Year: 2022

How to start writing dark fantasy

Dark fantasy is certainly having a moment. Shows like Witcher and Wheel of Time, both of which I talked about on Haunted MTL, have gotten more fantasy fans interested in the creepier, more sinister side of the genre. And I love it. Not that I don’t enjoy the lighter side of fantasy. I wrote a whole series that could hardly be considered dark. Honestly, that’s just because I haven’t gotten to it yet. 

Yes, fantasy that is all about magic and adventure and dragon friends is awesome! But there is so much more that we can do with the genre if we’re willing to explore the shadowy side. 

Just in case you’re not sure what I mean by dark fantasy, another great example is the Spiderwick Chronicles. In here we see much of what I’d consider dark fantasy. We see the fai acting with malicious intent. We see dark magic slipping a young woman into a coma. We see characters who are menaced, rather than enchanted, by the fantasy world. There’s a lot more monster-slaying than finding fairy rings, is what I’m saying.

If you want to write some dark fantasy, here are some suggestions.

Details and world-building

A cornerstone of good fantasy is good world-building. And a dark fantasy is no different. But of course, the details of a dark fantasy world are going to be a bit different. We’ll see more danger, of course. More places our characters fear to tread. More people you don’t want to come across. Think of Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children. Yes, at the start the children are in a magical place frozen in time. But soon enough they find themselves mucking through dark allies, filled with monsters and men who want nothing more than to crush their heads against the pavement.

Don’t shy away from the gore

Speaking of pavement head crushing, any good horror story is going to have some moments of gore. That’s just a hallmark of the genre. 

I don’t love stories that rely on it. If there’s not an underlying terror, then all the blood and broken bones in the world aren’t going to do more than turn my stomach. But I do expect to see a little bloodshed. 

The best horror is based on reality

Horror that revolves around otherworldly creatures is great. I love a haunted house story, and I love a sentient demonic house even more. But the best horror story is the one that has a basis in real life.

Carrie was about more than a killer prom queen. It was about a young woman bullied at school and suffering abuse at home. Amityville Horror is about a house set on killing its inhabitants. It’s also about a family with money worries. These are things we can relate to, which makes the horror that much more satisfying. 

This can be a little trickier with dark fantasy, which is by definition not based on reality. But remember that characters are people. And people are generally scared by the same things. As Stephen King put it, we’re scared of the Bad Death. That’s pretty well universal, even if you are an elf. 

Anything that can befriend you can also kill you

I’d like to take this moment to point out something in fantasy that has always bothered me. Fairies are often seen as whimsical little friends, who might play a little prank on us from time to time but have our best interests at heart.

If you know anything about fai lore, you know that’s bullshit. They might be befriended, but they’re more likely to steal you away, take your babies, poison you, or otherwise mess up your day. 

The same can be said for mermaids. 

Any creature has a dark side. Any creature can be seen as either benevolent or malevolent. Think of fantasy creatures as dogs. Most of the time they’re our great little companions who sleep at our feet and keep us company while we type blog posts. But under the right circumstances, they’ll take a hand. 

If the good creatures exist, so do the dangerous ones

Finally, there is this. Fantasy creatures we like tend to get a lot of attention. But if they exist in your fantasy world, so do their darker counterparts. So do the banshees, the evil magic users, the werewolves, wendigos and vampires. Light casts a shadow, and you don’t get one without the other. So when creating your fantasy world, remember to write in the shadows as well. 

Fantasy and horror complement each other in many ways. A touch of one can make the other stronger, and often is unavoidable. How much you decide to let the darkness in is, of course, depended on how gruesome you want your fantasy story to be. 

What is your favorite dark fantasy? Let us know in the comments. 

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Do I have a short attention span, or is this a bad story?

Has this ever happened to you? You’re watching a new movie or tv show that you’ve never seen before. Usually with a friend or a spouse. All of a sudden, you realize that you’re not watching the content you wanted to share anymore. You’re on your phone or tablet, scrolling social media and you’ve lost track of the storyline. 

Maybe this happens because you’re tired. Or maybe you’ve got a touch of ADD (Probably not. Everyone thinks they’ve got ADD.) Or maybe Instagram is actually more interesting than whatever you were watching.

