Month: February 2026

Why The Witch’s Name Works

Recently, I received an ARC (Advanced reader copy) of the revised The Witch’s Name, by Storm Faerywolf. Originally published in March of 2022, the revised edition is launching on March 10th.

A name is something that we writers will think a lot about when it comes to our characters. But what about our own name? It’s not something we’re given a lot of say over. What if we got to choose our own?

Now, I understand that a lot of you are not here for witchcraft content. But stick with me. For one thing, The Witch’s Name is a great example of a well-written nonfiction book. But it’s also a topic that I think more people should consider, whether your life is mundane or magical.

Let’s discuss.

Passion for the subject

Let’s start with Storm’s writing voice. It’s clear in reading this book that the topic of chosen names is one that is of great importance to him.

Which makes sense. It’s an important subject to me as well. It feels like it should be an important subject for a lot of people.

If you’re going to write a work of nonfiction, it needs to be about something that really matters to you. Something that you really, really care about.

Writing a book takes a long time. We know this. And in order to come to the page every day, you need passion. You need discipline, sure, but discipline and passion work best when they work together.

Of course, it isn’t just about getting a book done. Passion shines through in writing. It makes any subject more interesting if the person telling you about it is passionate.

Research heavy

The Witch’s Name is a well-researched book. There is so much information in here about the history of names from different cultures. About the many different ways a name might change according to different faiths and disciplines. Then, of course, there’s the in-depth information about many famous witchy names.

(I’d add to this information that Mormons are given new names when they’re married in the Temple. But it’s very impersonal and chosen at random.)

Let me tell you, I love to see a witchcraft book that is so amazingly researched! I love to see fellow practitioners putting in the work!

Part of being a witch, for many of us, is indulging in a lifetime of study and learning. We need to understand the why of something. The when, the how.

I was fascinated by the different ways people may come to choose their own name or change their name. I was also fascinated by the many different ways we might come to find our own names. I was fascinated by the history of famous names. I learned so much. For instance, did you know there was a Roman goddess of door hinges? And that there were three total gods or goddesses of the doorway, making a doorwat trinity? That was so cool to learn!

Accessible tools!

It should surprise no one that I read quite a few witchcraft books. I also read magazines and blogs, and listen to podcasts. And one thing bothers me more than anything else when I’m consuming witchcraft content.

Here’s a hint: it’s the same thing that irritates me when I’m looking for recipes online.

I hate when a spell, ritual, or recipe calls for an ingredient or tool that I do not have and don’t know how to get. And so often this ingredient is just tossed out like everyone’s got it in the back of their spice rack.

“Here’s a quick and easy spell/recipe that you can do right now, with things you probably already have at home. Just grab some dill, a peacock feather, some ground flaxseed, distilled water from the Dead Sea, shards of non-lab-grown diamonds, the blood of a three-hundred-year-old man, and a large mixing bowl.”

There is nothing like this in The Witch’s Name. Every single ritual or spell requires simple things that are easy to come by. Candles of various colors. Simple rocks. A journal and a pen. And I am here for accessible tools!

Spicy therapy

Now, here’s where we get to the real reason I loved The Witch’s Name.

A lot of witchcraft is really just spicy therapy. Actually, a lot of the best witchcraft is spicy therapy.

Do I believe that witchcraft can influence the universe and tilt things in our favor? Yes. Do I also believe that the most powerful magic you’ll ever work is the magic you do on yourself? For sure.

The Wich’s Name is about so much more than choosing a name. It is about figuring out who you are. Or at least starting on the path to figuring out who you are, because that can be a lifelong journey.

Who are you? Not what do you do for a living. Not what are your hobbies or passions. Not who are you in relation to other people. Not what religion you are. Not what nationality you are.

Who are you?

This is a question I think we should all seek an answer to. Because everything else can be taken away. There may be a time in my life when I am not a wife, roommate, co worker, American. There might even be a day when I am not a Christian, writer or witch. And if all of those external descriptions were striped from me, who would I be then? At thirty-nine, I don’t know. But if you’d asked me before I read this book, I would have told you I did.

Why are we revising this so fast?

The Witch’s Name was fantastic. I really only had one concern.

Why did it get revised so fast?

The original text came out in 2022. That’s not that long ago.

I didn’t read the original version. So if you already have that book, I don’t know whether you should get this one or not. Personally, I always like to have the latest versions.

