Most of the time, I enjoy writing, and I especially enjoy getting boxes of new books! However, as with most writers, I do experience self-doubt, especially when I reach the middle of a manuscript. Is this working? Where is this plot going? Is my historical information interesting and accurate? TheContinue Reading
by Ellen Gillette I was watching a teaching video at church when I got the germ of the idea for my new children’s book, She-Bear in the Beautiful Garden. I don’t remember anything about the speaker or the video except that a reference was made to the Garden of Eden.Continue Reading
As someone with anxiety issues, dealing with imposter syndrome and anxiety have been the hardest part of being an author. It’s easy for me to get caught up worrying that whatever step of the process I’m in won’t work out. I would worry that I wouldn’t find an agent, thenContinue Reading
by Sandy Vaile After more than a decade of writing and teaching fiction, I have the luxury of looking back on my journey (thus far) to see where I could have done things differently to heighten enjoyment and expediate my arrival at the place I am now. And I’m goingContinue Reading
The biggest emotional challenge of being a writer for me? Shyness. I’m not sure if that qualifies as mild anxiety or self-doubt. In my mind at least, many people become book people because stories offer them something they can’t find in the real world. A lot of us are turnedContinue Reading
Novel writing is an emotional rollercoaster. It begins with feeling overwhelmed. There is nothing as intimidating as a blank page. Then there is the feeling of excitement when ideas begin to flow. Then you feel the satisfaction of creating a world from scratch. Then there’s frustration when you’re hit withContinue 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
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 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
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
I sincerely believe a lot of factors are involved [in emotional wellness]. Rejection hurts and nearly every author has been rejection at some point in their career. I don’t think I’ve ever really been depressed. After all, my friends call me Queen of Denial. I think I focus on theContinue Reading
[Photo caption: Author Jason Offutt and his wife Kimberly Offutt on a recent vacation at Rathbun Lake, Iowa. Yes, Iowa has lakes.] There are different levels of emotional stress that come with where a writer is in their career. Early on was rejection, until I learned that EVERY writer getsContinue Reading