If you’re anything like me, you probably beat yourself up over this a little. And if you don’t, someone else has probably done it for you. I’ve even developed a little pathological fear of watching anything new because of this. I mean, I’m a writer, and also thirty-five years old. I should have a better attention span. I should be getting into this story. Lots of other people love this movie, why can’t I focus? Am I a three-year-old, what is the matter with me?!?

Probably nothing. There is a really good chance that the content you’re trying and failing to watch is just not working. Today I thought it would be helpful to talk about some ways to tell if the story you’re watching is just bad, or if it’s a you problem.

Spoiler, it’s probably not you. 

Don’t rely on other people to help you with this. 

There are some movies, books, and tv shows everyone claims to love. Some are classics like Casablanca or The Godfather. Some are heavy thinking films like The Shape of Water. But this list could include anything you’ve ever been made to feel bad for not liking.

You must not have gotten it.

It’s too smart for you. 

This is bullshit. There are plenty of reasons you might not like a story that other people, even a lot of other people, claimed to enjoy. 

For one thing, people lie. And sometimes people claim that they like something because they think everyone likes it. 

We should have learned this lesson as children, but most of us struggle with it our whole lives. Do you remember the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes? No one wants to be the first to point out the Emperor’s junk is swinging free in the breeze.

Of course, just because you didn’t like something doesn’t mean it’s bad. For instance, I didn’t like the movie Last of The Mohicans. I get that lots of people loved it. But I found it boring as hell.

I am not wrong. The story isn’t wrong. We just didn’t click. 

Maybe it’s not the story for you at this point in your life

There are some stories we are just not ready to hear. And that can be for a ton of reasons. The most common reason is that we are not yet emotionally mature enough for it. 

This is why children are often said to have a shorter attention span than adults. Sometimes that’s the case. And sometimes they just haven’t lived long enough to emotionally connect with a story.

One great example for me is The Truman Show. I saw this movie when it came out, in 1998. I was ten, and I didn’t get it. I hated it. It was long, boring, and a real disappointment. 

It didn’t help that my expectations were way off base. I had seen Jim Carrey in The Mask and Ace Ventura. I wasn’t prepared for him to be in a serious role. 

Seeing the film as an adult, I loved it. I understood the raw rage Truman must have felt, realizing that his whole world was a lie. It’s a brilliant film, I’ve seen it several times since then. And I’ve never considered it too long. 

There’s nothing wrong with being too young or too old for a film. It’s just where you are in your life. 

Don’t listen to older people who tell you our generation has a shorter attention span.

This is the one that pisses me off. It’s the general Blame Millenials trope that I’m truly sick and tired of. It’s the theory that our generation, after a lifetime of cartoons and social media, just doesn’t have the attention span for a real story anymore.

Again I say Bullshit. We’re the generation that devoured Avatar, Titanic, and six Lord of The Rings movies including extended cuts. And I, who have the attention span of a stoned raccoon in a Twinkie factory, have no issue reading Stephen King novels the size of phone books. 

If a story is good, there is no such thing as too long. 

Often I find this argument used to defend classics. But what is considered a classic might need an upgrade. Frankly, I consider a classic any story that is still entertaining and/or relevant. People still read Frankenstein every year. To Kill A Mockingbird was so popular the publisher might have committed elder abuse to get a sequel.

TLDR- What can writers do with this information? 

None of this is any help at all if we don’t know what to do about it. Okay, so sometimes a story just doesn’t work for us and it’s not your fault. 

It’s enough to remove this guilt from ourselves, certainly. But as writers, we can do more. 

The next time you’re watching something and you go to reach for Instagram, stop and grab your writer’s notebook instead. Write down what you’re watching and what was going on when you lost interest. Try doing this every time a story loses you, and you’ll start to see a pattern of what doesn’t work for you. And if it doesn’t work for you, there’s at least a chance that it doesn’t work for other people too. 

Remember, a bad story can teach you as much as a good story. So if a story is boring you, at least you can learn something from it. 

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Why Futurama Works

As I mentioned last week, Futurama is one of my favorite television shows of all time. I’ve watched it a hundred times. The darling husband and I quote the show almost daily. There are some episodes I can’t watch because they’re too emotionally damaging. There are some I could watch every day and not get sick of them. 

The Star Trek cast in Futurama

Futurama has won countless awards for writing. And it’s with good reason. Now, I know that some of you reading this right now will think I’m being far too generous to a silly cartoon. But I’ll submit to you that I’m not. And the massive fan base that Futurama still holds would agree with me. 

