Why I start with WHY

by Heather Doyle Fraser

Your WHY holds your power.

It is your catalyst and

Your sustaining force.

When it comes to writing a book, I have noticed for myself and my clients, once the decision has been made to write a book we just want to get to the writing. And, that makes sense. It’s a huge undertaking and a decision that isn’t made on the flip of a coin — heads I write a book and tails I eat some ice cream. 

So much thought goes into the mere decision to write a book before any writing even begins. The idea comes first as a whisper, “maybe I could write a book...” and then sits in the back of the mind and in your heart for years without any apparent action taken. It comes up again and again a little louder, and a little louder until the idea of the book is louder than the resistance to the idea of writing it. And once that decision is made to finally take action, people want to sprint.

Writing a book isn’t a sprint, though. It’s a process that deserves care, thoughtfulness, and thoroughness.

When we are basking in the glow of that monumental decision to pour ourselves into writing a book, we may forget that our WHY holds power. Our WHY is both our catalyst and our sustaining force. Fully exploring this WHY leads to an emotional connection and a commitment to the book and the process of writing it. And it provides an anchor and touchstone for us, should we lose our way in the process.

So what does it mean to fully explore your WHY when writing a book? After all, when I first start talking to writers about the importance of WHY, I often receive a shrug, an eye roll, or a look that says, “Oh — I know what my why is. We don’t need to spend time on that.”

But we do.

We need to spend significant time on it, until you can think it, feel it, and speak it with ease and with a level of comfort that only comes from examining all of the folds in the fabric of the cozy blanket that cuddles you on a winter day. And when you become that comfortable, you are also creating a powerful connection -- an emotional connection that can’t be broken or ignored easily. That’s the secret right there.

When I dive in with my clients on WHY this book on their heart is so important, WHY their voice needs to be shared at this particular moment, with this particular message, we are creating clarity and also the opportunity for success for the future. I ask the writers with whom I work to reflect on their WHY and explore it fully and thoughtfully. We talk about it at length, and then I ask them to write about it. I take this three-fold approach because with each new imagining and uttering, more clarity and connection comes. 

When they finally write about their WHY they are clear and vulnerable, logical and emotional. They are whole and complete with the idea of their WHY, and then when they push save on that document, something akin to magic happens. They secure a message for their future-selves that is full of hope and understanding and fierce compassion and power. This is the gift for that future-self that will eventually struggle with some part of the writing process. So when I talk about layering self-compassion into the writing process, this is how we start. This is what one aspect of self-compassion looks like in the beginning stages of the book writing process. Giving your future self a lovely gift, said in exactly right words to meet your needs should you lose your way and doubt your resolve.

When you see in your own words WHY you are doing something, you remember not only the WHY, but you remember the emotion and connection you have to the project — even if you aren’t feeling it in that moment. You realize that at one point you were so incredibly clear and strong in your idea and your vision -- you wrote and believed all of those words, no one else. So, if you wrote and believed them once, you can believe as you once did. You can connect with yourself and your voice. You can feel the connection waiting to be nurtured. You can start — not over, but again. 

You can use the love, power, and surety within that document of WHY to propel you forward into the unknown.

And let’s be honest: The way forward is unknown — even with the most brilliant plan, it is still unknown. But… there are some things that ARE known and felt deeply and in this case those two things are your WHY and your voice. Your voice is particularly poised and ready to communicate your WHY because you know it so well. With that knowledge, you can rest in the power of your pen. 

If the idea of starting with WHY as you begin on your book writing journey appeals to  you, if you are ready to dispel the myth of the tortured writer as I am, join me for my six-week course starting on October 6, Writing Your Book: A Step-by-step Compassionate Approach that Starts and Ends with Your Voice.

To See or Be Seen?

by Dr. Chia-Ying Chou

How often do we show the world what we think it expects to see?

a loyal employee

a smart businesswoman

a friendly customer service agent

a knowledgable teacher

a friendly Uber rider 

a supportive friend

a sweet daughter

a helpful coworker

a dependable spouse 

How often do we spend hours and hours with people and only see what we expect to see?

a loyal employee

a smart businesswoman

a friendly customer service agent

a knowledgable teacher

a friendly Uber rider

a supportive friend

a sweet daughter

a helpful coworker

a dependable spouse

How often do you really see someone? How often do you really let someone see you?

their/our

ever-changing micro facial expressions

spoken and unspoken thoughts

speakable and unspeakable truth

joint pains

weeping hearts in solitude

jealousy and loneliness 

wishes and hopes

faces with no make-ups

words with no intended impression making

How lonely can we be in connections? How connected can we be in loneliness? 

