All too often in our modern day and age, we attempt to cure every ailment with a pill or capsule. That might be fine for our physical aches and for the most serious of mental illnesses, but it’s not so wonderful for the moments when we just feel down or stressed out.

Writers, though, know that for those pains a different kind of tablet than the one you pick up from the pharmacist is best for the soul.

Writing itself is a healing activity.

It allows you to detach. When the problems of the world or the heart threaten to crush you, sometimes you simply must toss off the burden. Writing allows you to let go by entering a new world, one in which the ex’s latest nasty words or the boss taking credit for the work you did all disappears. They pale to your main character struggling to solve a murder or to you telling the world about the one thing you feel so passionate about.

It allows you to rebuild your self-esteem. Writing is among your many strengths and talents. Being productive at something you enjoy and are good at is like salve on those deep cuts to your ego. Rather than feel defeated when you were passed over for a promotion at work or when your mother lays into you again about still not being married, get up and hit the punching bags with your creativity.

It allows you to have hope. In the world of your novel, you can entertain readers and ensure right wins in the end; through the pages of your nonfiction book, you can give people the knowledge they need to change their worlds for the better. That ability to help others while furthering your own future in turn will inspire you to greater heights.

So here’s the editor’s prescription, writer: 1000 words daily until next checkup.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Suffering from writer’s block or need to add some spunk to your writing? The problem may be that you need to change up your routine. To that end, try this tip: Fictionalize yourself in a difficult situation that someone else faces. How would you resolve the problem?

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Thanks to insure and ensure being so similar in the way they’re pronounced, they’re often confused. They do share similar word origins, and a few grammar pontiffs say they’re interchangeable. Such an opinion is in the minority, however.

Ensure means to guarantee a situation. For example: By bringing an umbrella, Jane ensured they would not get wet during their walk.

Insure means to limit one’s financial liability. For example: Sophia decided that despite the expense and her limited funds, she needed to insure her car.

Hopefully this entry will ensure you now know how to use insure so that you can garner an income from writing.

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Once you’ve decided that a public presentation is a good way to promote your book, you’ll need to find some spots to hold your event. Identifying those locales can help you determine what kind of presentation (book signing, topical presentation, etc.) you’ll make and place you on the path for contacting the right people to set up such an event.

Among the many locations you might deliver a presentation with the aim of selling your book include:
• Bookstores – Though the obvious choice for holding a book-related event, it may not be the best location. Don’t waste time appearing at bookstores that lack a connection to your book; only hold events at stores in which you either are a local author or your book somehow has a connection to the region the store is located. Locally-owned bookstores will be more receptive to your self-published book than chains.
• Retailers/institutions related to your book’s topic – Always think about what stores and spots (other than bookstores and libraries) where you might purchase books similar to the one you’ve written. For example, if you’ve written a travel guide to an area, then outfitters or the gift shop at the local tourism office might wish to carry your book and hence host an event.
• Conferences/conventions related to your book’s topic – Such events usually offer breakout sessions, workshops, or booths in which you can appear. The book sale generally comes after your presentation has impressed upon your audience that you are interesting and know your stuff.
• Institutions of learning – Libraries and colleges often will host book-related events. Typically a library holds a book reading/signing similar to a bookstore while at a college you’ll have to give to students a presentation much like you would at a conference/convention.
• Writers festivals – Often colleges and regional arts groups host such events for writers and readers. You can set up a table on a “writers row” or make a presentation about your writing experience at such festivals.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional book editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of 80 books including the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my book marketing guidebooks:

Getting published requires a lot of hard work and self-discipline. A long road runs between having an idea for a story and actually seeing it on a bookstore shelf or within a magazine’s covers.

Science fiction great Robert Heinlein said writers only needed to follow five simple steps to ensure they were published authors. These steps since have been coined “Heinlein’s Rules,” Heinlein often joked that he had no qualms about sharing these “secret” steps as most people lacked the self-discipline to actually work through each one.