So, it’s time to get it up on the table, break it apart, and see why it works.

There are professionals on the writing staff.

Of course, the writers are professionals with years of creative experience. I would hope the same could be said of most content, but that’s probably idealistic. 

Futurama takes this several steps further, though. Among their writing team, you’ll find scientists, mathematicians, physicists. And if they don’t have a professional on staff, they go find one. 

While this is a fiction show, they want to make sure that the science they use is real. Which makes the rest of the story more believable. As one of their splash screens says, you can’t prove it won’t happen. 

The writers hid jokes and didn’t explain.

If you’re casually watching an episode of Futurama while scrolling Instagram, you’re going to miss background jokes. And a lot of them. That’s because the writers love throwing in hidden jokes and never explaining them. They even developed alien languages and hid messages in the background. They never released a key for these languages, either. 

This means that the show can work on two levels. If you just want to watch a silly show, it’s great for that. If you want to watch it on a whole other level with a ton of in-jokes, it’s great for that too. 

Awesome attention to detail.

In the first episode, the main character Fry is tossed into a cryogenic chamber and frozen. This starts the whole story. But, as you go through the series, more and more comes to light regarding that moment. And every time you learn something else, you can go back and watch the first episode again to see if there are signs visible. 

And they always are. 

The writers trust their audience to be smart. 

The writers can do all of these great things, because of one simple fact.

They believe that their audience is smart. They don’t talk down, they don’t over-explain. They put out smart content, and they trust us to get it. 

Futurama The Sting

It’s time for the wrap-up. What can we as writers learn from Futurama?

– Get the factual parts of your story accurate, and it will make the whole thing more believable. 

-Don’t be afraid to add details or background jokes without an explanation.

-Pay attention to detail, and keep everything cannon. 

-Trust your audience to be at least as smart as you are. 

Is there a show, movie or book you’d like me to take apart to see why it works? Let me know in the comments. 

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you want to support this site, you can do so on Ko-fi. 

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Life Lessons from Futurama

I heard a nasty rumor the other day that Futurama might be getting a reboot. This is my favorite show of all time, and I think they ended it on an exemplary note. Honestly, I can’t think of a better ending. So whoever had the idea to reboot this and spoil that perfect last episode can bite my shiny metal ass. 

I love Futurama because it’s funny, it’s smart and it’s way more emotional than people give it credit for. And like everything else, it taught me things. 

Next week, I’ll do a Why It Works post about Futurama. But today, I want to talk about some times the show made me think about fairly deep topics. Maybe deeper than you’d expect from a show that included a swearing, chain-smoking alcoholic kleptomaniac robot. 

Fry in Futurama Space Pilot 3000

Karma will out

Every character in Futurama has a moment, often more than once, where they are human. They have flaws, they’re selfish. They let their baser instincts guide them. And almost every time, Karma bites them.

Yes, even Bender. 

Karma will out is a lesson we need to be reminded of, even as adults. And while it doesn’t always work in the real world, it does often enough for our delightful Gen Z to create a delightful new phrase for it. Fuck around and find out. 

Fry kicks Bender out of their shared apartment because his antenna is messing with the tv signal. He fucked around with Bender’s emotions and found out that doesn’t feel great. 

Bender fucks around and steals an expensive cigar and finds out the cops take that sort of thing seriously. 

Karma will out. 

You can be smart and stupid at the same time

Amy is, in my opinion, an underrated character. She’s a college student, taking classes so intentionally advanced that she’s the only one taking them. She’s clever, quick-witted, and kind of a bitch sometimes. But she’s also a silly young adult who has no coordination, has swallowed her cell phone by mistake, and once lost the keys to the ship in a crane machine.

Both of these things can exist in the same person. I think sometimes we get caught up in proving we’re whatever we want to be. We want to prove we’re adults, prove we’re smart, prove we’re responsible and have our shit together. 

I’m smart when it comes to writing, time management, handcrafts, home crafts, art, computers, and a few other things. I am also the fool who once asked, “Why is Honey Nut Cheerios giving out wildflower seeds to help the bee population?”

I’m also the fool who turns on the light on my tablet to look for my tablet in bed. Who forgets to grab a towel on the way to the shower. And who does a million other stupid things while still being a published author and holding down a full-time job in the technical field? I contain multitudes and sometimes that’s not a good thing. But it doesn’t make me dumb.