If you look at someone in their eyes 

and REALLY SEE THEM, 

you’ll know

that every moment you share with them

is a beautiful miracle of the universe.

My Grandmother as My Perfect Nurturer

by Heather Doyle Fraser

Perfect nurturer...

You rest quietly, inside,

Beckoning, come forth.

I think about my grandmother all of the time these days. I still have the vanity dresser that she gave to me when I was 13 years old. It’s a focal point in my adult bedroom, just as it was in my teenage bedroom. It’s part of the set that my grandfather bought for them when they were first married in 1927. 

I remember when it was in their house on Clinton Heights and it lived in the “green room” — that’s what we called the room with the two twin beds and the double bed, which was of course, green. Oh, that room! That’s where we cousins were jumping one afternoon from bed-to-bed-to-bed-to-loveseat-to-hopechest-back-to-the-bed-again and where, on one of those fateful leaps, I fell and broke my arm… but that’s another story. The vanity dresser sat in the dormer alcove of that room and it was the perfect little space for it. There was good light from the window and you felt nestled in and protected.

My sister and I never slept in that room when we spent the night at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house on the weekends. She could have had us sleep upstairs. There were two perfectly good bedrooms up there and four beds between them, but instead she made me a bed on the couch (or davenport as she called it) and put my sister on a cot next to me. She left the hurricane lamp on for us that sat on a side table at the end of the room. It wasn’t easier for her to make-up these make-shift beds for us, but she knew that we felt scared to be “so far away from her” upstairs. 

Sometimes, though, when I got a little older, I would go upstairs and I would sit at that vanity and write in my journal. I would open the drawers and explore. There were small boxes of buttons — I remember that — and thread, but I don’t remember what else was in those four drawers. I remember writing in my journal there — I actually probably called it a diary at the time, now that I think about it. I confessed my preteen angst and I’m sure, some fear and uncertainty, too. I also remember self-consciously glancing into the mirror every now and then while I was writing. I remember wondering what Grandma did as she sat at this vanity and looked at herself in the mirror when it was in her bedroom. 

It’s funny, because even now when I look in that mirror and sit at that vanity I still wonder — daily — what she thought and how she felt. Now, I keep my makeup in one of the drawers and hair brushes and hair dryer and flat iron in the others. I have her photo, my perfume, and sometimes some fresh flowers from my garden on the vanity. I look at her sometimes — so young in that picture — as I’m getting ready. Sometimes I am just preparing for a work-at-home day (every day these days) on Zoom calls. Other times I am getting ready to perform at a show with the band (this hasn’t happened in a while). In either case, I look at her photo and it gives me strength.

When I look at that photo, particularly recently, I think about the fact that she had nearly her whole life in front of her when that picture was taken. She was just 18 years old, and yet, it was 1923 so she had lived through so much already. World War I was over. The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920 was a memory. She would have been in school when that was happening, just like my daughter Eva is now. There would have been mask mandates — did she wear one? I think often about how strong she was to have seen and experienced so many hardships in her lifetime. Shortly after she married, the stock market crashed, the country spiraled into the Great Depression and then was catapulted into World War II. During that time she also gave birth to seven children and experienced so many wonderful things as well. 

She may not have realized it when she was in the midst of raising those seven children and being a partner to her husband — or maybe she did, I don’t know — but she was running a business like me. Her business, though, was her family. I think about all of the cooking and cleaning and managing of the household she must have done with seven children and a husband who had his ran his own dental practice out of their home. I would venture to guess that most times when she sat at this vanity she was tired. But she rarely let that show, at least not to my knowledge. She was almost always doing something. I think the only times I saw her sitting were when she was eating, or sewing, or watching The Love Boat with me and my sister on Saturday nights. Even when she was “doing” she knew how to “BE” with the ones she loved, though. You could feel her fierce love for her family in everything she did. This is something I think about as I navigate my life on a daily basis and her presence still brings me comfort. She was an example for me at a very young age of what alignment of values, words, and actions looks like in practice. Oh, and something else, compassion. 

