In the wake of the Paris 2024 Olympic games, everyone is talking about the (mostly) good vibes we collectively experienced.
In one story, US gymnasts shared how much better everything felt now that they have ditched the old coaches, who ‘motivated’ them through fear and pain.
And oh look: the team still won gold!
It’s Not Just About The Podium
At every stage, we saw elite athletes congratulating each other (and themselves) on the incredible efforts they were making to be the best at what they do.
I have to imagine those celebrations happen every day—in the gym, at the track, when they successfully bypass the ‘snooze’ button—or those athletes wouldn’t have the resilience, the persistence to get to the finals.
Everyday Triumphs
In the StoryADay Superstars group we have a running thread called “Triumph”. It’s an invitation to catch ourselves doing well, and to share that with others, no matter how great or small.
Here are some recent examples:
- “ After feeling like I’d fallen off a writing cliff, I FINALLY wrote a new scene for my novel-in-progress.”
- “Got my new website/blog up. Is it the best thing ever? No. And I’ll make improvements later. But I feel it’s good enough for now and that I can Not Think About It for a while.”
- “I submitted a story to a local arts council contest in April…I didn’t win… but all of the submitters had their stories printed in a book that will live on the local library shelf! Yay!”
- “I received this message this week: We are pleased to announce that we have chosen your poem…for publication in Massachusetts Bards Poetry Anthology 2024.”
It takes a deep breath and a dose of courage for every writer to post their celebrations to this thread, Each post is met with cheers from the other people in the group.
As well as encouraging their peers, each writer who celebrates the wins in their daily life is telling themselves “this matters”.
Each person who stops to celebrate a win, reinforces a good writing habit.
Each person who does this, is building resilience and the odds of their being successful as a writer (whatever their definition of success happens to be.)
Can you think of something worth celebrating in your writing practice recently?
- Read a story that inspired you?
- Opened your journal and wrote honestly for ten minutes?
- Opened an old project and thought “hey, this isn’t half bad?”
- Added words to a new project?
- Revised an existing project?
- Researched a publishing opportunity?
- Told someone “I’m a writer”?
Why not take a deep breath, screw up your courage and share your ‘win’ here?
I wrote a page and a half today for a project I’m working on. I was very anxious about it, said a prayer, and just wrote.
Woohoo! Proud of you!
Yes, I just read the first two stories in Adam Haslett’s 2002 collection You Are Not a Stranger Here. The first piece was absolutely, unflinchingly about my own unhinged inventor father, and the second about the terminal cliff I somehow did not fall over as an extremely influencible, naieve, and innocently ignorant teenager. This author’s work measurelessly inspires me to devotedly attend to the details, to vividly paint the specifics of my own remembered and refabricated visions with the commitment to creating writings of equivalent value to readers.
After some time away from writing poetry, I wrote three poems this month.
When I shared them with a friend, she said, You have found your voice here.
It’s good to try different genres!
I worked hard on a query for my magical realism novel and got very positive feedback from an agent. I’m on my fifth round with my novel!
I wrote every day from July 4 to August 10th, and plan to finish up to the 16th today.
Fabulous! Keep up the good work!