You can be silly and serious at the same time

My favorite episode of Futurama is The Sting. In it, Lela thinks Fry is dead after he’s stung by a giant killer space bee. The episode deals with not only mourning the death of a loved one but also substance abuse and suicide. This is from the same series that later had an episode about cats trying to take over the world. And it did both of those things exceptionally well.

Life is both silly and serious. There are heavy things we have to deal with. But there are also remarkably silly things. We live in a world where both puff adders and kiwis exist. And while that’s a thought that can get you down if it comes out of nowhere, it’s comforting when you’re dealing with one of those serious moments. 

At least it is for me.

Leela, Fry and Gunter in Futurama Mars University

God is present 

Or the energy of the universe is present if you prefer. 

There’s an episode of Futurama called Godfellas. It won a metric ton of awards and for good reason. It’s amazing. And there’s a line that is stuck in my mind and will probably never go away.

If you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all. 

It makes me wonder how many times my life has been touched by an unseen but present source of love and hope. Just a tap here, a nudge there. How have I been helped without even realizing it? 

I love that, just the question of it. It makes me feel protected. Even if I’m not sure anything’s being done at all. 

Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, you can buy me a cup of coffee on Ko-fi. 

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Sylvermoon Chronicles X is available now!

Hey, guys. Just jumping in here quick today to let you know that Sylvermoon Chronicles X is officially available.

If you’ve missed the last few installments, it’s an anthology series with some incredible authors, including yours truly. And this one’s a little sad, because it’s the final one.

Ten years is a massive amount of time, and I just can’t thank the editor, Madolyn Locke for committing herself to this.

Definitely check out Sylvermoon Chronicles issue X. It’s a really fun read from some amazing writers.

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Why Only Murders In The Building Works

A few months ago, everyone was talking about Only Murders in The Building. Even one of my favorite writing podcasts, Ditch Diggers, discussed it. It was for a time everybody’s favorite show.

And I’m part of Everybody. I watched every episode, and couldn’t wait for the next one. Honestly, with comedy writing legends like Steve Martin, Martin Short and Tina Fey involved, I’m not the least bit surprised. These are some of the best comedy writers in the business with years of experience. 

Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez in The Building

So today it’s our topic for why it works. Let’s get it on the table, cut it apart, and see why it worked.

Motivated by the characters conflicting wants

Some stories are motivated by a situation. Some stories are about people coming together for a common goal. And some are about characters reacting to something in varying different ways, depending on what they want. 

The latter is a bit more complicated but far richer. 

Only Murder In The Building is about three people with parallel goals, not necessarily the same goal. You have Mabel, who wants to find out who killed Tim Kono. She has several reasons for this, that I don’t want to ruin for you on the off chance you haven’t seen it yet. Oliver wants to have a successful project to prove that he isn’t a failure. And Charles wants to prove that his career isn’t behind him. He isn’t a has-been. More than that, though, he wants to have people love him again. 

Oh, and both Oliver and Charles want to prove that they’re hip enough to have a millennial friend. 

All of these goals can line up, but won’t always. 

Relatable on multiple levels

I think we’ve all had friends who are only our friends because we share a common fandom. People we don’t have a single thing in common with beyond liking this piece of art. It’s a true-crime podcast that brings Mabel, Oliver and Charles together. And I think most of us love a little True Crime. 

But we’ve also all experienced that excitement when a new episode of something we love comes out. Many of us, unfortunately, know what it’s like to lose someone. We know what it’s like to be hurting for money, or missing someone we’d like to call but can’t.

So we might not know what it feels like to investigate a murder in an upscale apartment building. But we can still absolutely relate to these characters. 

Selena Gomez in Only Murders In The Building.

Twist upon twist upon twist

At any time while watching Only Murders in The Building if you think you know what’s happening, you’re wrong. There were so many twists and turns I barely knew which way was up. But at no time did I feel cheated. At no time did I feel like a twist came out of nowhere or didn’t make sense. 

I want to tread lightly here because I don’t want to ruin anything for you. But there’s more than one mystery to solve. 

This isn’t the sort of thing achieved in one draft. This is the sort of thing that takes rewrites upon rewrites to make sure that the twists are logical, but still hard to see coming. This is what can be achieved when you know your story back and forth. When you’re careful with your craft. When you’ve gone through the damned thing over and over. It takes planning and patience. 

