Month: November 2023

Your holiday pep talk, 2023

It’s official, the Christmas season has begun. Not the holiday season. As far as I’m concerned that started on October first. But everyone’s got their own opinion about what constitutes a holiday, I suppose.

But one way or another, here we are. Thanksgiving is behind us in the States, and today is traditionally Black Friday.

As a former retail worker, I hate everyone who’s shopping today.

But that’s not why we’re here today. If you haven’t guessed or if you’re new, this is my yearly holiday pep talk. Because the holidays are a fantastic magical time of the year, with a whole bunch of buts and unlesses.

But you have to see family you don’t want to see. But you might be missing people you can’t see. But you might be the person in your house who makes the holidays happen and that’s a lot of pressure.

Unless you find yourself alone. Unless you’re sick. Unless you have negative memories attached to the holiday. Unless you’re too broke to celebrate the way everyone else appears to be celebrating.

So here, as always, is my holiday pep talk. As always, I need this reminder as much as anyone else.

You deserve to enjoy your holidays

Now, I mean this in two ways. One, you deserve to enjoy whatever holidays you celebrate.

In my house, we celebrate Christmas and Yule. The darling husband has his birthday in December, so that’s a whole thing. And my best friend is Jewish, so I at least need to be aware of when that is and cheer on her celebration.

Whatever you’re celebrating, celebrate it. Celebrate it loud, and post pictures online. Especially if you celebrate something unusual, please tell us about it. There are like fourteen holidays this month spread out over cultures and religions. I want to hear about yours.

But when I say enjoy your holidays, I also mean that you should celebrate too. You’re probably spending a lot of time right now making the holidays perfect for the people you love. And I get it, I am too. But you deserve to enjoy yourself too. You deserve a nice holiday season. You deserve to get a gift you want, eat the holiday food you like, and take some time to reset. In short, don’t make it all about everyone else. Make it a little bit about you.

Make it look how you want it to look

I am so sick of pink Christmas that I could just vomit on the next cotton candy-colored tree I find. So no, there’s not a single pink ornament in my house. There is also no tinsel. My tree is a hodgepodge of mismatched ornaments collected over the years. Some of them are homemade, some are store-bought. Being a Christian Witch, some of them are pagan. I’ve got a pentagram ornament right next to the Charlie Brown one.

My house is full of handmade decorations, mostly made out of wood and yarn, and that’s exactly how I like it.

Some people like that matchy holiday look. Some people want everything to have a theme. Some people still have all their grandmother’s ornaments. And some people do like the pink Christmas thing.

It doesn’t matter. Make your home look like the holidays to you. It doesn’t have to look like someone’s Instagram influencer fantasy. It just needs to look like your home, exactly how you want it to look.

Make it make sense to you

I am not the only person to ever say this but do not compare your holiday season to those online. Instagram is everyone’s highlight reel. And most of those shots aren’t realistic.

Your holiday needs to make sense to you. It needs to be realistic for the life you live. For instance, a lot of my breakable ornaments are staying in the box this year because we have a new kitten in the house. I work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so I’m not planning any big meals. We don’t do a lot of baking because the Darling Husband is diabetic and I don’t need to put away a batch of frosted gingerbread cookies myself.

More than once a year.

Make it make sense to you, your family, and your life. The holidays are supposed to be a celebration, not a burden.

You are not alone

Finally, remember that you’re not alone. Everyone is stressing out about the holidays. Everyone thinks they’re not doing enough, not decorating enough, not buying enough gifts, not sending enough cards.

You are doing enough. You’re probably doing too much. And no one feels half as confident about the holidays as they seem.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, no matter what you celebrate. I hope that you love every minute you have with your family and friends. I hope that you enjoy every meal you have and that you read a ton of good holiday stories. I hope you watch every special you want to watch and skip all the ones you hate.

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

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Are you making art or making a product?

Continuing in our back-to-basics series today, I wanted to touch on a difficult topic. It’s a question that I think a lot of creatives ask themselves. I’d like to say writers have been asking that question for longer than other artists, but that isn’t fair. Even so, I’m a writer, so I’ll just be talking to the writers today.

When we write, are we creating a piece of art or are we creating a product?

The maddening answer is that we’re doing both.

We are artists

Writing is an art, don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. And you are an artist, no matter what stage of your writing career you’re in. We are creating something new. Something that brings joy to people. We craft sentences with thought put into each word and each turn of phrase. We practice, read, and study to make our story the best, most original creative, and perfect story it can be.