The rules are:
• Rule One – You Must Write
• Rule Two – Finish What Your Start
• Rule Three – You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
• Rule Four – You Must Put Your Story on the Market
• Rule Five – You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

Hugo winner Robert J. Sawyer once wrote that if you started with a hundred people who wanted to be published, fully half of them would give up on writing at each step. By the time you got through Rule Five, that would leave just three of the original hundred still writing!

The moral is if you want to become published, you must stick it through the entire process. Don’t give up – that, after all, is the quickest way to remain unpublished.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Science fiction stories typically arise from a novum, a scientifically plausible concept that is a “reality” in the tale. The novum might be an mechanical device like robot servants, artificial intelligence, or faster-than-light spacecraft; it also can be a hypothetical idea such as “The Earth is a scientific experiment run by aliens to determine the meaning of life” or “The government outlaws books.” The author then asks “What if?” exploring how the world with this novum is different than ours.

Among the problems of many novice science fiction writers is instead of introducing a new novum they rely on used furniture – that is, they borrow novums from popular SF series. After all, how many novels have you read that use starships exploring the galaxy for the Earth-based Federation? Barely changing names to appear as if you are not appropriating – a starcraft seeking M-class worlds for the Earth-centered Alliance – still doesn’t cut it as original or fully using the potential that science fiction offers to examine our culture or humanity.

To help SF writers, here are some novums of potential near-future inventions from which stories could be built:

Biometric tattoos
What if we wore sensors, implanted beneath our skin, that could monitor our bodies for when we are having health problems? If you were having a stroke, for example, the sensor automatically would call for an ambulance and give your location to them.

Body heat-powered buildings
What if excess body heat in buildings could be pulled into a ventilation system and used to heat water that in turn warms those buildings? How does this sustainable energy innovation affect society?

Neural driving
What if you could drive your car with your mind? Your neural impulses would be linked to the car’s computer so that you literally could think what it should do. What other applications might this technology have (such as changing the room temperature or the television channel)?

3D Fingerprints
Current fingerprint technology is based on a 2D image of the print. What if we could upscale that to 3D fingerprint readers, in which the structures underneath the skin are read? How would forgers attempt to break this?

36 Ophiuchi AB colonization
What if future space explorers attempt to colonize this binary star system? What challenges would they face on a planet orbiting an orange K-type star?

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Does overkill annoy you? Then fight back by saying NO to apostrophes after possessive pronouns.

Such pronouns are words like his, hers, its, my, mine, our, ours, their and theirs. They indicate something belongs to the person or persons that the pronoun refers to, as in Her cabin is several hours north of Chicago. In this sentence, the cabin belongs to whoever her is.

Apostrophes are used to show possession. For example, San Diego’s top problem is where to get fresh water for a growing population. The apostrophe tells the reader that the top problem belongs to San Diego.

Using an apostrophe with a possessive pronoun, however, is stating the obvious. A possessive pronoun by definition shows possession, so an apostrophe isn’t needed.

WRONG: Her’ flight went through Dallas to Los Angeles.
RIGHT: Her flight went through Denver to San Francisco.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Sometimes when attempting to create tension and suspense in a story, writers can undercut their own efforts by adding “organ music.” A term coined at the Cambridge Science Fiction Workshop, organ music us providing “details that countersink an emotional response before anything happens.” An example is crackling lightning before a character is murdered. Avoid this non-subtle way of foreshadowing as a way of creating suspense, however; non-subtle foreshadowing actually gives away what is about to happen. It’s akin to the villain telling the hero, “And now I will shoot you.” Just have the villain fire his atom blaster.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

“What makes you a poet is a gift for language, an ability to see into the heart of things, and an ability to deal with important unconscious material. When all these things come together, you’re a poet. But there isn’t one little gimmick that makes you a poet. There isn’t any formula for it.” – Erica Jong

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” – Emily Dickinson

“Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it begins as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth.” – Mary Oliver

“When I began to listen to poetry, it’s when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say, and I began to listen to others. And I think, most importantly for all of us, then you begin to learn to listen to the soul, the soul of yourself in here, which is also the soul of everyone else.” – Joy Harjo

“Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You’ve got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.” – Sylvia Plath

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks: