Well hello there, writers! How are you all doing out there? Oh, you’re struggling? Yeah, me too. At least, I’m struggling to write this post. You see, this is the first post I’ve written for DIY MFA since the pandemic started, and when it goes live, we’ll probably still be under some level of quarantine…. Read more »
Writing is hard. Not just in craft, but in practice. As writers, we must take great care of ourselves to produce our best work. While at first, the connection between our self-care and writing might not seem obvious, consider trying to show up to the page tired, hungry or aggravated with life. While conditions cannot… Read more »
In the last Be Well, Write Well post, I wrote about the perspective of having abundant time. Today, I’m going to show you that time is not only abundant in the macro sense, it can also feel abundant on the micro level—in the weeks, days and hours that make up the building blocks of our… Read more »
My grandmother recently passed away at 99 years old. When she was born, in 1919, the average life expectancy for a white American women (higher than that for males, or people of color) was 56 years old. As a child, the idea of a 99 year-old person, let alone her own ability to live to… Read more »
When you bring up difficult life experiences to share and teach the world through your writing, you need to take great care of yourself, first and foremost. In the Fall of 2014, I went to a workshop at a local writers house on writing memoir. I thought it would be a fun Saturday afternoon activity… Read more »
If the world is lacking anything, it certainly isn’t health advice. Consumers are constantly bombarded with tips for eating right and living an active lifestyle. As writers, we have some unique physical concerns to watch out for. Hours in front of the computer can strain eyes, fatigue wrists and hands, and wreak havoc on our… Read more »
There are many fringe benefits that come with being a writer. Coffee, for instance: no one ever judges a writer for refilling her coffee mug, or for possessing large quantities of pens and notebooks, or going on a book-buying spree for “research” purposes. But there’s one big negative that can affect our health, happiness and… Read more »
At the very thought of “medical books” or books about diseases and other health afflictions, we often think of probing, unemotional texts filled with technical verbiage and doctors studying sick humans as if they were machines with a few broken gears. And maybe some are like that. But there are also medical narratives that put medicine into… Read more »
