Bethany Henry: Writing & Wellness

There is a limited variety of mythical creatures in our stories these days. Ever find yourself reading fantasy stories about dragons and wonder what other fantastical beasts could be out there? Not that there’s anything wrong with dragons- there’s a reason they’ve become the poster child for fantasy creatures. They are fascinating, dangerous, and magical. But there’s a whole fantasy world out there filled with monsters and beasts and creepy crawlies! Dragons are just the tip of the mythical creature iceberg and we’re missing out if we don’t look further. Every culture throughout the world has their own stories, creatures, and magics. There are creatures that send nightmares, aggressive unicorns, mind reading monkeys, and magical umbrellas. (Really! Look it up 🙂 ) Today we’ll look at 7 lesser-known mythical creatures. These creatures are each interesting in their own right and can inspire our writing, whether we include them outright in our stories or not. Following each mythical creat...

As writers, we want to have writing habits that consistently produce results. We want all our days to be good days. (I mean, who wouldn’t??) However, life rarely is quite that orderly. Much like the changing weather here in New England, our lives are constantly changing. We have seasons  of our lives that are marked with different patterns, emotions, and rhythms. There are new jobs, small children, big moves, and/or classes and schooling. We have times of happiness and we have times of grief. Rest and then busyness. As  Heraclitus  is credited with saying, “The only thing constant is change.”  We can expect these changes to come.  Change in our lives doesn’t need to be scary nor does it need to derail our writing. Instead of being caught off guard, we can adapt our writing habits to the new rhythms in our lives. We can have grace for ourselves and for our writing in the midst of these changes.  This will help us find ways to write well and live well whereve...

  Starting is hard There’s something magical about a new notebook with its blank pages full of possibility- but there’s something terrifying about it as well. Where to begin? Are we really ready to start writing? What if we mess it up? When we have a new project to start it can be an exciting time but it can also be overwhelming. We’re too busy, we’re not sure if we’re ready to begin, and now that we’re thinking about it we’re not sure if this was a good idea in the first place. Maybe it’s not completely thought through yet. Suddenly we have a million other things to do. Our writing sits untouched despite our good intentions. We Have A Fear of Starting The resistance we have to moving forward with our writing can often be traced back to fear. We all have things we’re afraid of and avoid. These fears take many forms and can sometimes be pretty deeply rooted in our lives. Acknowledging and identifying our fears is an important step in overcoming and working through them. Fear of fail...

Revising our writing can get a bad rap sometimes. After all, revisions are a lot of work! They can be confusing, hard, and none of us like to hear our work isn’t wonderful just the way it is. It would be nice if we could all write perfect stories the first time around. Unfortunately that’s not really how it works. As  Hemingway  said: “The only kind of writing is rewriting.” Clearly this whole rewriting thing is kinda important! It is a vital part of the writing process. While sometimes we have this idea that “writing” is all about the first time we put words on a page, instead the majority of the work happens later on through revisions. Revisions are where we cut out the boring scenes, describe the vague bits, and tie everything together. This process is crucial for honing our work and bringing it from good to great. (Or even from terrible to great if your first drafts look anything like mine 😉 ) This isn’t always an easy process! Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by revisions becau...