A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

We all nearly worshiped her. Mrs. D, as we called our director, led with no-nonsense jeans, glasses and checked blouses during after-school rehearsal by day, then transfigured into a goddess with Farrah Fawcett hair, flowing chiffon dress and fragrance infusion by performance night. Mrs. Daniel, our hard-working paragon of inspiration, taught me just about everything I know about learning.

And theater.

In fact, I learned so much under her tutelage and passionate commitment to both excellence and joy, that even today, I can teach acting, I know how to direct scenes. I didn’t have to study it in college. Twenty-five years after the fact, theater is one subject area I tattooed on my soul.

Eileen Daniel knew something other teachers didn’t. She understood that to command our respect, she needed to both challenge us (naturally) and to inspire us (the more subtle and crucial). She did it in a variety of ways. She worked as hard as we did (always had a hammer in her hand or a script open). She gave generous feedback yet didn’t hesitate to call us to higher standards. She believed we were capable of more than any other adults in my life. If the set needed painting, she would turn over the project to teens, give the supplies and drawings and then let them do the work.

The theater program was so successful, we had football players leaving the team to be in the plays because that’s where students were both

challenged
and
inspired.

Each spring, our theater department hosted a banquet where awards were given for excellent work. There was a pair of awards that I especially liked. Mrs. D called them the 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration awards. She recognized intrinsically that these went together.

In Brave Writer, we want to remember how critical inspiration is to the perspiration of hard work. If you are spending a lot of time grinding through math or history or writing, ask yourself if you’ve contributed a dose of inspiration today. You only need 10%. Six minutes for every hour. That’ll get the job done.

For every ten minutes of sweat, there should be one minute where you devote yourself to inspiring the troops. All these provide relief from hard work.

• Music
• Cookies
• Writing together
• Telling a joke
• Taking a break
• Going for a walk
• Reading a sample that goes with the hard work
• Appreciating the beauty of a well-crafted sentence
• Celebrating a small success (like handwriting your name in cursive for the first time)
• Noticing the way fractions in math relate to fractions in cooking

And remember, you need to work as hard as your kids do. If they see you working, they’ll respect you more. When you sprinkle the day with inspiring colors, tastes, moments, sounds, and achievements, they’ll see the dynamic at work: 90% perspiration is created by 10% inspiration.

So how do these fit the Brave Writer philosophy?

Time: The Brave Writer philosophy urges you to partner with your kids in their growth as writers. It does require real time spent with your children. We don’t offer a “hand your child the guide while you wash the dishes” kind of writing help. Rather, Brave Writer focuses on enhancing the friendship between parent/editor and child/writer. Their partnership is developed through time spent together, particularly one-on-one time.

Consistency: The Brave Writer Lifestyle gives moms a way to provide a routine that is both flexible yet helps to develop habits that create the conditions for writing and growing in language arts. Consistency has two parts: habit and philosophy. Habit is cultivated by routines that we choose to incorporate into our lives. Consistent philosophy means to allow a set of beliefs or ideas to influence how we behave for a period of time to discover what kind of fruit is borne.

Enthusiasm: A trademark of Brave Writer instruction is enthusiasm for who are our children are, rather than a focus on “proper” writing instruction. We look for the unique person that is our child and draw that out so that the child’s writing may capture it. We do this by genuinely expressing interest in our children’s passions and skills, and then helping those get to paper or computer screen. Writing support and direction occur in a context of enthusiasm for your child’s writing voice.

If these three overwhelm you, pick one and start there. See if today you can either offer time, consistency or enthusiasm to your child.