Bethany Henry: Writing & Wellness

Strong emotions (especially negative emotions such as grief, failure, and shame) can be uncomfortable. As humans we try to temper and shy away from some of these messier emotions and the undignified moments of life. It shouldn’t surprise us that as writers we sometimes do the same thing. Now, for the record, it’s not necessarily healthy to be stifling our emotions throughout our lives so if you find yourself doing that, maybe give it some thought on how to process emotion in healthy ways and practice self care along the way. But today we’re focusing on emotions in our writing! Because we don’t want to be stifling the emotions there, either. Making Our Writing Emotional It’s automatic for us to avoid strong emotions in our writing. Sometimes we aren’t even doing it intentionally, we just hold back as an ingrained method of self-protection when handling potentially painful topics. We keep our protagonist from complete and utter heartbreak. We protect their ego. We make sure they don’t *q...

There are more mythical reptiles than just dragons! Learning about lesser-known creatures can inspire our stories, broaden our horizons, and just be super cool and interesting. Today we’re looking at eight different kinds of mythical reptilian and amphibian creatures that may be often overlooked. Writing prompts are included just for added fun and to get the creative sparks flying! 🙂 Note: As with most myths and folklore, the information about these creatures is varied and hard to pin down. Most of what I’ve gathered and condensed here is information from  Wikipedia ,  MythOrTruth.com ,  Ancient Origins , and  Brittanica.com .  Beyond my notes, I’d encourage you to research further! There is a wealth of material to be found. Basalisk Also called Cockatrice. The Basalisk is a serpent which, while small, is known for being extremely deadly with the ability to kill all plants and animals with simply its gaze or breath. The weasel is known to be its weakness and is...