J. K. Rowling and a Dose of Inspiration . . .

1. Did you catch J. K. Rowling's interview on Oprah? So inspiring. Her life was far from easy. She dealt with poverty, grief and clinical depression and still wrote, wrote, wrote. Maybe that's why she wrote, wrote, wrote. And she referred to Arthur Levine as one of her best friends. He's the editor who brought her work to America, and he's such a cool guy that he once dyed his beard PINK when his author, Laini Taylor, was nominated for a National Book Award.

See . . .

(Jim Di Bartolo, Laini Taylor, Arthur A. Levine)

Back to J.K. Rowling. Here's the link with info about her interview with Oprah.

And here's a video of her commencement speech at Harvard. It's so inspiring. She talks about the value of failure. Got to love that!

2. The amazing author and all-around cool person, Mary Hershey, had a wonderful list on her blog, that had me saying, "Yup, me too" and "That's so true." Here's a link to the list. (Did I mention it's funny?)

3. When we write, we hope to make a difference to one reader. Just one. And we feel the same when we speak to a group.

Last Saturday, I had the great pleasure of speaking to a group of adults about something I've been doing for the past 18 years -- parenting!

Today, I received an e-mail from one of the parents in the audience. Here's a bit from that LOVELY e-mail:

"I am working on a children's book and have never finished it just because, well, if I finish it.... then what? I have a book on my computer, period. I have this delusion that I need to "know people" and "have connections" everyday homemaker moms - except for J.K. Rowling of course, don't get published. So I've never finish it. But . . . you showed me that my thinking is backward. I should be thinking "even J.K. Rowling did it, and so can I!"

I have restarted my work."

Now I know that what I said mattered to at least one person. Thank you, Jill, for letting me know you've chosen to "dust off your dreams."

And thank you, J.K. Rowling for reminding us that "dusting off our dreams" can not only save our lives, but can deeply enrich them.