My memories are filled with what I recognize now as acts of compassion, love, kindness, and determination. When she died, I was just 13. I never knew her as an adult or even a late teen. Just the same, though, my memories are plentiful and vivid because she gave to me with a freeness that only comes with knowing who you are at your center. She knew who she was at her core and so she was able to give without fear or insecurity to the people she loved. This is why she always comes to my heart and my mind when I need that comfort that she gave me as a child. She provided that love, but also that exemplar of a person in integrity, and that nurtures me. Some things I think about when I think of my grandmother:

• Cooking a meal from scratch is a way to show love to the people you love. Food is nourishing and delicious and can be something that brings family and people together.

• It feels good to help others and do for others.

• Do what you love and if you can serve others while you are doing that, then you’ve hit the jackpot. Grandma was a talented seamstress, very creative, and perseverance in motion. She loved to sew, but didn’t find a need for new clothes for herself all of the time, so to meet that need to create and make something beautiful, she would make all of her grandchildren (26) Halloween costumes. My favorite costume that she made me was a cross between Glinda the Good Witch and a Princess. She used an old pink quilted bathrobe of hers and embellished it with so many beads, baubles, taffeta, and tulle. It was so beautiful. Oh and there was a gypsy costume she made for me — she used an old dress of hers and added fringe and buttons and beads and scarves — it was perfect!

• Red raspberries taste like summer. Every time I eat one, I close my eyes and think of the bushes at the back of her yard on Clinton Heights. Some days I would go back there and look for the super red, ripe ones. They were in a hedge that sat a bit away from the back edge of her yard so I could sit down there, nestled in this safe, quiet spot. Unseen from the house, I would gingerly pick one and quickly pop it in my mouth, over and over, savoring the sweet taste and feeling the sun on my face.

• It’s really handy to have an apple tree in your backyard, especially when you bake pies and make apple butter. Has anyone ever made a mini-pie just for you with your first initial etched into the top crust? Thinking about this little pie coming out of her oven brings me back to her kitchen and puts the taste of tart and sweet apples with that flaky, buttery crust into my mouth. 

• When your street is newly paved it is the PERFECT time to get out your roller skates — the kind that tie onto your shoes are just FINE -- and glide down the street to the stop sign. (Okay — I’ll be honest — in my mind I glided, but those tie-on roller skates sometimes came untied and there was no gliding happening when your feet accidentally jumped out of those beauties.)

• She would have loved the messaging of Reduce — Reuse — Recycle! Living through The Great Depression and raising a large family she was ALL ABOUT THIS! For instance, there are so many uses for everyday household items that you might accidentally throw away. Here are some examples:  1) Rubber bands -- There are so many uses for rubber bands! I don’t know all of these uses, but one of the uses is to create a huge rubber band ball that you can bounce around the kitchen. 2) Twist ties -- There aren’t as many twist ties these days, but I do have a collection of bread tags in my kitchen drawer as an homage to Grandma. They are surprisingly handy when you are washing dishes — great scrapers for stuck on food! 3) Bread bags -- I know you might be tempted to put leftovers in old bread bags. No. The best use for old bread bags happens right after a rain shower. First,  put one bag inside your shoe and then put another bag over top of your shoe. Double protection! Sure, the ones on the outside become pulverized as you run around, but your feet don’t get wet from the rain or the puddles. They will be really sweaty, though. (This makes me laugh every time I think about it!)

• Ice cream is the perfect dessert on nights when you don’t feel like making sour cream cookies (you haven’t lived until you’ve eaten these, trust me), pie, or pineapple upside down cake. “Ice cream just fills in all the cracks! You are never too full for ice cream.” This is a direct quote from Grandma, and I think, words to live by.

• Front porch swings are the most wonderful inventions. I loved sitting on her front porch swing in the summer, especially at night. Sometimes she would come out and talk with me there, and I felt understood and seen. She was 67 years older than me, and yet she still talked with me, person to person, not at me like someone else might. We would talk about books sometimes (my favorite subject) and she leant me books from her girlhood. The two that I remember most, gingerly reading them and turning their yellowed pages were Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin published in 1903 and Moods by Louisa May Alcott published in 1864. It’s not lost on me that she gave me these books to read -- her personal girlhood copies — when I was a girl and both of these books were written by women. At that time when these books were written, that was remarkable and I’m sure it sent me a subtle message that I could be a published author someday, too.

