I was linked to an article on facebook today entitled How Can I Tell My 15-year-old Daughter She is Awful at Writing?.

Good grief, people.

The article discusses the author’s feelings of betrayal and hurt feelings when her mother criticized her artwork as a child, and how much of a struggle it still is as an adult to draw or paint or create art.

Something in that resonated with me a bit.

I love words. I love stories. Since I was a kid, I’ve always had a book on hand for boring times. I repeatedly got into trouble at school for reading a book I had tucked under my desk instead of listening or learning about whatever was being taught.

It shouldn’t be a surprise then that I also love to write. To create my own stories.

I’ve spent so much time in other people’s worlds that it was probably only a matter of time before I tripped and fell into creating my own.

I’ve been writing for many years now. In many areas. Journaling, blogging, fanfiction, original fiction, personal essays..I’ve tried a lot of areas.

I’m not published, but I consider myself a writer.

So why can I still hear my father so clearly in my head when I think about writing? About being a writer?

My father never criticized me the way the mother in the article did. He didn’t rip apart something I wrote in front of me. He never said a bad word about my writing.

He never said a good word, either – but that doesn’t actually bother me.

What sticks out in my head is being in high school and frustrated with the whole “What I Want to be When I Grow Up” mess, I told him that I might like to be a writer.

His response, for all these years, has stuck with me.

“You know who should be a writer? Your sister.”

It wasn’t a harsh comment at all. He wasn’t saying that I was a bad writer..just that my sister was better. And underneath that, I filled in the blanks that I shouldn’t be a writer, because I couldn’t write. That I didn’t have talent, or that my writing wasn’t interesting or good.

I’m sure he doesn’t even remember the conversation.

But I do.

The words you say to young people stick – especially when it involves something important and scary to them.

Even if you truly believe that someone’s sister is the one who should be a writer; even if a young person brings you a picture of you with four legs and three eyes – don’t tear them down. They’re sharing a part of themselves with you. It should be an honor for you.

You don’t have to cheer. You don’t have to lie.

But in this case, especially: If you don’t have anything nice to say? KEEP YOUR DAMN MOUTH SHUT.

Late night blogging on my phone again. I was going to work on the computer, but I got sleepy, so here’s what you get.

Tonight, we talk chess.

I remember as a kid a few times playing with my dad; I remember asking repeatedly to play. It was rare. My dad wasn’t home a lot; he was a doctor and when he was home, he was exhausted.

So I should probably have more sympathy for my own kid, who has recently developed an obsession with chess, and asks me repeatedly and often to play.

I like to play games with my kid. We play at dinnertime a lot – Games like Story Cubes or I’m Going on a Picnic* – but games it takes longer than about 10 minutes to play? I’d rather stab myself with a fork.

Naturally my kid’s favorite games are chess and a game called fairy-opoly, which is just as horrifying a turn on monopoly as you could possibly imagine.

I’d rather play fairy-opoly, to be honest. At least that game doesn’t usually end with my kid in tears of frustration at least once during the game because I saw a move they didn’t.

Plus I don’t have the patience for chess. I know how to play, I’m not horrible at it. but UGH strategy. Just takes way too many brain cells especially after work or after school or after wrestling my kid into doing homework and actually eating dinner. The problem is that I’m good enough to win (against an 8 year old).. but not good enough to let the kid win without them knowing that’s what I’m doing.

So instead I play chess with no strategy whatsoever. Which has the interesting result of kid sometimes winning, me sometimes winning, or sometimes neither of us winning.

It has the added bonus of usually making the game very short, because if you’re just moving the pieces around randomly it’s pretty easy to get stuck in checkmate and lose your king.

Chess is a great game; it’s challenging, it can be fun, it teaches you how to think several moves ahead.

But I’d really rather play at maybe once a year instead of four times a week.

*I’m Going on a Picnic a few nights ago included: aliens, Voldemort’s friend Edna (?!), a kid from Germany, and the people of the jury. I have no idea.