Life Lessons—The Ripple Effect

by Reba J. Hoffman, Ph.D

I know most, if not all of you dream of seeing your stories in print. Sometimes it seems like you’ll never get there. You may even routinely beat yourself up for wasting all that time and energy stringing words together when you could be doing something else.

What you may not see is the ripple. You know the one. That tiny, hardly noticeable little wave your writing caused in the world that hardly made a splash at the time. A story here, an article there. A word count goal or plotting out your debut novel. Ho hum, right?

Thankfully, you have the ripple effect. When something ripples the water, no matter how small it begins, it always gets bigger. It just has to stay in motion. Don’t believe me? Fill your sink with water—umm, no, not dishwater, just plain H2O—drop a pebble in the middle and see for yourself what happens.

The ripple effect is a natural law and it affects your writing as well. Even the tiny word count will grow into a completed manuscript as long as it stays in motion. For those of you have been feeling guilty about not making enough progress on your work in progress, listen up!

If you wrote just one page a day, it would be that tiny ripple. But, if you repeated that tiny ripple daily, in 365 days you’d have your rough draft completed! Isn’t that amazing?!

Look, there isn’t a writer out there who didn’t start right where you are. They have families, schedules, sleepovers, jobs, health limitations, and blank screen syndrome just like you. They just discovered the ripple effect. They didn’t sequester themselves in a cabin in the woods for a year to write that award winning crime novel. No, they wrote in coffee shops on Third and Main in the 42 minutes they had for lunch, in the car while their daughter practiced her gymnastics.

The thing is, they did it. Pure and simple and their ripples reached the shoreline and a book came to print. I’d love for you to fully embrace the ripple effect in your own life and prose. Little waves make big impacts when they make landfall. Yours will, too. Make the little moments count. Use them to move you toward your new world. We’re waiting!

What ripple has your author-ship made in the sea of literature? No matter how small, share it here. We’ll celebrate with you!

Photo courtesy of Mary Denman

Reba J. Hoffman is the founder and president of Magellan Life Coaching (www.magellanlifecoaching.com). She holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Counseling and is a natural encourager. She serves as Member Care Coach for My Book Therapy and is the author of Dare to Dream, A Writer’s Journal. You can connect with Reba through her motivational blog, Finding True North, or by email at reba@magellanlifecoaching.com. You can also follow her on Twitter at @RebaJHoffman.