Welcome to The Mindful Word and thank you for offering your creativity to our team! You now have a user account created in your name so you can log into our WordPress editorial system. You can fill out your profile, bio and add a picture once you log into WordPress.
This profile will be linked from all your articles, and once you’ve published five articles your profile will be added to our contributing writers page. To view a list of contributing writers check out the About us page (all members’ email addresses follow the format: firstname@themindfulword.org).
All the resources you need to get started are here in this document. If you have any questions feel free to contact us.
Writing for The Mindful Word
Forty-five percent of The Mindful Word’s readers are from the United States, eleven percent from India, seven percent from the UK, six percent from Canada and four percent from Australia with a small number coming from a variety of other countries. In total about 70 percent of readers are from the West. There’s about a two to one female to male ratio with the largest group of readers falling in the 18 to 34 range.
Write for your audience as much as possible, but keep it general enough (where it makes sense) to accommodate all readers. That’s the trick of writing for the web. Since about 70 percent of readers come from the West, write with a Western audience in mind (when necessary). Writing an article about the political situation in Cambodia probably wouldn’t interest too many readers, but writing an article about volunteering in Cambodia would.
The Mindful Word aims to be just that, words written mindfully. Its focus is engaged living (read more in our “About engaged living” page). What comes with writing mindfully is balance, fairness and equality. Unless writing a personal essay or opinion piece, aim to be objective. Language frames how we think, so try to remain as inclusive as possible without killing the language. If interviewing, try to sample a diverse spectrum of people wherever possible.
Style
The principles of good writing align nicely with what it means to live a mindful, simple life. Clarity and conciseness are of utmost importance to good writing, which means paying attention to what is necessary and cutting anything superfluous—mindfulness and voluntary simplicity in action.
The Mindful Word uses Canadian English, considered by many to be the most recognizable variant of the English language worldwide since it’s a hybrid of British/World English and American English. Spellings are based on the Canadian Oxford English Dictionary.
You can access the Canadian OED online at Oxford if you have a subscription, otherwise you can go to the free version of Oxford online and select “World English,” which is similar but lacking a few quirks of Canadian English. When in doubt refer to the Spelling guide in the Writing and editing resources section. Note that the main difference between World English and Canadian is that Canadian spellings take a –ze ending instead of –se.
For style conventions, such as how to write out numbers, place names, etc, The Mindful Word follows the Canada Press Style Guide.
Editorial flow
Unless told otherwise by the editor you’re working with, when you have an article ready to go post it to WordPress (refer to the “Posting articles on WordPress” section below). Once you post your article editors will do stylistic editing (addressing sentence construction, proper word choice, clarity, conciseness, transitions and consistent tone) and copy editing (grammar, spelling, punctuation, usage, consistency and completeness) before optimizing it for the web. It will be published likely within a few days depending on the backlog and the mix of articles that have recently been published.
If there are significant issues with the article it will go back for additional work. Feedback will be provided where necessary. If you want specific feedback or need to alert the copy editor of something pertaining to the article use the comment box below the article, labelled “Editorial Comments” (not to be confused with the “Comment” box, which actually posts your comment on the live article!) or email the editor. The “Editorial Comments” box is an internal system that sends messages to writers and editors working on an article.
Upon publishing, you’ll be auto-notified by the WordPress system. WordPress will also contact you whenever a comment has been added to articles you write. Your readers will appreciate hearing from you so respond to comments and maintain a conversation with them.
Posting articles on WordPress
1. Log in to www.themindfulword.org/wp-admin
2. Click Posts» Add New on the left-side panel
3. Paste your article in the main editor box
4. Enter a description of the article in the description box below the editor box (keep it to about 30 words)
5. Save the article in the default “Submissions” queue.
NOTE: First time you log in to WordPress click “Profile” on the left-side panel and enter your details.
Editorial Queues
We have a system in place within WordPress that offers a number of different queues to save your work to. Here’s what they’re used for:
Submissions: When you have an article ready to go, save it to this queue. The editor will pick up articles from here.
In Progress: If the editor requests a rewrite look for your article in this queue. After you have rewritten your article, save it in this queue as well.
Draft: Save any work that you haven’t quite completed here. This queue is more if you haven’t yet added an image or find that you’re just missing something at the last minute. When you save something here, remember to come back to it or delete it. You should be doing your drafts on your computer not writing them on WordPress as you want to have a backup of everything and also because WordPress can go down at any time and kill your work.
Mine: You can easily find all your articles in one place in this queue.
Status updates
Once you submit an article the notification system will track the movement of the article through the editorial process and inform you of its progress via email. You’ll receive emails when the article has been moved to different stages of editing, when it has been scheduled for publication (we don’t publish articles the minute they are edited as we have a backlog of articles) and when it has been published.
The system will also notify you when a comment has been received on one of your articles. It’s a good idea to respond to readers’ questions and maintain a conversation.
Editorial comments
At the bottom of every WordPress page you’ll see an editorial comments section. When you add a comment here it automatically emails any other editors or collaborators you choose (NOTE: their names have to be ticked off in order for them to receive the message). You can reply by email, so you don’t need to log into WordPress to respond.
Communicating this way is helpful as it leaves all notes pertaining to the article right there on the editing screen.
Below that is the notifications box, which is part of the above system. Here you’ll see all the users listed as well as user groups. If you want to add someone into the conversation and keep them updated on the publishing schedule of an article, just tick their name.
Writing and editing resources
Web writing guide – This writing guide includes pointers on some basic web writing formats. DOWNLOAD>>
British-Canadian-American spelling guide – This spelling guide provides an extensive list of words with the differences in spelling between the three countries. READ MORE>>
Reading list
* Canada Press Style Guide
* Canadian Oxford English Dictionary
* On Writing Well: An informal guide to writing non-fiction, William Zinnser
* The Elements of Style, William Strunk and E.B White
* The Artful Edit, Susan Bell
The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English, Theodore Bernstein
Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose
The Art and Craft of Feature Writing, William E. Blundell
Writing with Precision, Jefferson D. Bates
Writing Creative Nonfiction, Theodore A. Rees Cheney
The Art of Fact, ed. Kevin Kerrane & Ben Yagoda
The Best American Magazine Writing
The New Journalism, ed. Tom Wolfe & E.W. Johnson
Asking Questions: The Art of the Media Interview, Paul McLaughlin
Literary Journalism, ed: Norman Sims & Mark Kramer
