Sandhya Jain-Patel

“She said that sometimes she uses a formula when writing a short story, which goes ABDCE, for Action, Background, Development, Climax, and Ending. You begin with action that is compelling enough to draw us in, make us want to know more. Background is where you let us see and know who these people are, how they’ve come to be together, what was going on before the opening of the story. Then you develop these people, so that we learn what they care most about. The plot—the drama, the actions, the tension—will grow out of that. You move them along until everything comes together in the climax, after which things are different for the main characters, different in some real way. And then there is the ending: what is our sense of who these people are now, what are they left with, what happened, and what did it mean?”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“Mindfulness is the opposite of “losing” your temper. Don’t get me wrong—mindfulness doesn’t mean you don’t feel anger. Being mindful means that you pay attention to what you’re feeling, but don’t act on it. Anger is part of all relationships. Acting on it mindlessly, with words or actions, is what compromises our parenting.”
― Laura Markham, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting

“Hollywood, an industry that shapes not only our national but global memories, has been the most reactionary cultural perpetrator of white nostalgia, stuck in a time loop and refusing to acknowledge that America’s racial demographic has radically changed since 1965. Movies are cast as if the country were still “protected” by a white supremacist law that guarantees that the only Americans seen are carefully curated European descendants.”
― Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

“you don’t raise your voice? When kids are scared, they go into fight-or-flight. The learning centers of the brain shut down. Your child can’t learn when you yell. It’s always more effective to intervene calmly and compassionately. Besides, when you yell, you lose credibility with your child. Kids become less open to your influence.”
― Laura Markham, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting