A smile. An encouraging word. A thoughtful gesture. Each day people interact with us, help, and make our day a bit brighter and full. This is especially true in the Writing Community.
Take a second to think about writers you know, like the critique partner who works with you to improve your manuscript. The writing friend who listens, supports and keeps you strong when times are tough. The author who generously offers council, advice and inspiration when asked.
So many people take the time to make us feel special, don’t they? They comment on our blogs, re-tweet our posts, chat with us on forums and wish us Happy Birthday on Facebook.
Kindness ROCKS!
To commemorate the release of their book The Emotion Thesaurus, Becca and Angela at The Bookshelf Muse are hosting a TITANIC Random Act Of Kindness BLITZ. And because I think KINDNESS is contagious, I’m participating too!
♥♥♥As a not-too-random act of kindness, I’m donating Kate Messner’s upcoming book Capture the Flag to our elementary school library. Kate generously gave my son an autographed ARC of her book — she made his month. He has read and reread it. He got up at 6am on a Saturday to finish the book before leaving on a scout camping trip. He keeps it on a special shelf because he thinks having an autographed ARC is the coolest thing in the world. Knowing how much he loves it, I want to give a copy to our fabulous librarian who works tirelessly to find books kids will love.♥♥♥
♥♥♥As a sort-of-random act of kindness, I am making a mug rug (a mini-quilt that serves as a mug coaster) for my first and most frequent commenter, Linda. In addition to being a teacher, poet, mother, and grandmother, Linda somehow find time to leave heartfelt, thoughtful comments that brighten my day. Thank you, Linda. And, surprise! ♥♥♥
♥♥♥As a totally-random act of kindess, I am releasing four gently-used MG books into the wild — I’m leaving the books around town with a RAOK card. ♥♥♥
Do you know someone special that you’d like to randomly acknowledge?
Don’t be shy–come join us and celebrate! Send them an email, give them a shout out, or show your appreciation in another way. Kindness makes the world go round. :)
Becca and Angela have a special RAOK gift waiting for you as well, so hop on over to The Bookshelf Muse to pick it up.
Have you ever participated in or been the recipient of a Random Act Of Kindness? Let me know in the comments!
Well, now I HAVE been a recipient, Katya! Thank you for a marvelous start to my week. After a lovely weekend with my family, it was a little lonely this am, so you have done just what you set out to do, a kind act that is very appreciated. My class did RAK’s for several years & I believe it helped build such loving community. I will try to pass it on this week & will definitely go check out The Bookshelf Muse. Thank you again!!!
What a great RAOK and I’m sure the kids at the library will think it’s cool as well.
Wow, these are all awesome! I love the idea of the random book drop, and that’s great of your son to give up his arc so that others can enjoy it as well. And I have never heard of a mug rug, but that is so much cooler than ‘coaster!’ I know your kindness is going to be passed along in so many ways–thanks so much fort doing this with us!
Angela
1. I love Kate Messner
2. You are brilliant. I think releasing books into the wild might be my favorite one yet. :)
Just reading about your random acts makes me happy, Katya! This morning, a sympathetic friend offered me a container of chicken soup. Not very random, but much appreciated.
I’m posting my Poetry Friday link here, Katya, because I’m not getting to a new post. Hope that’s okay! I have more report from my Poetry for All workshop at Boyds Mills today, and a baseball/poetry poem.
WOW! what an awesome RAOK! It is so powerful when a book can capture a boy’s heart so much, he wakes up early to read it before a big adventure. I hope you enjoyed your RAOK week :)