But if you didn’t read the original, I do recommend this one with my whole chest. I learned so much reading The Witch’s Name. And as I practice the rituals again, I think I’ll learn even more.

Now, I’m sure that as we close this out, you probably have one remaining question for me. Do I have a witch name? I do. And I highly encourage you to seek out your own. It’s incredibly empowering.

No, I’ll not be sharing mine. Names have power, after all.

If you want your own copy of The Witch’s Name, click here. This is not an affiliate link, nor was I paid for this review. I just had an arc thoughtfully gifted to me.

If you love what we do here and want to support Paper Beats World, please like and share this post. You can also support us financially on Ko-fi.

Want to start of the year with a free book? Check out Seeming, book one of Station 86.

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Maybe we should do emergency planning?

Here’s something you might or might not know about Mormons. Or, as they prefer to be called, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are really big on emergency prepping. Specifically, keeping emergency food stores.

I was raised in the Church. And while my family didn’t go overboard, we did always have a little bit extra around. Extra batteries, extra canned veggies.

When I visited the homes of my church friends, they’d have basements full of canned or preserved food. Around here in Western PA, where the Mormon traditions blend with Appalachian common sense and know-how, lots of women garden and preserve produce. If you want a great deep dive about Mormons and emergency planning, check out this video from Alyssa Grenfell.

Now, I didn’t walk away from the church so much as I put on running shoes and took the hell off. But as I go through my healing journey, I’m learning that not everything I was taught as a child was bad. For instance, emergency prepping and food storage are sensible practices.

If a bad storm hits, you’re going to be happy you have some extra food, candles and batteries. But having a food storage also allows you to bless your community in times of great need. Like when people weren’t getting their SNAP benefits last November. It will also be a blessing to you if you lose your job or if a surprise gas bill wipes out half your paycheck. Then, of course, there’s the ever-present fear of ICE invading your community and making it unsafe to leave your home if your skin happens to be brown or black.

But Nicole, you might be saying, this is a writing and book blog. Food storage doesn’t have anything to do with ghosts, dragons or spaceships. Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Much like you can’t write your stories if ICE kills you, you can’t write your stories if you’re starving. So, let’s get started.

Make a plan

Everything starts with a plan. And for this project, we’re going to start with a list of things you’ll eventually buy for your emergency storage. This can include anything that you might need, but I recommend starting with food.

And I mean food that you won’t mind eating in case of an emergency. Food that your whole family will eat. For instance, most people have dried beans in their food storage. I don’t, because the Darling Husband wouldn’t eat them if we were starving.

I started by making a spreadsheet in Notion. But any spreadsheet software will work. Even a cheap notebook will work.

In the first column, write a list of things to buy for your emergency storage. Everyone’s needs are very different, so my list might not be the same as yours.

If you need a list of suggestions, there are a million online from people far smarter than me. However, one category that I think gets overlooked is spices.

Frankly, some people who look like me could also use a reminder that spices exist in everyday life. Cayenne, curry, cumin, red pepper. All of these are good additions that will be well-appreciated when and if the time comes. I also suggest salt, an extra pack of playing cards, and powdered milk.

Now that we have all of that in our spreadsheet, time to move into column two. In here, we’re going to write down how many of these items our family will need within a time frame. I suggest starting with one week and moving up from there as you grow your food storage.

Column three is where we’re eventually going to keep track of how many of these items we have on hand.

And finally, column four is where we’re going to keep track of expiration dates for these items, if they have them. All food goes bad eventually. So as you’re keeping your food storage and growing it, you’ll want to occasionally weed out things that are about to expire.

Start small

Now, I don’t want you to be overwhelmed. Because I have good news. Once you’ve made your spreadsheet, the hardest part is over. Now, you just have to start slowly getting the items on this list. You do not have to buy everything on your list all at once.

Let me say this louder. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY EVERYTHING ON YOUR LIST ALL AT ONCE.

Nor do you need rows and rows of shelving units in your basement to hold all of this. I am just starting this process myself. Right now, my emergency storage looks like one bag of rice, some packets of instant mashed potatoes and a gallon of water, all tucked in a reusable shopping bag in the corner of my dining room.

Think of it like writing a novel. (See, I can always work things back to writing.) You’d never think to sit down and write an entire 50,000 + word rough draft in a day. You write a thousand words, or 500 words. The words add up until you finish your story.

