A few months back, my friend Sarah Jessica (no, not that one, though my friend Sarah Jessica should have her own TV show, too) shared a Facebook post from a faraway police department that in and of itself should have zero practical interest for me.

But the post was so entertaining – droll, sarcastic, clever, sincere – that I immediately “liked” the Bangor PD page so I could read more. Its posts, written by Sergeant Tim Cotton, have become one of my favorite social media reading pleasures.

What’s so great about it?

It’s unexpected.

It’s well-written.

It’s real and human and conversational (all of the qualities I stand on my writer/editor soapbox and plead for so often).

And Sgt. Cotton’s excellent posts have plenty of variety, too. The weekly “Got Warrants?” feature, in which he hilariously recounts the most entertaining incidents that the Bangor PD has dealt with during the previous week, seems to be the fan favorite. His Duck of Justice posts have inspired fans from around the world (truly) to stop by the Bangor PD to say hello and get their picture taken with the "DOJ," which is the department’s mascot.

*Screenshot from the Bangor PD Facebook page*

You can read more about Sgt. Cotton in this great piece by Kara Sassone for Link: the Journal of Higher Education Web Professionals. Sassone explains the Duck of Justice:

The taxidermied duck that had been in the county’s District Attorney’s office was destined for the trash when Cotton salvaged him and started introducing new officers with interviews with the DOJ. Over time, the DOJ has become a permanent fixture on the Facebook page and in the station. Cotton expanded the pictures from just new officers to special visitors, and now people from all over the world come into the station to have their picture taken with the duck.

(The article features a photo of Sassone and her family posing with the DOJ.)

Heart, soul and humor

I could pull many examples to show you why I’m a fan of Sgt. Cotton’s posts, but here are two that show his impressive range as a writer.

First, a tribute to a hero named Bernie:

Saturday shout out to Bernard Skarda from all of us at the Bangor Police Department and the fine folks at the Bangor City Hall.

Bernie is an employee of River City Cleaning Service but has been assigned to our city hall for the past 19 years.

Bernie was just doing his job last week when he discovered someone in medical distress in one of the restrooms. It was after hours and with most of the building inaccessible at that time, Bernie summoned help and aided the individual until help arrived.

Bernie made it possible for Officer David Farrar to get inside and render medical aid until the paramedics from the finest fire department in Maine showed up to get the individual out and to the hospital.

It is not lost on us that the person could have lost their life if it were not for Bernie's quick action.

I say it all the time, but it bears repeating, take an opportunity to notice the people that take care of our facilities and do the tough jobs all around you. The importance of a person should not be determined by the floor they work on or that they have their own parking space.

Instead of spending our time trying to impress the bigwigs, maybe we should take a moment to notice the people that get it done. Bernie is one of those people. He also wears a cowboy hat.

That is awesome.

Officer Farrar presented a Bangor Police Department challenge coin to Bernie this week. It is merely a token of how we feel about what he did.

We think it will be a good weekend at Bernie’s.

Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people's things alone and be kind to one another.

Take time to notice everyone's contribution to your life.

We will be here.

Got warrants?

Here’s a recent example of the popular weekly feature that made me laugh:

Officer Zach Carey (former boy band member) asked me to help identify this young lady. She was "partially" shopping at Walmart on the 17th and missed one step in the process, stopping at the register to pay for the selected beauty products.

Officer Carey requests that you send him an email if you know the lady or can direct him to someone that does know the woman.

… Officer Carey is new here and needs to solve just three more cases to get the BPD-blender/toaster combo for his kitchenette.

The post also features surveillance camera footage of the young lady who “partially shopped.”

I highly recommend that you visit the page itself and scroll through past posts, especially if you're in dire need of a dose of humor and humanity. As noted above, I am far from the first person to discover and write about the Bangor, Maine, Facebook page, so you can read more at the links below:

How the Bangor Maine Police Department Changed the Rules for Facebook

Meet the officer behind the Bangor Maine Police Department’s viral Facebook page

Meanwhile, think about Sgt. Cotton and his masterful command of storytelling the next time you’re getting ready to post to your accounts. The bar has been set high.

Carla Atkinson writes blogs and social media posts for clients as part of her writing and editing work. (Need help with yours? Get in touch.)

After 30-plus years working as a writer and editor, I recently decided to add 'coach' to my titles.

A few years back, I started writing kids’ fiction and other creative projects on the side, which was a big leap after mostly writing about fairly serious and/or technical topics at work.

