by Pauline Wiles It’s an ideal time of year to freshen up both your writing habits, and how you show your work to the world. Your website is no exception: as the cornerstone of your writer marketing, it’s not something you want to neglect. Assuming you would rather spend yourContinue Reading
What is your process when writing a blog post? If you’re like many of the writers who submit potential posts to Writing and Wellness, it may not be much different from the process you use when writing an article or story. And that’s a mistake. Because a blog post isContinue Reading
by Karan Mahindru If you’re a writer working from home—or if you spend several hours each day writing— your health may be paying the price. Here are seven simple tips to help make sure that isn’t the case. 1. Stand Up and Stretch Every 30 Minutes Or So Sitting forContinue Reading
No doubt you’ve developed some writing habits by now, but are they the best writing habits you can have? After writing professionally for over 20 years with five (and soon six—check it out) published books behind me, I’ve developed some writing habits that have served me well. I’m happy toContinue Reading
A retirement dream job, a yearning to write; a bookstore and a well-known Canadian author, all entered my life with magical serendipity. I was sixty-seven, with forty-three pages of a memoir awaiting page forty-four. I Wanted to Hold Onto the Stories I began a memoir seven months after my husband,Continue Reading
This year, I’d like to help you reach your writing goals. I know it’s not easy. See if this sounds familiar: You set a writing goal, go after it with lots of energy, then when life interferes (as it always does), you get sidetracked. Soon you’re making only sporadic (ifContinue Reading
Welcome to the Writing and Wellness annual quote round-up! Below you’ll find the best quotes from the authors featured on the site this year. This is the seventh time I’ve put these together. They’ve all been popular posts and I love how they capture certain overarching themes in the writingContinue Reading
How can anyone—a bureaucrat, a librarian, a gardener, a writer—be both so undisciplined and so anal? Contradiction is, I suppose, a necessary element in writing fiction. It can lead to tension in the plot, conflict among the characters, doubts and fears in the protagonist. Probably not so helpful when theContinue Reading
As we come to the end of the year, I’m reflecting on the writing advice I’ve received. I’m so grateful to those mentors, editors, and writers who have helped me along the way. Where would we writers be without people like that? 1. There is no “right way” to write—soContinue Reading
As is so common with writers, there were years and years of work with barely any acknowledgment, interspersed with plenty of self-doubt. Writing is such a lonely pursuit, which is why when you finally get writers together at a conference, we are all practically panting with excitement to be aroundContinue Reading
What’s the best investment you can make in your book? My mom—a big reader—just finished reading a self-published book by an author she had read before. The first book she enjoyed. The second one, however, was frustrating for her. Because it was filled with errors. Was the author aware ofContinue Reading
by Andrea Johnson I wish I had an inspirational story about how I chose to write cozy mysteries. But really, mysteries chose me. I originally started writing romance then quickly got this innovative idea about a series that was part cozy, part legal thriller where the trial stenographer rather thanContinue Reading