Bethany Henry: Writing & Wellness

Sometimes we need to throw away our plans and forget our goals in order to dream. That hurt a bit even to write because I’m such a compulsive goal setter. I love having checklists and then crossing things off when I’m done. (Anyone else out there with me??) After all, goals are great! Goals are important! They tell us where we want to go and give us a plan on how to get there. I like how they help us break problems down into manageable pieces and give us deadlines to keep us from procrastinating.  Studies have shown  how having goals helps to increase productivity. My perfectionist nature does well with having orderly lists that tell me what to do next. But sometimes life isn’t orderly. And while goals can be enormously helpful, they can also have a dangerous side. 1. When we’re focused on our pre-made plans we can overlook exciting new possibilities and opportunities. It can be incredibly useful to have tunnel vision in regards to our plans at times.  I just need to...

There are a lot of good, great, and fabulous things we could be doing and sometimes it’s hard to decide just where to invest our time. We could be playing frisbee! Learning French! Cuddling puppies! Volunteering! Making new friends! It can be a slippery slope between being engaged and being exhausted. It’s tricky to know what’s best especially when all the options can look so good. And it’s hard to know when to say “enough” when it’s tempting to try to do it all. The “Fear Of Missing Out” has become such a thing these days that it’s become its own word and included in the Oxford Dictionary:  FOMO .  We don’t want to miss any of the fun, we’re anxious others may be doing cooler things than we are, and we certainly don’t want to be sitting at home alone doing nothing. So we sign up for everything, triple book every weekend, and rarely dark en the doors of our own homes. Sound familiar? I feel tired just thinking about it. Sometimes we don’t even want to be signing up for all of ...

Writers need encouragement. Creating stories, revising endlessly, balancing projects- writing can be a lot of work! And for most of us our writing is a side job, our personal time, a fun hobby in addition to life’s general craziness. Writing can be exhausting, discouraging, and sometimes thankless work where we’re not sure if what we’re creating will ever be good enough or if we’re just throwing words away. Sound familiar? Sometimes I feel worn out and I know I’m not the only one. Writing is hard. Encouragement can be scarce. But you know what? We’re all about encouragement here. And I think you’re amazing. I think you’re bold and brave to be committing yourself to your writing. You’re fabulously creative to be brainstorming characters and stories and entire worlds. Regardless of the status of your work, you are a beautiful and admirable human. Got a minute? Let me tell you more 🙂 I Admire Your Courage Writing is not for the faint of heart. You may not feel brave every mornin...

There’s something so exciting about writing a first draft. New things being created, new words being put down on the page, new character developments and ideas. In short, everything is new 🙂 That’s not to say the first draft isn’t without its own set of problems and trials! A huge amount of first drafts get abandoned before being finished. So today we’re looking at ways we can set ourselves up well to write (and complete!) our first drafts. This post is Part 4 of the Steps to Success series designed to walk 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. After moving through steps 1-3 we should have a decent concept of what story we want to write along with a rough outline of where we’re going. Feel free to revisit or linger on any of these steps as needed. There is no “right” way to do ...