This list could go on and on for a long time. In fact, each thing on this list is probably a story in itself. For now, though, I will just leave it here. Whenever I think of her and all of these memories, I am acutely aware that she is still with me. This is how I have always felt. My grandmother was small in stature, but as you can see, so big in my mind and my heart. She was fierce and compassionate, generous and kind, thoughtful, and action-oriented. And, I know she was human so she was also a lot more. Everyone has duality, but when you know who you are and what you stand for, your actions come easily, and this is what I always felt when I was with her. This is what I feel when I think of her now. 

And even though I do have her vanity and use it daily, all I have to do is look down at my own hands to feel close to her. I see her hands in my hands. They are small but strong. I remember the first time I noticed this was when I was living in Boston after graduating from college. I had moved there about six months after I graduated and even though there were things that I really liked about living there, it was hard. One day I was riding home from work on the train and I was feeling particularly down and weary. I looked down in my lap at my hands and I realized that my hands looked just like my grandmother’s hands. It filled me with relief and comfort at the time and still does. When I got home to my apartment that night I wrote this poem:

IN THIS CITY (1996)

I saw her hands today — Grandma’s.

They were on the train...

Hands that were loving and kind, here

On a train that is crowded and stuffy-rude.

They don’t fit in this city.

Her hands live on Clinton Heights,

In Ohio’s apple pies, and

Homemade Halloween costumes…

They are hands of hugs and

Squeezes and tender-safe goodnights,

Calm and mothering.

They are not hands of city

Subways and faceless crowds,

But they are here,

Maybe to tell me that I am

Not alone.

HOW YOU CAN USE YOUR GUILT TO ENGAGE IN ANTIRACISM (and why your self-focused shame isn't helping anyone)

by Racheli Miller, PhD 

"ALLIES: NOW IS THE TIME TO BE IN THE SERVICE OF BLACK LIBERATION. LIMIT YOUR RESPONSE TO WHAT IS OF REAL, TANGIBLE HELP TO US. GIVE MONEY, CALL YOUR REPS, PROTECT BLACK PEOPLE AT PROTESTS, ELEVATE OUR WORK AND VOICES. DON'T MAKE US SWIM THROUGH YOUR TEARS WHILE WE FIGHT." ~IJEOMA OLUO 

I’m a White millennial female psychologist working in New York City. In the wake of the modern-day lynching of Ahmaud Arbery and the police’s public execution of George Floyd and senseless murdering of Breonna Taylor and many other Black Americans, I've noticed something about how my White clients and I are struggling with how to take antiracist action and how to confront our complicity with racism.  I’ve noticed that even very well-intentioned. White people who are dedicated to fighting racial injustice can get caught up in wrestling with their shame, rather than focusing on taking meaningful action. I want to talk about why our shame isn’t helping anyone. 

As I put this out in the world, I feel anxious. I do not want to crowd the space that needs to be open for Black voices.  I want to acknowledge that I may make mistakes here that I will regret in the future. My intention is to be open and learn. I'm mentioning my internal process here because it is my attempt to not let shame keep me from doing my best to contribute to change. I hope that by writing about the psychology of shame and guilt, I might be helpful to other White allies, as we aim to shift from shame reactivity and shut down to effective antiracist work.  

SHAME VS. GUILT 

According to Brené Brown, “shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.” Guilt can be an adaptive emotion. It allows us to notice when our actions have caused harm and can motivate us to make repairs. However, many of us have not developed the capacity to feel guilt about our actions without our experience transforming into shame about who we are. Shame can lead to hiding, denying, and intense self-criticism and attack.  

So why doesn’t shame help? Shouldn’t we feel ashamed? A reasonable person would feel shame for complicity in a centuries-old system of oppression, violence toward Black people, and racial injustice. It also makes sense that since Black people in America have been abused and exploited by a racist system for centuries, many people might feel that White people should feel shame. And while all of this makes sense, unfortunately, shame doesn't motivate humans to do better. 

