Bethany Henry: Writing & Wellness

It’s time to get the creative juices flowing with some writing prompts!  Whether you’re looking to brainstorm a new project, you need a break from your current writing, or you’re just looking for an excuse to have some fun, you’ve come to the right place. 🙂 A writing prompt can be anything that gives us a starting place for our writing. It can be a story premise, a character sketch, a dialog snippet, or pretty much anything. Writing prompts can be useful for helping us to think about the world in new ways, to ask questions, and to be creative. They are great for helping us move past lulls in our writing, overcoming writer’s block, or for breathing new energy into our projects. Plus writing prompts can be lots of fun! I enjoy the possibilities and new ideas raised by writing prompts. I have to stop myself sometimes from getting too carried away otherwise I’d have a hundred one page stories and nothing getting actually finished O:-) While it’s good to keep myself from...

People may argue over whether “writer’s block” is a real thing, but there is no denying that writing can be hard work. While being a writer is often glamorized, glorified, and sought after, writing can also be a challenging, messy, and downright miserable business. As Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith is  credited with saying , “You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.” That sounds… pleasant.  While we are (hopefully!) not *actually* bleeding, writing can be challenging emotionally, mentally, and physically. We  don’t get enough sleep because we’re spending our time writing, only to realize a sub-plot doesn’t make sense. Maybe one of our characters needs to be cut. Or suddenly we find out that our protagonist is a jerk and something needs to be done about that. It can be tempting to hit delete, shove the papers in the trash, and do something else. Find something easier. Forget about this whole “writing a book” thing. Hang in there, my friend! You’re n...

Steps to Success is a series walking us through the process of writing a novel from beginning to end. As always, personal preferences and experiences differ. This guide is based in part on my own experiences as well as from authors I have worked with and/or learned from along the way. Today we’re talking about outlining and I can already hear the protests: “Do I really need to outline?” “Outlining is something I did in 5th grade assignments- aren’t I past that by now?” “It feels like homework/busywork.” “I know plenty of writers who don’t outline.” I hear you. And… you’re correct! There  are  successful writers who don’t outline. We don’t need an outline in order to write.  But most of us need an outline if we want to write  quickly and well. For us busy writers, quickly and well is our favorite combo 🙂 Basically   an outline is a plan for your writing . An outline can take many forms and I’m not here to be legalistic about it or insist your outline needs ...