Every episode left you with a question

When I was a kid I used to love reading Goosebumps. Every chapter ended with a cliffhanger. They weren’t, in hindsight, good cliffhangers. A common one was for the character to open a door and scream. On the first page of the next chapter, it was too often revealed that this was just a sibling or friend startling them. Cheap.

But it did give me a taste for that sort of thing. 

A much better way to handle an ending is to leave your audience with a question. And I mean something beyond the core question of the larger piece. In Only Murders in The Building, the main question is who killed Tim Kono. But in any given episode, you might have any other questions. 

Will the dog die?

Why is that strange ring there?

Why is that hoodie important?

Will this character lose their home?

None of these are cheap gimmicks. They’re real questions that stick with you for the whole week. Until it’s time for the next episode. 

To sum it up, here’s what we can learn from Only Murders in The Building.

-Make sure every character wants something. Bonus points if it’s something different from the other characters.

-Make your characters relatable in realistic ways, and we’ll be more likely to relate to them in unrealistic ways. 

-Plan out your twists and take your time.

-Give us a question, not a cliffhanger. 

What piece of content would you like to see me cover next? Let us know in the comments. 

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you want to support the site, you can buy me a cup of coffee on Ko-fi. 

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My updated morning routine

A good morning may not make for a good day, but a bad morning will sure as hell make having a good day harder. So creating a morning routine that is no-fail is essential. Especially if you, like me, are juggling a day job, side hustle, sick loved ones and attempting to become a better artist while the world burns down around you. 

And these days, who’s not?

Like everything else in my life, I’m always looking for ways to improve my morning routine. And since it’s been a while since I updated you all on it, this seemed like a good time. 

Now, don’t worry. I’m not the sort to get up at 5:00, go for a jog, make a green smoothie for breakfast before I sit down to write in my journal for an hour. I don’t even really wish I could be that girl. Sleep is sacred, and I’d like to sleep as late as I can. 

Not all of these ideas will necessarily work for you, or fit in your life. But these are the things I do to get my days started positively.

It all starts the night before

I do not wake motivated. I wake irritated. Everything is a struggle before 8:00, and I feel personally victimized by everything

Everything.

 So anything I can set up in advance is going to help me out a ton. I’m sure you’ve been told a million times before to get your clothes set out the night before and your bag packed if you’re leaving the house. But do you do it? 

Going a step further, I’ve also started meal prepping my breakfast. This is a fancy way of saying I’m making hard-boiled eggs and putting them in my fridge. Meal prepping doesn’t have to be some massive thing that includes chia seeds and weekends spent wrecking your kitchen. It can be as simple as doubling a recipe or boiling some eggs while you’re making dinner. 

Coffee, pets, breakfast

I generally convince myself to get out of bed at either 6:00 or 5:30, depending on when I have to show up at the day job. The first thing I do is start boiling water for coffee because I’m a weirdo who likes using a french press. While it’s boiling I’m taking Oliver out. Then I’ll feed Oliver and Harper. (Bonus tip. If you want to invest in a second alarm clock, feed your cat when you get up. I’ve done this with Harper since she was one year old, and now she licks my eyes to wake me up.)

While the coffee steeps in the french press, I crack open my eggs and move on to my next step.

Getting dressed

Even though I’m working from home right now, I still get dressed in the morning. I even put on a little bit of makeup. I don’t do this to look all fancy for the darling husband or any delivery person. I do this because it puts me into a productive mindset. I could, for sure, choose to spend the day in my favorite lama PJ pants. But I’m not going to feel like really cracking into my to-do list.

Also, I’d have to change to walk Oliver through the day, because my neighbor’s don’t need to know about the lama PJ pants.

Me and the universe

Once I’m dressed and armed with my breakfast, the time has come for some me and the universe time. I take some time to write down anything I remember from my dreams, do some tarot reading and meditation. This normally takes me about thirty minutes total. 

It’s just important for me to have some time, first thing in the morning, when the only voices in my head are mine and the universe. Soon enough all the other voices will crowd in. 

Planning time

Finally, it’s time to check in with my planners. I take a few minutes to update my gratitude log. Then I jot down my to-do list for the day, taking note of any appointments or meetings. Finally, I check my email, mostly for my bank statement. I like to keep track of how much money I’m spending every morning, to keep it from becoming a massive chore at the end of the week. 

