The act of encouraging is one of the kindest gifts you can give someone. Encouragement helps bolster our confidences and helps guide us on the path we make for ourselves. In the writing world, encouragement comes in many forms outside of the spoken word. I cannot help it sometimes, but I overhear conversations and see situations that interest me. Those events/words get the gears going in my mind and act like encouragement to write scenes and conversations. It goes back to finding the world around us as an open book.
I do have to say, personally, I feel at my happiest when someone I know and love encourages me to continue down the path I started on long ago. So whether you are a reader, a writer, a friend of a writer, or a fan, please take the time to encourage and bolster. It pushes writers on when they may be struggling under the weight of the umpteenth revise and edit.
Sarah and I met and became friends by encouraging each other in college. We both struggled with classmates who did not fully participate in our teams leaving most of the work to us. Though Sarah and I were not on the same team we could see we were both struggling with difficult students on our respective teams so we started visiting (privately) and encouraged each other to just do the best we could with what we had to work with. Mutual encouragement got us through our team projects and through the course. Sometimes reaching out to someone by encouraging them also comes back to us and they end up encouraging you too! That's what built our friendship!
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