Thanks, Brooke, for this wonderful post. I'm reading it just in time to include your suggestions in my New Year's resolutions. One of mine will be to purchase a few SWP authors' books and then review on Amazon and Goodreads. I noticed that some of the 2013 authors have very few reviews, and so will do my part to up those numbers.  Happy holidays to you!

Lovely reminder of the cyclical nature of give-and-take. Have it on my agenda to participate in a "free book friday' very soon.

Thanks again for this great piece Brooke!  It not only inspired Sunday's sermon, it was the basis for my recent Huffington Post blog.       Thanks for all you give and happy holidays!  Susan
Huffington Post blog.

Love this, so many good comments too, not much more for me to say except that I've had that simple phrase, be generous, in the back of my head for past few days since reading this. A good thought to keep.

Lovely, Sherrey. I've also witnessed your generosity recently since you went above and beyond with your review of my book, sharing with your online community. I so appreciated that. Happy holidays to you!

Toi, me too! I need a day a week to catch up on reading. :)

Brooke, exceptional post and timely. At this season of the year, gratitude and generosity seem to go hand-in-hand. My husband and I make contributions throughout our community but this isn't the kind of generosity I look to as "spending generosity." These are scheduled, planned for gifts. The kind of generosity you write about, in my mind, is the spontaneous reaching out of a hand to help another.

Recently, we have had a visitor in our church -- a lovely Southern born and bred woman of 78 years -- who moved from Valdosta, GA to Portland, OR to be near her daughter's family. Ethel is a lovely woman but so alone, so my husband Bob and I (remembering our own newness here in 1983) have stepped out and taken Ethel as our "community building project." We take her places with us -- small group gatherings, meals, etc. -- and we make sure to introduce her to friends at church and on the street when together. Sure, her daughter should be doing some of this but she is the mother of three young ones and a busy wife. And what does it hurt us to step out in love and gratitude for the person who showed us around Portland in 1983?

I must admit that I can always do better with twitter than I currently am, but I make a point to seek out other authors so I can help promote them. I interview and promote authors all the time and I’m getting better at posting reviews, I just wish I had time to read more books.

Thanks for weighing in, Nina. Always happy to see you here. :) I like the change in the meter thing. Once someone paid for my bridge toll for no reason. It was so awesome. But that was back before the days of the autotransponder thing. Now I feel like people don't do that for fear someone will have one of those and just go sailing through the toll. Some things about technology make being generous more complicated I guess.

I carry change in my pocket whenever I'm in a city, and put money in parking meters when they are about to run out. Unfortunately I think they are on to me since they've installed those new credit card machines. On a more serious note, I did a FB post promoting a book that an acquaintance was launching (Jessica Handler's Braving the Fire) which started a thread ending up with Jessica agreeing to contribute to my essay collection (which I hope to publish with She Writes). Nice karma. I also notice that women of a certain age, maybe those of us who were second wave feminists, are so much more gracious and generous and helpful to one another- not afraid of the "shout out" as you call it. Thanks for the post and the reminder to be mindful of those opportunities.

Thanks for sharing this, Cheryl. So different from what everyone else has shared, and a reminder of all the many ways we can be generous.

I have lived in New York City for 10 years. When I notice people on the street with a lost look, I stop and ask them if they are lost. Most of the time they are lost and ask me for directions. It seems to me that it is better to get good directions than wander aimlessly  and vulnerable on the streets of New York City. If I am on the subway, I give out subway maps (one of the two I usually carry on me) to tourists who struggle with the tiny maps in the travel guides.

Kathleen, I look forward to reading it, and be in touch any time at brooke [at] shewritespress [dot] com. Looking forward to seeing the piece.

Great insights, Vivienne. And Nancy and Jennifer, thank you for your comments!

A writer posed a question regarding my latest blog post. Last week I wrote a blog titled "What is the greatest tragedy in life" about how we should live with meaning and purpose rather than mechanically or even destructively. The writer's question had to do with self-sacrifice and helping others who are less fortunate than ourselves. I found a wonderful quote, and wrote a blog post titled: "If you light a lamp for another, your own way will be lit."