All this takes me about an hour. I don’t think a morning routine should take longer than that, or it becomes cumbersome.

This is the routine that’s working best for me right now. So what about you? What do you do in the morning to help you have a better day? Let us know in the comments. 

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love our content and want to support this site, please check us out on Ko-fi. https://ko-fi.com/nicolecluttrell

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I tried a binder bullet journal, here’s how it went

Over the holidays, I realized I was coming close to the end of my bullet journal. Part of me wanted to jump right online and order myself a fancy new one to start 2022 off right. The other part of me realized it was the holiday season, and money was tight. 

I’d purchased a three-ring binder and some paper to fill it some time ago from Russell+Hazel. So, I thought maybe I’d try a little experiment. I decided to set up my bullet journal in that instead.

At the time, this felt revolutionary. Why don’t more people do their bullet journals in a binder? 

After a month, I went onto the Archer & Olive site and ordered some notebooks during their Black Friday sale. I’m in one of those now. 

I wanted to take you through some of the reasons I liked the binder bullet journal, and the reasons I went back to the traditional book format. Maybe this is a system that will work for you.

What I loved

The first thing that I loved about the binder bullet journal was the flexibility of it. I could take pages out, move them around. I could add or remove things as needed. If I decided I didn’t like a page layout, as I often do because I’m indecisive, I could simply remove it. If I had a long shopping list, I could add another page.

I also loved the ability to throw just anything in there. I was limited only by my three-hole punch. I was throwing in cookie recipes, envelopes, all sorts of things. That was a lot of fun. 

Having a binder bullet journal is also a lot cheaper. At least for me, it was. My Russell+Hazel setup was $17 for the binder, $7 for a pack of paper. Archer & Olive notebooks average around $30. So you’re saving quite a bit of money.

Of course, always keep in mind that you can bullet journal just as well in a dollar store notebook and with cheap pens. That’s exactly how I started, with a marble composition notebook. 

Alright, so if it’s cheaper, more efficient, and more flexible, why didn’t I keep at it? Honestly, there’s a part of my brain asking why I don’t switch back right now. And I could. It’s not like I got rid of my binder or anything. 

Well, first off, I’ve already converted it to take notes for my nonfiction novel. But the real reasons are below.

What I didn’t love

The first reason is purely an aesthetic issue. I couldn’t find a quality paper that I enjoyed using that fit into my binder. 

It wasn’t a dot grid. It wasn’t thick enough to hold paint. If I wasn’t careful, I was apt to rip pages out.

It was also a pain finding paper that fit in the thing. As I soon found out, three-ring binder refills almost always have to be bought from the same company that you got the binder from. Unless you’ve got a traditional school-sized one. And that’s no fun to lug around.

The biggest reason I went back to a more traditional bullet journal, though, is this. The binder didn’t feel like as much of a keepsake. 

I love bullet journaling because it keeps my many projects and responsibilities manageable. But there’s also a big memory-keeping component. I can look back in my bullet journals and see when I was going on vacation, what I was working on, what I was loving. Each month I keep a page full of memories, big and small. I doodle and draw all through the thing. I write down little notes about the day. I keep movie stubs, tickets, little mementos tucked into the pages. Every bullet journal is half organization, half time capsule.

Somehow, a box full of loose paper didn’t feel like it would be as nostalgic as a row full of beautiful, hardcover books. 

In summary, maybe converting to a binder bullet journal is perfect for you. Or maybe you, like me, will keep to the traditional method. That’s why bullet journaling works so well for so many people. It is entirely up to you what your bullet journal setup looks like. 

This is not a sponsored post. There are no links to any companies on here, nor do I get paid by any such companies. If you would like to support Paper Beats World, you can do so on Ko-fi.

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I took December off. Here’s how it improved my writing.

Today’s beautiful artwork is by Skywalter. Check him out here.

December is usually a constant juggling act. The holidays bring with family obligations, along with the crippling need to feel like we’re doing something festive. And despite all of that, work doesn’t feel the need to slow down all that much. 

So, to take some pressure off of myself, I decided to take December off from writing. 

This took some doing. I had to write and schedule blog posts and reviews for both PBW and Haunted. But after I got those wrapped up, I was free to pursue whatever I wanted to pursue through the rest of the month. 

This may sound indulgent, and in a way it was. But it was also something I feel like I needed to do to be a better artist. And I wasn’t wrong. 