WHY IS SHAME A PROBLEM? 

The biggest problem with our shame is how we as humans respond to it. When confronting our wrongdoings leads to feelings of worthlessness and even self-hate, we will often do just about anything to run from facing our actions. So we will use two big strategies to help us escape shame: distraction and avoidance. With distraction and avoidance in play, we never need to take authentic inventory of our actions and beliefs in the first place. This is how they play out in typical interactions and situations: If our racism is brought to our attention either through our own noticing or that of others, we will continue to deny it or push it away with excuses and justifications or even anger. We may also try engaging in actions that may look antiracist, but are aimed at helping us avoid looking at our missteps. How often are our social media posts aimed at making us feel like good allies, rather than at having true positive impact on the lives of Black people? Or, we may avoid speaking up or acting because we are afraid of what others’ criticisms  will make us feel about ourselves. 

The denial and mental Olympics that we need to engage in to outrun our shame is unquestionably harmful. Even if we are able to run from our shame temporarily, it will always catch up with us because it lives within us.  At some point, we will hopefully come to the realization that ignoring, staying quiet, or engaging in performative ally-ship cannot truly shield us from our shame. 

At this point, we may start the process of really examining our racism and working toward positive change. However, this process can be easily thwarted by our reaction to our shame. We know this is happening when we find ourselves glued to social media, not able to function. We are overwhelmed by our sorrow to the point that we can no longer examine our particular actions and work toward compassionate correction. We see each of our misdeeds as confirmation of our flawed nature, powerlessness, and hopelessness. We may still want to act, but are too consumed with our own sorrow to figure out how.  

There are many reasons we may fall prey to such a shame-based state. Our minds do not understand that time moves forward and that we can only affect the present and future, not change the past. Our brains believe we are “literally” in the past again when we are thinking about it. Therefore, ruminating on our past misdeeds seems like a way to  erase or undo our past crimes. On a subconscious level, our minds may think our penance is contingent on our suffering. Only if we feel bad enough will we be forgiven and will our shame dissipate. We are letting our shame devour us because we believe that this is the only way to be free of it. Unfortunately, there is no restitution in self-indulgent self-flagellation. When we are busy attacking ourselves, we cannot fight for racial justice. When we are trying to avoid or get rid of the emotions that arise from seeing our misdeeds, we are disconnected from our capacity to take meaningful action. We cannot practice antiracism until we learn to not collapse into shame. Our shame isn’t helping anyone-- not ourselves, and certainly not Black people in the US. 

SHAME IS THE PROBLEM. WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT? 

How can we strengthen our capacity to realize that we have done wrong without torpedoing into shame? The work of Black activists and thought leaders on antiracism provide us with the key for that mindset shift. Ibram X. Kendi discusses that from an antiracist perspective, “we should not be saying this is who a person is....we should be saying this is what a person is doing in the moment.” We can perceive an action we have done or an assumption that we hold as racist without perceiving ourselves as racist. We can think of our racist thoughts as not our own creation, but the product of being raised in a society where we are inundated with White supremacist messaging. This outlook breeds compassion and allows us to shift from self-focused shame and attack to an authentic examination of our racism without defense. In the absence of shame, we can reckon with how our complicity has contributed to racial inequality and brutal violence against black bodies and feel the heartbreak and remorse that ensues with this realization. We can use our guilt to fuel our commitment to action and propel us toward active work on repair, aligning with our chosen anti-racist values. This perspective gives us a way forward. As Ijeoma Oluo writes, "The beauty of anti-racism is that you don't have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. This empowers us to take action in uprooting it.” If we want to confront our own racism, we need to learn to identify racism as the enemy instead of ourselves. Otherwise, our shame will surely get in the way. 

WHAT CAN WE DO WHEN WE ARE EXPERIENCING SHAME? 

What can we do in the moments when we are already experiencing shame? How can we continue to act effectively? Here, I find the skills that I’ve learned from contextual behavioral therapies (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Compassion Focused Therapy) to be helpful.  

Examine the Function of Behavior

I try to get very clear on the function of my behavior when my energy is directed toward shame. Am I enacting meaningful change in the world or am I sitting in my apartment, lost in thought? I try to examine the results of my behavior with honesty and without judgment.  

