Health benefits

Pen and Tonic is a community organisation that promotes the health benefits of creative, expressive and free flow writing. They help people to find their voice, reduce their stress levels and build confidence. Bridget Shea from Pen and Tonic says:

Our mission is to spread the word on the positive impact writing for health has on mental and physical well being.

The Crafty Writer asked Bridget to explain a bit more about the concept of writing for health:

“For many people the word ‘writing’ is loaded with connotations.  Some people believe it’s an inborn talent, Pen and Tonic believes it can be learned. 

Love what you do

Writing expressively challenges the perceptions that writing is only for clever people. Using techniques and triggers enables people, however limited their literacy skills or creative writing experience to produce writing of integrity and uniqueness of voice.   So whatever our experience we can grow to love it and if you love something you’ll put everything you have into it and excel at it.

Reducing stress

Some of us find it difficult to verbalise our problems but writing about them can help reduce anxiety and depression. Put simply: it makes us feel better. The experience of writing for health can help us gain insight; by stepping back and observing our problems.

Creating a piece of writing such as a poem from seemingly chaotic or insurmountable problems is deeply satisfying.  Using metaphor helps us to visualize our own inner strengths and create coping mechanisms.  We’re also creating a piece of art; something outside of ourselves that speaks to others; something in which we can take pride.

When ‘writing’ is a turn-off

People are often referred to Pen and Tonic’s workshops through health and social care providers. They are frequently more than a little reluctant to attend an activity with ‘writing’ in its description.  Some initially attend ‘to get out of the house’ or ‘because there’s a ‘crèche’.  Sometimes only two or three participants will turn up to the first session.  Once they experience for themselves the benefits of writing, not only do they come back but they start spreading the word. By session three, numbers have invariably trebled or quadrupled. ”

Pen and Tonic’s writing for health workshops provide opportunities for everyone, whatever their experience, to access the therapeutic potential of creative writing. So if you or someone else you know might benefit from a Writing for Health workshop, check out the Pen and Tonic website for more details. The January workshops are based in Newcastle upon Tyne. The closing date for enrolment is 30 December 2009.

Related posts:

1. A health writer coughs up
2. Cape Town workshops – Hout Bay!
3. Cape Town Workshops filling up

Here’s a small sample of what’s currently on offer around the net:

• The Arvon Foundation offer intensive residential courses led by tutors across a host of writing disciplines.
• The French House Experience provide a variety of ‘arty’ pursuits, including writing, packaged as part of a luxurious pampering experience.
• Want something a bit quieter? Try a Limnisa retreat in Greece.
• Beyond Boundaries Travel help you to combine your writing holiday with a tour of a beautiful part of the world.
• If you want something more group-focused, Absorbing Writing offer a ten-person getaway in Sardinia.
• For some, good food is an essential part of the creative process – as it is for Write in Languedoc.

Have you been on one of these, or any others? Please share the good, bad and ugly of your experiences with the rest of us.

No related posts.

• running a 5-week course on travel writing plus be giving talks on non-fiction writing style at the North East Centre for Lifelong Learning. This is part of the centre’s Explore Membership scheme. You pay an annual membership fee and can enjoy as many courses, workshops and one-off lectures as you like on a variety of subjects from family history to glass sculpture! Other writing courses include children’s writing and general creative writing.  Contact the centre through the website to enrol.
• running a 10-week introduction to creative writing course at Crisis Skylight Trust. This is a charity geared towards helping people in crisis. The course will start in early October, date and time to be confirmed. Enroment through Skylight.
• hosting a monthly meeting for Christian writers at Heaton Baptist Church. The next Write Life meeting is this Friday, 7.30 – 9. All are welcome and attendance is free.
• lecturing a module in dramatic writing at Northumbria University.
• lecturing a series of modules on writing for the media at Newcastle University.

In addition I’m proud to announce the first meeting of the Northern Non-Fiction Writers group. It has been started by a group of writers who attended my non-fiction writing course at the Centre for Lifelong Learning. Their first meeting is this evening and all are welcome. Check out their website for further details.

For those of you not in the Newcastle area, feel free to work through the online courses on creative writing and non-fiction writing.

Related posts:

1. Crafty Tutors Writing Courses
2. Welcome to The Crafty Writer
3. Free email writing courses

The course is suitable for anyone who has completed the first level course or who has had some non-fiction published already. If you have done neither, then why not check out my free non-fiction course here on The Crafty Writer.

Related posts:

1. Non-fiction – how to write a proposal
2. Copywriting: write to sell
3. Non-fiction – how to write a feature article

For those of you who can’t make it, why not check out Rod’s guest posts right here on The Crafty Writer – Beginner Blogging for Writers 1, 2 & 3

Oh, he told me to tell you, he taught me everything I know. Mmm, well, not everything, Rod.