We are marketers

But we are also selling a product. And I’m sorry if I’m the first to tell you this, but you’re probably going to have to do most of the selling of your book yourself. Even if you get picked up by one of the big publishing houses, you are probably going to do most of your marketing and promoting yourself.

If you’re an indie or hybrid writer, like me, you’ll be doing all of it yourself. And that requires you to think of your story like a product. A product that you have to market and sell.

A product that feels like a piece of your soul, surgically cut off from you and placed out in the world for people to abuse, tread upon, and spit on. No big deal.

How do we do both?

So, how do we do this? How do we craft a piece of art and still make money? How do we successfully make a living and not feel like a sell-out?

For me, it comes down to two rules. These two rules are vital, and set in stone.

The first of these rules is that you deserve to make money for your art. All artists deserve to make money for our art. Don’t ever feel bad or guilty about charging for your work.

Look, I give a lot of writing away for free. I post here weekly. I produced two seasons of a podcast that you do not have to pay to listen to. I post micro-fiction and short stories. And every time a new Station 86 book comes out, I post it here on Paper Beats World for free before publishing it.

But I charge for my books. I get paid for my reviews on Hauntedmtl. I leave links at the bottom of every post to my ko-fi account. I do not write for experience organizations, or to gain exposure. I deserve to get paid for my writing. You deserve to get paid for your writing.

The second rule is a little more nuanced. But it’s possibly more important.

Be clear about what activities are making art, and what activities are marketing.

When I’m writing a piece of fiction, I am creating art. I am not wondering if I’ll be able to sell this. I am just writing a story. Maybe it’s bad, maybe it’s good. But it’s the story that I want to tell. I’m having fun while I’m writing it.

In later drafts, I’ll polish it. Make sure the story is satisfying, and that it makes sense. That it’s fun to read. During all that I’m still not worrying about if it’s marketable. I’m not writing a main character that I think would be a cool Halloween costume or look good on a hoodie. I am writing a character that I want to trek through at least 50,000 words with. More if it’s a series. I didn’t write Sennett as a single mom and police officer because I considered her a marketable character. I wrote her that way because that’s the person who appeared in my head.

Later, when I was thinking about how to market Station 86, I sure as hell used the fact that she was a single mom cop. When I’m making a book cover, crafting social media posts about my book, making bookmarks and little video clips to share on Instagram, then I’m marketing a product. The artist part of me has given me a story. Now it’s up to the part of me that is a saleswoman to sell the hell out of it.

Render unto art what is art and marketing what is marketing.

I hope this post helps you today. Trying to balance the different aspects of a writing career is difficult. But always remember that your art is worth it. But no one’s going to see it if you don’t market it.

See you next week. And I hope you have a terrific Thanksgiving if you live in the States.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what we do here, please consider supporting us on Ko-fi.

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Paper or PC

Welcome back to our fundamental series here on Paper Beats World. We’re slowly, over time, diving back into the basics of writing. We’re talking about the barebones standards of writing in a mundane way that is magical in practice. Today, I want to talk about something that has many answers, and none of them are wrong.

Do you write longhand, or do you type your writing?

No, let’s narrow that down a bit. Because there are just some parts of the writing process that are not going to work in one medium or the other. A second draft cannot be handwritten in my opinion. And while there can be a healthy debate about that, I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that by a third draft you should really be clacking keys. Though if you’ve got an argument for that please let me know in the comments because you are clearly a fascinating individual. Or you’re a time traveler from the past.

So let’s narrow this down to just the first few steps of your book. The brainstorming and rough draft steps. Now, I’ve written rough drafts on paper, and I’ve written them right into Word. Both have pros and cons, so let’s talk about them.

On paper

This is how I started, and how I think most writers my age or older stared. Writing a rough draft on anything else but paper. I think Stephen King wrote his rough drafts on an old typewriter. But he also says he wasn’t super prone to typos in his book, On Writing.

I am super prone to typos. And I didn’t have a typewriter. So I write in college ruled notebooks.

I still prefer to write my rough drafts in notebooks. There are several reasons for this.

One, of course, is the issue with typos. I know it doesn’t matter in a rough draft, but I can’t stop myself from going back and fixing them. Writing on paper allows me to ignore the mistakes and just keep on flowing.

Another is that I can take a notebook anywhere. And when I’m in the rough draft zone, I might well take the damn thing anywhere. Yes, I can do this with a laptop, but I don’t drive. And when you’re walking or riding the bus, a laptop can get heavy.

