Butt In Chair
Right in the butt! Just hours before I was to sit down for four days of inspirational information provided by SCBWI’s Summer Spectacular I was stung in the rear while mowing my lawn.
Recalling Bruce Coville’s, as well as many other’s, suggestion of (BIC or Butt In Chair) as to how one can achieve their goals, the last thing I wanted to do was put my sore, swollen, itchy rear end in a chair.
I sat on the edge of my chair (literally, to keep from aggravating my already softball size swell), while presenter after presenter encouraged us to keep fighting the fight. Each had a nugget for writers and illustrators to build on and round out our careers.
I hope to someday bee as successful as they are in entertaining and informing our youth.
The Sting
While as illustrators and writers one of our main goals is to entertain and inform our youth, another is to be true to ourselves. It is often advised that we should write OUR story. The one that only we can tell. I was stung again in hearing the stories of the many POC that only wished to have the same opportunities as anyone else would expect, and how they wanted to encourage today’s youth to strive for that equality themselves. I had to question myself, how have I contributed to the ongoing inequality or misunderstanding of this population? And how can I make a difference in the situation?
With the world in such upheaval right now I think we should consider the question that presenter Jason Reynolds posed to us: What do we want of this world? If we don’t want the violence and desperation then we have to do something to improve the state of our communities.
Just as I covered one of the bee holes in my yard, the aggravating pests moved to another hole several yards away. The annoyances will keep shifting about. But we have to keep hunting them down to eliminate the problem once and for all. I know we all have to inhabit this Earth together so we must find a way to coexist in the most positive manner. All species of life, and all races of Man. We all have contributions that benefit the whole.
Get out there. Make your contribution. And Bee Kind.