Brooke - Definitely, let's pow-wow.  I'm doing research right now for an essay on libraries in the age of ebooks and will post a notice here when it's done and readable.

I've mentioned my friend and author Stephanie Bennett Vogt, author of "Your Spacious Self" in several of my bi-weekly blogs, and have co-created & co-facilitated workshops with her. She has been so generous with her vastly larger email lists, both around our workshops, and most recently, a shout-out sent out on the occasion of my publishing "Tilting Toward Chaos", my first Kindle e-book. On the day of her shout-out I sold 1/3 of the total sold on Amazon in the last three months. I'm grateful to have Stephanie as an inspiration and friend, and thank you Brooke for this blog, and your own generosity...it has touched me in countless ways over the years. 

@Susan, what a wonderful idea. I visited your website just now and loved it. Do you know Marci Alboher? She's a dear friend and wrote a wonderful book called One Person Multiple Careers. I wonder if you are featured in it! 

Kathleen, hear hear. this is so important. good work and I'm super interested in this topic!! We should pow-wow.

Susan, amazing. Wish I could hear a recording.

And Kamy, thank you! :)

Love this post Brooke, of course. And it is generous of you to quote me on the subject of generosity, when you could write a book on it! I am always struck, whenever we do things and go places together, by how many people feel indebted to you, in the best way, for your guidance and your generous sharing of knowledge and advice.

Thank you for this great post and wonderful conversation. It is going to be the center point of my sermon Sunday.  :)  Title:  "Generosity is the New Currency" Thank you again!

Such timing for your post!  I had just turned on my computer to engage in an act of double generosity, thus:

I'm acutely aware lately of the plight of libraries - how the ebook revolution comes at a time when library circulation numbers are falling.  I also notice that very few indie authors are represented on library shelves.  I got a notice today via M Louisa Locke's emailing list that paperback copies of her trilogy are (today only) on special via Amazon for "Reading Tuesday", so I ordered the set to donate to my community library for Christmas.  I'm hoping this does both the author and the library some good, and that it helps all indie authors make inroads with librarians, who sometimes need a little coaxing to venture into indie material.

This is a great post Brooke and I'd like to thank YOU for your generosity in thoughtfully answering my emails as I seek a publisher for my book. As for me, when my son was severely debilitated by obsessive-compulsive disorder I vowed that if he ever recovered I would do whatever I could to give others what I so desperately needed (and didn't have) at that time: HOPE. I have done that and my blog of three years now receives over 11,000 hits monthly .Even better than that are the personal emails I receive (typically a few a week) asking my advice and thanking me for my blog. I have also connected with many readers over the phone, and now even consider many of them my good friends. I honestly think that's what life is all about.....making connections and helping others. Really, we're all in this together! Thanks for the reminder!

I think people like to be cued as to how they can be helpful, since often they would like to be helpful but really just don't know how.  Being very specific in your ask is important.  I am almost always willing to do things friends ask me to do, but I want them to have vetted the process so it works.  A pet peeve of mine is organizations that ask you to vote for them, or whatever, and that takes you to a website where it is completely unclear how to proceed.  So make it easy for people to be generous by asking for something they can actually do.  Like a review!

PART TWO: Some of us need editors to catch the typos... Paragraph 2--line 2 is a good illustration of that. <g>

Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com, is about empowering writers. It's 16 years old, so it was here before blogs and social media. I do what I can to review books, interview authors, and publish book and website reviews by others. I share contest info and announce writer victories. I pay contributors with resume credits and of course I pay our contest winners cash. 

So I try to give back to the writing world, but sometimes, I also give to those who need a little help... like a seventy-something nana-to-many, and a member or the church my husby pastors. I gave her a ride home Sunday. We were talking outside her tiny Section 8 home and I asked if she needed a little money. She said she could use $20. I gave her double that, and when she pointed it out I told her that I was an imperfect counter. 

I want to be good to those who are good to me. Everyone has great stories to share. 

www.writeradvice.com