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The Single Best Writing Advice (Too Bad I Don’t Always Follow It)
When I compare myself to other writers, it doesn’t do me a bit of good. I either pick up some frothy bonnet romance and throw it across the room, puffing myself up with thoughts of superiority.
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Journaling: How The Daily Practice of Writing Makes a Difference
My daily habit of writing became a practice that made me more sensitive to my circumstances and surroundings. I think that I am more empathetic and develop better characters because I wrote so much when I was younger.
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10 Ways To Beat Procrastination
The last Happy New Year balloon has been popped. You actually remember that it’s 2020 when you write the date. And you know it’s a new year when those new habits you wanted to pick up back on January 1 are as crumpled as the Happy New Year napkin that got kicked under the entertainment center. And maybe, the ugly truth of this is that you wanted to start that writing habit, but you put it off for some reason. Then the next day it was all the harder to begin. Then the next day, it’s less about starting habits than it is about shame-managing. Let’s just stop it right…
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10 Ways To Care For Yourself When You Don’t Feel Like It
Now I have a lot of reasons (including that I’m tired and strung up on Benadryl) that I would make poor choices when I am sick. How much better it would have been for me and my family had I cared for myself a little better!
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How To Control Your Emotions To Make 2020 The Best Ever!
As you edge into 2020, consider how you make your decisions. Do you make them based only on your emotions? Do you often find excuses? Do you allow your "tiredness" to keep you from following your dreams?
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When You Fear What Others Think
This blog post is hardly a cure-all (in fact, if anxiety is ruling your life, please see a mental health professional). But it will give some suggestions on how to weaken the fear of others’ approval.
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Return to the Page: Coming Back to Your Writing After a Break
OK, so you took some time away from your writing practice or your work-in-progress. Somehow, while you were gone, your work became this really huge challenging thing. Now, you feel weird and intimidated about starting again. I know how that feels! It has happened many times in my regular writing life but today it was happening to me about this blog post. Luckily, I not only worked myself out of the weirdness but I also documented my process so I can do it again. And, I offer it to you as an example of how to write yourself out of the same annoying situation. Here’s what I did, step by…
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5 Ways To Boost Your Writing Morale
Since writing can be solitary and there is often a long time between the work and the reward, it can be easy to get discouraged about the process. Here are 5 tips to help you recharge when you are a bit burnt out from your efforts. 1) Use the word YET Too often we get stuck in the idea that we will NEVER accomplish things but it can be helpful to reframe it to ‘I haven’t done it YET’ – I use this for TKD all the time. I try not to say ‘I can’t’ I spin that into ‘I can’t YET.’ because it keeps the door open for future…
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You Don’t Need Permission To Write
…but I’ll give you some anyway. The writing world is alive with the ‘rules’ of writing. Everyone and their uncle has something to say about what you should write, when you should write it, how you should write it, and why you should write it. Naturally, a lot of that advice is contradictory. After all, while we can all expand our practice and our skills, we each have to make our own way to the page. We each have our own interests, our own reasons for writing, and our own hopes for what will become of our words. But a lot of us get tangled in all of the writing…
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Be Your Own Valentine: 5 Writerly Gifts To Give Yourself Today
Even though Valentine’s Day is already here, it’s not too late to give your writerly-self. I’m sure a lot of us dream of the perfect writing lifestyle, a delightful haven in which everything contributes to our ability to surrender to our muse. Most of us, however, lead the kinds of lives where writing needs to be crammed in among a host of other things. That means that instead of giving ourselves gold pens, or exclusive writing retreats, our writerly-selves probably need more intangible but practical things – changes in attitude or approach- that would make our writing lives easier. Here are 5 of our suggestions. What would you add? Give…
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How to Become a REAL writer. (Spoiler: You already are.)
by Christine Hennebury If I could get paid everytime someone tells me that they must not be a ‘real’ writer, I could retire. The truth is that there are many ways to be a real writer. There are, however, no definitive tests for writerliness. We all write in our own fashion, and at our speed, to get to where we are going with our writing. As long as we are realistic about matching our expectations to our efforts, we will do just fine. However, the myth of the ‘real writer’ persists. You know the one I mean, right? The ‘real’ writer is the one who works…
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Celebrate Writing: An Inventory of the Good Stuff
by Christine Hennebury A lot of my columns here on 10MN have been about ways you can tweak or improve your writing experience to make it a little easier on yourself. Today, I would like you to take a moment to celebrate the things that are already good about your writing experiences. You might even want to grab a notebook so you can make a chart or a list or a drawing so you can come back to it when you feel a bit cranky about your writing. Let’s start in a really general way. 1) What draws you to write? Many writers talk about a compulsion to…
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Writing for Relief: Exercises For Emotional Health
by Victoria Miller and Christine Hennebury We don’t think that the writerly brain has more mental health issues than any other time of brain. However, combining a writerly imagination with writerly habits like spending a lot of time alone and a lot of time in our own heads can create a breeding ground for some negative and self-defeating thoughts and behaviors. If those thoughts are recurring or if they regularly disrupt your life, please seek some professional help. You do NOT have to endure those thoughts alone. If, however, those thoughts just pop up from time to time, you may want to use your writing skills to help you manage…
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Flicking the Switch: Activate Writer Mode!
by Christine Hennebury Thanks to Katharine’s terrific example, we all know that 10 minutes a day is enough to keep your creative life chirping along. But do you find it a challenge to make good use of that short period of time? Do you find it hard to stop your regular life and activate your writer mode? When my kids were small, I really struggled with that transition. I had lots of ideas but even when I had *time* to write, I couldn’t get much on the page. And now, even though my kids are teenagers, I still sometimes have trouble switching into writing mode. I know that Katharine has…
