November Theme: SILVER LININGS AND SUCH by Irene Latham

The writing life is full of experiences that make us angry, discouraged and despairing: Harsh critiques! Rejections! Writer’s Block! Negative Reviews!

And while we may not want to repeat those experiences, we generally don’t want to un-do them either. Because it’s those experiences that make us who we are. It’s those experiences that pave the way for the happy ones. And if you pull one thread, the whole thing might unravel.

We generally learn and grow from these experiences, and usually, eventually, we wind up feeling grateful. Sometimes it even shows up in our stories.

Like in this passage, from my new novel DON’T FEED THE BOY, coming from Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan in fall 2012. It’s about a boy who lives at the zoo, but he wishes he didn’t. He meets a girl he calls the Bird Girl, and they have all sorts of adventures -- some happy, some not. Here’s what they have to say about gratitude:

He forced his thoughts in another direction. “So if all that hadn’t happened –“ Whit couldn’t bring himself to say the more specific words. “Then you never would have come to the zoo. We never would have met.” 
 
Her eyes brightened. “Mama would say ‘no hay mal que por bien no ven·ga.’ It means there isn’t anything bad that good doesn’t come from. Like a silver lining.”
 
He grinned. No one had ever called him a silver lining before.

Wishing everyone lots of silver linings today!