It’s been a rough couple of weeks in our household. We were out of power off and on for five days during the “Ice Storm of 2025”, the Montreal Canadiens lost a few critical games in their bid for a wild card spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and I was struggling with some of my writing projects.

A bit of backstory. I’ve been taking a writing course through the Seniors Association of Kingston on refining and editing your work. The instructor brought in a bunch of “how to” books and I borrowed one called “The Essential Guide to Writing a Novel” by James Thayer. It had some great insights and tips, but I discovered to my horror that I’ve made every rookie mistake a wannabe author makes when writing their first novel and that publishers look for before tossing the manuscript in the “no” pile.

As I tried to apply the learnings from the book—include backstory, but not too much or too soon; describe your characters, don’t describe your characters, let the dialogue show who they are–I became more and more confused and started second guessing everything I wrote. Every word I put down on the page sounded like crap and I found it very humbling and demoralizing.

I put my laptop away and turned on the TV. It was April 1^st, April Fool’s Day and the Montreal Canadiens were playing the Florida Panthers one of the best teams in the league. The Canadiens were down 2-1 and Dave, whose nickname in our household is “Worst Habs Fan Ever” was about to say, “Turn it off, I can’t watch them lose again” when Nick Suzuki tied it with nine seconds left in the third period, sending the game into overtime. 29 seconds into overtime, Suzuki scored again with a class wraparound play to win the game 3-2.

Now I’ve been a hockey fan all my life and I never, EVER give up on my team until the buzzer goes (and just for the record, I cheer for the Leafs, Habs and Sens or any one of the Canadian teams once the playoffs start). I have always believed “it’s not over until the fat lady sings*”. The Canadiens proved that night you just need to have faith.

Later that week, I was back on the couch watching an interview on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon with Elton John and Brandi Carlisle who have just released a new album called Who Believes in Angels. They went into the recording studio without a single song written in advance with the goal of writing the entire album in 20 days. The first few days of recording were a disaster and Elton said he experienced moments of serious self-doubt. When Fallon expressed surprise that someone like him Elton John, could experience self-doubt, Elton replied, “You’re not a creative artist if you don’t doubt yourself”.

So I’ve decided I am going to embrace my self-doubt about my writing and see it as part of the creative process. I will continue to have faith in myself and keep writing.

This week’s #HappyAct is to never lose faith: in your team, in others, and most importantly, in yourself.

Ed note: The famous idiom, “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings” can be traced back to different sources, including when the lead soprano would sing in operas, but became a common saying in sports and hockey when Kate Smith would sing God Bless America at Philidelphia Flyers games in the 1970s. Go Habs/Leafs/Sens go!