Or get broken.

Writing on paper has a lot of aesthetic benefits for me. There’s a reason I called my blog Paper Beats World. I love paper. I love watching pages stack up with story on them. I love filling a blank page with ink.

More than anything though, I write on paper because my brain works best when I do.

Likely from years of habit, my creativity comes out most on paper with pen. I can scribble, work out problems and figure out what’s going on in my mind when I have a pen in my hand. So, because this is what my muse works best with, it’s what I lean towards.

On PC

All that being said, I have written rough drafts on my computer. Well, on Dabble to be specific.

There are many good reasons to do this. For one, it costs no money. Well, for me it costs my Dabble subscription. But I’m going to keep paying that anyway. So it cost me no additional money. And you can always write on Google Docs or Libre Open Office.

There’s also the fact that my rough drafts written on pc are legible. Like, the whole way through. I have terrible handwriting, and it gets worse when I get excited and start writing fast. I have definitely gone through some handwritten rough drafts and just written big question marks on pages. I just had no idea what I’d written in a fit of creative passion.

Another thing that’s nice about writing your first draft on pc is that you’re not going to have to rewrite as much of it. Well, you might not have to rewrite as much of it. When I type my second draft, I have to literally type every word. When I write a rough draft on pc, I can just copy and paste anything worth keeping. If there’s anything worth keeping.

There is also the matter of speed. I can write pretty fast, but I can type almost as fast as words come to me. Even if you aren’t a fast typist, you probably still type faster than you write.

When you don’t have a ton of time, getting words down fast can be a necessity.

Built in spell checks don’t hurt either.

Finally, there is something incredibly satisfying in watching a word-count rise. Especially right now during Nanowrimo. I have been loving the little ticker at the right hand side of my screen. It makes my little Type A heart happy.

What’s worked best for me, after years of trying and testing, is a combination of the two. I write brainstorming and notes, then the rough draft, on paper. The second draft goes onto my pc, as do all other drafts that come after. And I, and my muse, are happy with this.

But now I want to hear what you think. Do you write your rough drafts on paper, do you start at your pc, or do you do something totally different? Let us know in the comments.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what we do, please consider supporting us on Ko-fi.

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An overdue conversation

A long time ago, I wrote a blog post about living a more healthy lifestyle. At the time it was Summer, I was on a big healing kick, and very excited about a new app and dieting system I’d just started.

I’m not going to say the name of the app, because I don’t want to get sued. I also want to point out that my opinions are my own, and this is all based on my own experiences. If you’ve used that app and it helped you, that’s fantastic.

That being said, I am really sorry that I ever recommended that app, and I hope none of you downloaded it. First of all, it was way too expensive for what I was getting. Second, it turns out calorie counting is bad for you.

I actually stopped using the app shortly after writing this post. I kept some healthy habits, though I’m bad at keeping up with them. But I gained some healthy habits after getting rid of that app.

I ate until I was full, and didn’t worry about the calories.

I got rid of my scale and measured my health based on how I felt.

I hadn’t even thought about this for years until I started hearing about the damage done to people with eating disorders by this app.

And I honestly feel so bad. The last thing I’ve ever wanted to do was hurt someone with advice. As someone who’s never had a serious eating disorder, I had no idea how much this could negatively impact someone.

Then I watched this episode of Some More News.

Then I watched this video with Micky Adkins.

I know better now, and I can do better now.

Yes, writers need to worry about our health. But, health means all your health, including emotional.

I am not the person to talk in-depth about this. I am a writer, not a therapist or a nutritionist. But here’s what I can tell you.

I feel a lot better since I’ve stopped counting calories and started eating what makes me feel good. I feel a lot better since I’ve thrown my scale away. I feel a lot better since I move my body in fun ways, like walking Oliver, instead of feeling like I have to do boring things I don’t want to do.

I planned this post for today for a very specific reason. We’re now smack dab in the holiday season. And that means food, less time, more activities, more family commitments, food, food, and more food.

It also means that some of us are going to be around people who want to give us their opinions on the food we are eating or not eating.

So this holiday season, I invite you to listen to your own body when it comes to food. Not your social media feed, not some app that tells you to only eat 1,500 calories. Not some judgemental mother-in-law. You are an adult. You know what food makes you feel good and what makes you feel sick. Honor yourself. You deserve to enjoy all of the lush, wonderful things the holidays offer. You deserve to eat when you’re hungry until you are full.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what we do here, you can support us on Ko-fi.

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