Here are five ways taking a month off made me a better writer.

Rest is always a good idea

This can be hard for me in my little go get ‘em brain. But taking breaks is essential, even in creative endeavors. 

Yes, writing is my life. But when writing is also my job, that puts on pressure to perform at a certain level. A level that I can’t always maintain. 

But when I allow myself to rest, I can reach that higher level more frequently. 

Time to read

Stephen King famously said that to be a good writer you need to do two things. Read a lot and write a lot. 

Alright, cool. Way easier said than done. Usually, if I get twenty minutes in a day to read, I’m doing pretty good.

But when I take writing off my to-do list, then that opens up time to read. And I read a ton in December. Mostly holiday books. I just filled my mind with the works of other authors. And that’s exactly what I needed

Time to write for fun

I’ve talked before about the importance of writing for yourself. Writing not to produce, or to share with the outside world. Just writing for you. And while it’s great, it’s another thing that takes a backseat to writing as a job. It was nice to just sit at my desk and write with no pressure, no plans for what I was going to do with this piece. Just have fun on the page.

As a bonus, this is something I’m trying to encourage more of when I’m writing a rough draft. Both for my own joy, and to increase the quality of my work. It was great to practice that for a whole month. 

Time to experience life

We are not unending wells. We cannot keep putting out work and words if we do not take something in. 

We take things in by experiencing our lives. And the holidays are the perfect time to do that. Try new things, go on fun outings, celebrate with your loved ones. All of these experiences feed into your writing because they expand your experiences. 

Time to learn 

Finally, I was able to take some of my downtime and focus on learning. There are lots of things I want to learn, that I often have a hard time finding the time for. So having this extra time to spend on Spanish, tarot cards and writing studies was a Godsend. I hope I can keep up with these studies as I’m getting back into the flow of writing this month. To be honest, it’s been a struggle so far. But I think I can do it.

All that being said, I likely won’t take a whole month off in 2022. I’ll probably take two weeks, though. And likely a few weeks off in the Summer. 

Spending time away from your work just makes you stronger when you return to the page. Don’t be afraid to take that time. 

Paper Beats World is a labor of love for me. If you’d like to support this site, you can do so on Ko-fi. 

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My 2022 goals and how I made them

We’ve reached another year, so it’s time to start making some goals. As you know, I don’t do resolutions. I think they’re unhealthy and unrealistic. That doesn’t mean that I don’t take the new year as an opportunity to make some goals. 

Goals are important for everyone, either big or small. And if you’ll recall, in August I committed myself to make better art. This made choosing my word of the year easy.

My word for 2022 is care. 

I want to care more for myself. I want to care more for my husband and my family of fur babies. I want to care more about my art. I want to care more about my fellow man. 

Step one of goal-making is to choose your word of the year.

Choosing a word of the year helps to guide everything else. That’s what the word care is doing for me. If I’m to care more about things, I have to lower the things on my plate. We just cannot commit ourselves to everything. I kept this strongly in mind as I made my goals. When I make too many goals, I become too frantic to get anything done. Or, I get things done but not done as well as they could be.

 So step two of goal making is to be realistic about what you can do, not idealistic.

Next, I make a huge list of all the things I’d like to do. That list is stupidly long and unrealistic. But that’s okay, I’m just brainstorming.

After that, I separate my goals into personal, family, and professional. I tell myself I can only have three goals for each of those categories, nine goals total. This means I’ve got to decide what I care about most. What matters most. After a lot of crossing out, considering, and soul searching, here are my goals for 2022.

Personal

Read the entire Bible.

Reach my Goodreads goal of 42 books.

Take 24 Masterclasses. 

Family

Build our emergency fund. 

Plan a Covid safe vacation.

Get the darling husband’s health back on track

Professional 

Join SFWA.

Make plans to attend a writing con.

Make progress on the two novels I’m working on. 

Now, I have a bunch of other projects I’m going to be working on this year. I want to get out new seasons of Off The Bone and AA. I want to start two brand new podcasts. I want to practice mindful eating, join a proper coven, and about a thousand other things. 

But so long as I get those top nine goals accomplished, this year has been a total win. Everything else is just icing. Though I will say, I love icing. 

So what are your goals for 2022? Let us know in the comments so we can cheer each other on. 

Paper Beats World is a labor of love for me. If you find value in the work I do, please consider supporting the site on Ko-fi. 

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