness on the writing front. Friends have sent me articles and my beloved sister Stephanie is always passing on information she thinks might be helpful. Writing buddies have put me in touch with agents and even a former dog-walking pal I ran into passed on a lead. How kind of them!

Acts of kindness: We’ve all been lucky enough to benefit from them. And we all know how it feels when we reach out and meet with silence. Writing can be exciting, but it can also be lonely. And when we help each other, when we brighten another writer’s path, we also shed light on our own. There are so many ways we can support and encourage:

We can send articles on themes that relate to a friend’s project.

We can send a check-in email or card just to see how someone is doing.

We can send inspiring stories that will give our friends a boost.

We can take a friend who’s struggling out for an evening, just to talk.

We can offer to write a review of a friend’s book on Amazon or Goodreads.

We can pass on ideas we come up with that might help jump start a stalled story.

We can send a card via snail mail to bring a little sunshine to someone’s day.

We’re all in the writing life together. When we remind this and share what we are all enriched. “Even the bull remembers it was once a calf.” Let’s never be too busy or too important to help someone else alog the way as we all write on.