Cathy C. Hall Writes

I’m a blessed person when it comes to good writing friends.

I’ve met lots of delightful writers through the years–some of them, I know only virtually–and most of them have been or are delightfully supportive, generous, and kind. Not just to me but to a whole slew of writer friends. But when it comes to asking for my support (or I imagine the support of their whole slew of writer friends), they can be maddeningly quiet, or downright apologetic.

I expect it’s because, deep down in most writers, there lurks an insecure mass of quivering thoughts. The kind of thoughts that whisper, “You’re not much of a writer, and any day now, all your friends are going to figure that out.”

But maybe we need to start whispering positive thoughts. Affirmations. Remember Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live?

Yeah, that’s what we need to do. And then we need to “Ask (Writer Friends) and Receive”. (Um…It’ll make more sense if you zip over to the Muffin now and read my post about asking our writer friends for support.)

A couple years back, I wrote this post for Memorial Day. I hope you don’t mind that I’m repeating it–I figured I couldn’t really improve on these few thoughts:

On May 3, 2000, President Bill Clinton released a memorandum from the White House regarding the National Moment of Remembrance.

“In this time of unprecedented success and prosperity throughout our land, I ask that all Americans come together to recognize how fortunate we are to live in freedom and to observe a universal “National Moment of Remembrance” on each Memorial Day. This memorial observance represents a simple and unifying way to commemorate our history and honor the struggle to protect our freedoms.

Accordingly, I hereby direct all executive departments and agencies, in consultation with the White House Program for the National Moment of Remembrance (Program), to promote a “National Moment of Remembrance” to occur at 3 p.m. (local time) on each Memorial Day.”

I know you’ll be busy today. Most of you have the day off and I hope you’ll have a lovely day with family and friends. But maybe at 3:00, you’ll remember to say a prayer, or just a heartfelt thank-you.

It only takes a moment.