THOUGHTFUL THURSDAY: Learning How To Swim

 

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I always thought I would learn to swim one day. Watching others float gracefully in a pool or even seeing my own son playfully cut through the water like an otter made me envious. But it’s not likely to happen in my lifetime. You see, I have a great fear of getting into the water.

Even though I was raised near the bayous of southern Louisiana where I was literally surrounded by water, learning to swim was never a priority. By the time I graduated high school I still saw no opportunity to learn and decided my life wouldn’t be missing much by my lacking that particular skill.

I was wrong.

The summer I turned eighteen my Navy officer brother invited me to visit him in sunny California. He was stationed in San Diego and to a shy, small town girl, it was as close to a glamorous adventure as I’d ever hoped to see. The trip turned out to be an uneventful one until the day he invited one of his Navy buddies to come along with us as we spent the day at Coronado Beach.

I began that day having great fun as I dug my toes into the cool wet sand and chased the edges of the waves as they returned to the sea. It should have been a sweet memory to take home with me. My brother and his friend, on the other hand, thought it would be great sport to grab me and toss me into the ocean to see if I could make it back to shore on my own.

In one terrifying moment I went from listening to seagulls call out to each other high above me to finding myself face down in knee deep ocean water. Disoriented and choking on salt water, I didn’t know where land was and nearly drowned before my brother and his friend stopped laughing enough to realize they needed to rescue me.

It’s been a long time since that day, yet I’ve never overcome my fear of the water despite having a tremendous love and appreciation for the ocean. But if I ever did try to learn to swim I imagine there would be three things I would want to do first before I jumped into the deep end of the pool…

 

1. START SMALL

 

Children learn to swim by beginning to tread water and dog paddle. It’s the small steps which help a person gain confidence while those small steps eventually add up to greater accomplishments.

 

2. KEEP PRACTICING

 

Swimming is like any other sport and it takes practice to get better at it. There are books on the science of the subject, places like the YMCA where lessons are taught, and swim groups where you can receive encouragement from other practitioners while you are learning to make it on your own.

 

3. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

 

One day you are just going to have to let go of the flotation device and trust that you know what you are doing. To take a leap of faith and test the waters on your own, proving to yourself there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Come to think of it, sounds a bit like becoming a writer, doesn’t it?

Novice writers need to take those small steps of learning their craft, practicing their skill by writing every day, learning from those who came before them, and believing in their ability to become stronger the longer they work at it. It doesn’t happen all in one day. Just like learning how to swim.

Maybe one day I will learn how to swim for real but until then I’ll concentrate on learning how to swim through the publishing waters until I make it all the way to the deep end…

 

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donna

 

International best selling, award-winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection. Donna’s latest book, LUNADAR: Homeward Bound (a YA fantasy), is now available in ebook and print form from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and other online retailers.

THOUGHTFUL THURSDAY: Anyone Know How To Dog Paddle?

 

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All my life I’ve wanted to learn how to swim. I’m drawn to the ocean…to the call of the seagulls and the song of the whales. When I retire I want to move to the coast of Maine and spend my golden years living like Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote…without the murders, of course!

You would think someone who is so mesmerized by the water would know how to swim in it. Unfortunately no, although it isn’t for my not wishing otherwise. When I was seventeen, I visited my Naval officer brother who thought it would be amusing to take me out to the Pacific Ocean at Coronado Beach and dump me in the water That would have been okay if I knew how to swim, but I didn’t and I came close to drowning before he and his navy buddies dragged me back to shore.

Needless to say, I now have an irrational fear of the water which wars with my fascination and deep love of anything nautical. But since returning to my writing, I have begun to wonder if maybe I should try to learn how to swim? I mean there is always that saying about waiting for one’s ship to come in, but if I want to have tons of stories published, maybe I need do like this guy and to learn how to swim out to it!

 

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Ruler by day, a reluctant pirate by night, 18-year-old Princess Ariana fights for her subjects in the waterfall city of Lunadar. In a kingdom surrounded by fairies and mermaids, and ravaged by deadly Drundles, only a chosen few are trusted to guard her daughter, Candra, as the secret heir to the throne.

But it only takes one ill-fated meeting for Ariana to suddenly be plunged into an escalating web of secrets found in her father’s journal, a deadly kidnapping, and an ever-weakening resolve to turn her back on the call of the merman’s song.

With Ariana’s world falling apart and the future of Lunadar at stake, how will she bring her father’s murderer to justice and fulfill a deathbed promise to protect Lunadar’s legacy?

 

donna

 

International best selling, award-winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection. Donna’s latest book, LUNADAR: Homeward Bound (a YA fantasy), ebook edition, is now available from Amazon, with the print edition coming October 15, 2018.