The Cheerleader

I am so proud of the writers I have the privilege of working with. They are very driven people who sincerely want to improve their craft.

For instance, take non-fiction author and Writing Practicum member Kelly Smith. Kelly has taken up my challenge for Charitable Accountability, or finding a useful, benevolent way to commit to your goals.

Kelly chose FirstBook as the non-profit that will benefit from her striving to attain her goal of writing a novel this year. She committed to her goals online. Now her writing dreams will have a direct, positive impact on others.

I am so proud of her that I pledged to be one of her goal supporters.

I am also proud of Marcy Blesy, another writer who I've worked with in the past year, for having one of her first paying gigs printed.

Marcy's story on Bridgman teachers using exercise balls in the classroom ran in Sunday's edition of the Herald-Palladium -- Berrien County's newspaper. Not only did she do a great job on the piece, but the editors have also shown an interest in having her do more articles for them.

Marcy's success is a stick-with-it testimony. She knew she had a good idea, but had to query the editorial staff several times in order to get a response. She stuck with it and landed the assignment. So -- yay, Marcy!

It's imperative that we writers commit to our goals and make it a priority to reach them. Sometimes, however, it's nice to have a cheerleader in our corner who knows what we've gone through and who supports our efforts to excel. Usually, I'm the working writer, plugging away at my projects. Today, however, I'm happy to be the one who cheers.