Sometimes Super Heroes Need (Guest Post by Daphne Benedis-Grab, Author of I Know You Started It)
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I love your yearlong focus on reader superhero qualities and I am excited to share my current favorite superhero quality. It’s taken from a practice we have at my school where I am a librarian for kiddos from preK to 5th grade. It’s a list of traits that can support students (and staff) in their work and social emotional growth at school, and has the acronyms PAWS (we are the wildcats so yeah, PAWS). All the letters stand for superhero traits but W, which stands for winning attitude, is my favorite. A winning attitude is basically making a choice of how to react when frustrating or disappointing things happen. The advice to do this is solid: deep breathing, taking a break, positive self talk and then, if needed, the pivot- figure out how to go forward in this new landscape. This is a great recipe for so many disappointments and frustrations in life, and it’s something I have often had to turn to in my life as an author.
Writing
books is super fun and awesome, and it’s also really frustrating and at times
disappointing. And sometimes you have to work to find that winning attitude.
This happens to me a lot, for example: last Saturday I had two hours to write
and everything I typed was awkward, not right, off. I wasn’t getting the story
down the way it was living in my brain and with the clock ticking and my word
count nowhere near my goal, I was frustrated. Really frustrated which then
pulled me into a spiral of criticizing myself, wasting time looking at cat
videos and questioning whether my book idea was any good at all- a lot of
extremely unhelpful things. So I took a deep breath and dug deep to try and
find my winning attitude.
Take
a Break:
This
helps so much! In this case I was home so I was able to find my cats and pet
them (way better than cat videos because they purr). Full disclosure- I also
sang to them because unlike my children they appreciate my singing and singing
makes me happy. But there are tons of ways to take a break: go on a short walk,
get something lovely to eat, sit, close your eyes for a moment and focus on
your breath. Whatever is going to get you calm and bump you out of the negative
headspace.
Positive
Self Talk:
I
gave myself the advice I’d give a friend: some days the words flow better than
others. But the goal when sitting down to draft is not perfection, it is words
on the page. So put them down and then keep going without judging. You can
always fix it later and who knows what might get unlocked if you just relax and
write? I am a big fan of positive self talk- it is useful in so many instances
of insecurity, uncertainty, unexpected change and total frustration.
Pivot:
I
decided to change up the scene I was writing and come at it from a different
starting point. Did it magically fix my writing? Not really. But it helped me
refocus, take advantage of the time I had left and get a chunk of writing done.
Then the next time I sat back down to write I edited what I’d written. It
wasn’t great but the good news was that it was fixable- some editing and tweaks
and it was first-draft worthy. And a lot better than if I’d just given up and
written nothing at all.
So
there it is, my favorite superhero quality and how it fits into my life. And
now I’m going to be checking back here for more superhero traits and how
readers and writers make them happen!
Thanks so much for having me on your blog- you are all superheroes!
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