Move Toward Values 

I then try to connect back to my values.  If I slow down and ask myself what is the thing that I am feeling shame about, the answer is always something I care deeply about. I am feeling these difficult emotions because I care about antiracism. From this shift in perspective I can ask myself what is a true meaningful action I can take toward that value in this moment?   

When I am connected to my values, I can be more allowing and compassionate toward myself and my experiences of shame because I remember it does not serve me to get caught in the struggle with it. With gentleness, I can carry my pain with me, as I continue to move my feet toward what’s important. #BlackLivesMatter  

Words = Meaning + Intention

by Heather Doyle Fraser

As I’ve been enjoying the haiku lately, here’s one to start us off:

Words are important—

Their meanings and intentions.

I will uphold them.

A few weeks ago, I set up a meeting with someone who specializes in marketing authors, particularly those who self-publish. I sent an email asking for a conversation because I was curious about what he does and how he does it. We work with the same people and I thought perhaps we might have some common ground and maybe it would be fertile for a collaboration of some kind. I was excited at the prospect because collaborating with like-minded people is one of my favorite things… right up there with raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles, and warm woolen mittens!

In my email, I gave him insight into my background and experience in both publishing and coaching, and I also filled him in on what drives me and how I infuse compassion into my work with my clients. I was thoughtful with my words, and I crafted that email with clear intentions and explicit language regarding the possibility of collaborating together.

Fast forward a few days and we have a call lined up. We jump on, and I can sense from the first few minutes that this isn’t going to be the collaborative call I had envisioned. He was selling to me, not interested in collaborating with me. He asked me about the books I have written, and I showed him copies (we were on a video call) and briefly described each one. I also told him about the work I do with my clients and what they write about for the most part. I shared my screen to show him my website. He saw the word compassion and presumably heard me talking about it. Then, he had an aha moment, “Really what we do is compassionate marketing!”

I will admit, I was intrigued.

“Tell me more about that,” I entreated.

He proceeded to describe funnel marketing. I was trying to figure out where the compassionate part came in, and then he said it, “We create these quizzes that really highlight their pain. Then we send them emails that are targeted to that pain, which of course leads them to all of the products -- and that’s where we up-sell them.”

Hmmm… compassionate marketing… Do you know the meaning of the word COMPASSION?

At that moment, all things stopped for me. I heard the metaphorical record scratch and the music of this dance we were engaged in abruptly stopped. You see, I am operating under the following definition of compassion:

“A standard definition of compassion is, a sensitivity to the suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it." 

~ Dr. Paul Gilbert, founder of Compassion Focused Therapy

What this person was describing was not compassion. Not by a very long shot. Compassion is fierce and requires the motivation and commitment to help alleviate or prevent someone’s suffering. As he talked, his motivation was clearly not this. His intention was not this. He wanted to exploit—not alleviate—pain to build lists and sell products.

And let’s be clear— I know everyone has a job to do, and each job is different. But let’s not use a word—ignoring its meaning—in order to manipulate. He knew the word compassion was important to me, so he grabbed it and appropriated it, hoping that I would in turn grab at the chance to work and collaborate with someone else who talked about compassion.

Nope.

I don’t know what compassionate marketing is— if there is such a thing— or what it looks like, but I know that it isn’t the picture that this person painted for me. I’m willing to keep looking for someone who can help me find that. 

I’m building a network of people who know the meaning of compassion and it is at the core of what and how they do everything. It’s layered into their essence and being. I don’t want to collaborate with someone who is exploiting and up-selling people’s pain. When I engage with someone it will be to create something wonderful in their lives. And if that something is a book, the process of writing will be intentional. It will build on their strengths and joy. And while I hold space for those strengths and that joy, I will also tenderly hold space for their suffering and their challenges. We will bring them in together to create meaningful beauty.

I want everyone who comes to the Compassionate Mind Collaborative to know that no matter who they engage with, they will be met with compassion, caring, and commitment. And that’s why I won’t be collaborating with people who don’t hold these same values. There’s too much of that in the world and I am drawing a line in the sand.

Intention and meaning are important. They make a difference when speaking. They make a difference in writing. They are worth fighting for in my eyes because they define who we are and how we operate in this life.