Look for the Helpers

The month of March has been full of many ups and downs for me. And unless you’ve been living under a rock or aren’t from planet Earth, I’m sure you’ve seen more downs than ups as well. Earlier this month, I contemplated writing about a new writing adventure that I’ve taken upon. But due to the global crisis we’ve all been experiencing, that had to be placed on hold. Enough of the negativity, though. I want to talk about the good things. . . no, the GREAT things that happened this month and the things I’ve experienced which influenced my writing life. It's no secret that we’re all struggling during this tumultuous time and the first thing that I noticed when the COVID-19 outbreak came out was just how many “helpers” there were in my author circle and even with my co-workers. Sadly, all of my spring author appearances were canceled or postponed until further notice. I was very disappointed, but then I saw what all my author friends were doing in response. Not only were they promoting each other and discounting their books, but they were giving the quarantined and self-quarantined people a chance to escape to another world. I thought that was a great response and I joined in on the action too! And let me tell you, I felt great about it! But they weren’t the only “helpers” I found. See, I work at a grocery store and if you’ve seen all the memes on social media, I’m here to say it’s all true. It’s rough out there, yet my co-workers have found ways of helping me, writing-wise. They all know how tough it is for me as an independent author, especially now. And they all stepped up to help! They lend a listening ear when I’m stuck on a writer’s block and a few even bought my latest book! If there’s anything I learned from this month is we’re all in this chaos together. And despite all the negative news I’ve heard, there are some wonderful people in this world that want to see others succeed. It’s during these times that a very familiar quote from Mr. Rogers comes to mind:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”