But making time for these personal projects turned out to be challenging; when faced with “real” work, family responsibilities and day-to-day minutiae, guess what always ended up at the bottom of the to-do list?

Getting past it

I know I’m not the only one out there who struggles with this. You have a project that you’re excited about – a book, a piece of music, an art project, etc. – but you can’t ever seem to make yourself set the time aside to work on it.

So what might help you get past that hesitation and actually do the work? Depending on your wiring, getting an outside push from someone on a regular basis may work really well.

That’s what virtual “habit” coaches do — and what I've signed up to do for others who want to keep their creative and/or personal projects moving forward.

Proof point

I decided to coach people on creative habits because coaching worked for me.

I had been trying to change my unhealthy carb-loving eating habits for several years, but I had a lot of stressful things going on, and I never made any progress. (If you left it up to me, I would happily restrict my diet to bread of every variety, pizza, pasta, sandwiches and french fries ... oh, and pie and ice cream. No salad, no vegetables.)

After reading Better than Before, a book on the connection between personality and habit change by author Gretchen Rubin, I filed myself into Rubin’s “obliger” category – meaning that I am great at responding to commitments to others (work deadlines or volunteer commitments, for instance), but not great at meeting personal goals.

The Rubin book, as well as podcasts by author and master experimenter Tim Ferriss, convinced me that it was worth doing my own experiment: Getting some "outer accountability" for the habit I was trying to change.

(Outer accountability could be described as a fancy way of saying "someone/something to nudge or nicely nag you.”)

So last March, I signed up with a wonderful online coach, Dorothy Stainbrook, on the website Coach.me.

It worked. And it worked at a time when I could easily have justified comfort food; my sister had cancer and was near the end of her life. I was leading her village of helpers, doing my single working parent thing and trying to keep my teenager's life as normal as possible.

Miraculously, that coaching relationship helped me at last feel in control of one area of my life at a time when very little else was under control.

There was a certain comfort in having my coach check in with me, review what I was eating every day (via an app) and give me tips and recipes. As a result of Dorothy's coaching and a great blueprint (the Slow-Carb approach), I changed my eating habits drastically.

And there has been another healthy bonus: Losing weight. That wasn't my focus/goal, but you'd be amazed how much you lose when you stop eating mostly bad or nutritionally worthless carbs.

A PERSONAL TRAINER FOR THE MIND?

When I was considering working with a coach, I questioned whether this was a legitimate expense for me. I'm used to paying for other services, but this was new territory. In the end, I decided it was similar to getting a gym membership – if it would help me get over this hurdle at last and end up with healthier habits, it seemed well worth the fee to get daily encouragement and check-ins from my coach. (The fact that I could cancel any time also made it a lot easier for me, the skeptic, to finally make the decision to give it a go.)

Now that I know the end of the story, I can say it was definitely worth the money ($15 a week). Making this change had been on my New Year's Resolutions and Big Life "to do" lists for years; the fact that I finally made it happen was a shot in the arm.

If that outer nudging could help me conquer eating habits, who knew what other goals coaching might help with?

Coaching for creative PARALYSIS

My success with coaching was so surprising and striking to me that it seemed clear that I could apply my perspective as a writer/editor and my experience with Coach.me to help fellow writers/creative people in the same way – providing accountability and encouragement to finish those projects that get stuck in limbo.

This limbo is something I understand all too well; I can get very excited about an idea but find myself paralyzed when the time comes to getting it out of my head and onto the page; same goes for revising the work that I've managed to draft.

Some of you may have critique or writing groups that help keep you honest about your goals, and if so, that's great.

But if you are doing this on your own and have a project you want very badly to finish (or if you just want to establish a habit), I can encourage you and keep you on track.

Worth it?

Whether it's worth it to pay for encouragement and accountability on your creative projects is something that only you can decide. When I think of past projects that were sidetracked by my paralysis, it makes me wish online coaching had been on my radar earlier; finishing those projects would have been worth the cost of a few weeks of coaching to me.

Maybe you, too, will find that it's worth it to have someone in the picture who is regularly reminding you that you have permission to work on these projects (I believe we often need this permission from ourselves even more than from the people in our lives) and giving you encouragement and nudging to carve out time for your writing.

Interested in experimenting with coaching? Visit my page on Coach.me.

Regardless, good luck with your writing or other personal creative work – however you manage to make it happen, it will be worth it in the end.

~ Carla Atkinson