Related posts:

1. Beginner Blogging for Writers: part 3
2. Beginner Blogging for Writers: part 1
3. Beginner Blogging for Writers: part 2

As some of the people who have signed up for Stellenbosch would prefer to move over to Hout Bay, there are now some places still available for the 13th, so please contact us for registration and payment details.

Related posts:

1. Cape Town Workshops filling up
2. Cape Town workshops – September 2008
3. Crafty courses in Newcastle

I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

Related posts:

1. Cape Town workshops – Hout Bay!
2. Cape Town workshops – September 2008
3. Tynedale Writers’ Festival

Swallow your pride

One man from Brazil sent in an article to me that had great potential; the problem was, his written English was not publishable. His grammar was incorrect, his sentence structure awkward and his spelling simply not good enough. And this man had a PhD from an English university! I suggested he enrol on an English language course back home, work on the basics, then resubmit the article to me. Six months later, he did so. The article was vastly improved. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. Now that’s a man who will lay aside his pride to become a better writer. Will you?

Back to basics

Many writers don’t think the ‘basics’ are important and focus all their time and energy on the ‘creative’ aspects of writing. Some of them simply don’t realise, like this man, that his written English was not up to scratch; others don’t care, believing that that’s the job of the editor. Well it’s not. There is a certain standard that you need to achieve before an editor will even work with you.

Test yourself

Try these tests that I discovered on a fabulous website called Daily Writing Tips. You’ll be happy to know that I didn’t get 100% for any of them! As a product of a school system that stopped teaching grammar when I was 12, I’m not surprised. But that’s no excuse. I need to work on it and get better. My English is of publishable standard – I know that because I’ve been published – but there’s still room for improvement. Another website you may find useful, particularly if English is your second language, is English Online.

Related posts:

1. How to get started in feature writing
2. Non-fiction – how to write a proposal
3. Non-fiction – how to write a feature article

So if you’re going to be in Cape Town in September, why not come along to one or both of the sessions:

Venue: Stellenbosch Library

Date: Saturday 13 September 2008

Time: 10am–12.30 and 2–4.30pm

Venue: Hout Bay Library

Date: Saturday 20 September 2008

Time: 10am–12.30 and 2–4.30pm

Cost: R500 for both sessions, R350 for one session. Light refreshments will be provided for each session, but lunch is not included. There are lots of eateries nearby, or bring your own!

To book: Telephone Gill on 0833610167 in SA, or contact me via email.

Your hosts

The workshops will by run by me (Fiona) and Gill, and you will have an opportunity to meet Gill and ask her questions about her book and her experience of the publishing industry.

Related posts:

1. Cape Town Workshops filling up
2. Cape Town workshops – Hout Bay!
3. Weekly Writing Sessions at Cumberland Arms

Firstly, some of them have very long ‘lead times’. A lead time is the time from commission or acceptance of your article / story / poem until it actually appears. Aquila is one of only a few magazines in the UK that publish children’s fiction, so I wasn’t about to say no, “I’d rather take it elsewhere”. It’s the fourth piece they’ve published of mine in the same number of years, so I’m aware that patience is essential.

As the new writing editor of Plain Truth magazine I frequently get emails from writers frustrated at how long it takes for their work to appear. For that section of the magazine, our average lead time is 12 months, but 18 months is not unheard of. We only publish five times a year and only use one new writer per edition.

So my advice to new writers is: find out a magazine’s lead time so that you won’t be disappointed when it takes so long for your hard-crafted words to finally be read. And realise too that you will usually only get paid on publication, not acceptance.

FAQs

1. How long should I wait before sending my article to someone else?

I try to let writers know within four months whether or not I will use their material. But I think it’s acceptable for a writer to politely query after three months. And I mean politely! I’ve had writers demanding to know what’s taking me so long – and that’s simply a short-cut to the bin. If you’re told that a decision hasn’t been made yet, or that you’re still in ‘the queue’, give it another three months and enquire again.

2. What if I was told my article would appear by a certain date and it hasn’t?

Try to get a date of publication at commission. This may change if the editor later decides that your article will be more suited to another edition. In an ideal world they should tell you, but frequently they forget. So if your article doesn’t appear by a certain date, a polite enquiry is certainly in order. If at this point they don’t give you a firm publication date, I think you’re well within your rights to withdraw the article and send elsewhere.

3. Can I demand a kill fee?

A ‘kill fee’ is a percentage of the agreed payment for the article that may be paid if publication falls through. This is common in the USA and Writer's Market will give you an idea of the kill fees on offer. Sadly, the UK industry doesn’t work the same way and kill fees are rarely if ever paid. Ho hum. For more on what to do to ensure you get paid, check out my article What to do when you don’t get paid. If you want to know how to approach editors have a look at Writing proposals and approaching editors, which is part of my free non-fiction writing course. The same advice is applicable to short story writers and poets too.

Related posts:

1. Is someone stealing your dreams?
2. IC Iraq – new lifestyle magazine launches in Baghdad
3. Getting started with non-fiction writing