Every time I go grocery shopping, I try to grab one or two things for the food storage. A tub of oatmeal here, a bag of rice there.

Slowly but surely, it all adds up.

And yes, it’s true that an emergency might happen at any time. But any amount of food storage is better than nothing. If tomorrow I lose my job, at least I know I’ve got a few meals’ worth of rice and mashed potatoes standing between me and my family going hungry.

Some bigger items you might consider

Now, if you happen to have some extra money, or if you’re the sort who likes to ask for practical gifts, I do have a list of suggestions. These are some bigger ticket items that will sure come in handy if things go south. I don’t actually have any of these items yet, but I have plans to get them.

– A battery-powered hot plate

– A good first aid kit

– A battery-powered lantern

– A blow-up mattress complete with extra bedding

– A generator

I am sure there are more things to be added to this list. I’d love to hear them in the comments.

Don’t be scared, be prepared

Remember, the point of all of this is not to live in fear. It is, in fact, the opposite.

Things happen in life. Things you never see coming. My God, things you never imagined living through just sneak up on you like fog at night.

Is having a well-stocked food storage going to protect you from everything that might go wrong? Of course not. But knowing that you’ve done what you can is a comfort. Whatever happens, at least you won’t go hungry. And at least you’ll be able to write about it.

I’d love to hear what you think. Is there a crucial item I’ve left off my emergency planning list? Let me know in the comments.

If you love what we do here and want to support Paper Beats World, please like and share this post. You can also support us financially on Ko-fi.

Want to start of the year with a free book? Check out Seeming, book one of Station 86.

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I participated in the Great Witch Lock In

Late last year, you might have seen #Lockin all over social media. Or, maybe I just spend way too much time on social media and notice these things.

The premise of the lock-in was simple. Gen Z decided to spend the last four months of 2025 locking in on a specific goal. That goal was different for every person. What the goal was wasn’t important. What was important was the focus of the person reaching for that goal.

After seeing the hashtag all over, my interest was more than piqued. And then, as though someone was looking out for me, one of my favorite witchy people on social media answered my questions before I even asked them.

Aunt Carla.

If you’re witchy or artsy and you don’t know her, get to know her now. You will not regret it.

After some careful consideration (not really), I decided to lock in on my writing. And let me tell you, it was amazing. I wrote more than I’ve written all year. I wrote microfiction and poetry to share with you all on social media. I wrote almost every day, which has been hard for me while caring for the Darling Husband.

But it was so much more than that! It turns out that sometimes when the Universe sees you putting in the work, it rewards you. During my lock in, I got to give a speech about haunted houses at my local library. I found out about a mini SFWA convention and attended it. And someone tipped me a lot more than usual on Ko-Fi.

So today, let me tell you about some of the tools from the lock-in and why they helped me so much.

Starting the day with ritual

One of the first things you do in the Witch Lock In is to create a ritual to start your day. Mine was simple. I lit a candle, leafed through my notebook, and wrote down one to three things I was going to do that day to work towards my goal.

That little bit of attention and magic first thing in the morning helped me stay on track. Especially on days that felt too busy for me to breathe, I realized that I could do just a little. That was always better than nothing at all.

Collecting inspiration

One of the very first things you do in the Witch Lock In is create an Uncommonplace Notebook.

I loved this notebook. It was a place to collect and craft inspiration for my writing. I wrote song lyrics and quotes that made me feel good about writing and working towards my goals. I pasted in pictures that made me happy. I kept notes on messages I got during meditations. And every time I flipped through it, I couldn’t help but be inspired.

Problem solving

This last year, while I’ve been helping the Darling Husband heal from his stroke, it’s been way to easy to put my writing on the back burner. To throw up my hands and say, oh well. Another day I didn’t get any writing in. Guess this is just my life now.

But during the Lock In, I was doing something I used to know how to do. I was problem-solving.

Mind you, I always consider problem-solving better than ‘toughing it out’. Sure, I could write more if I forced myself to run on less sleep, or wrote when I felt like shit. But that’s not going to be my best writing, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be sustainable long term.

What works better is to solve problems. Solve the things that are keeping you from writing.

Is an hour too overwhelming? Write for half an hour, or just 15 minutes. Too tired after work? Write before. That sort of thing.

Productivity is morally neutral. If we can separate ourselves from guilt and focus instead on solving realistic problems, we can get a lot more done.

Side quests!

Focusing on one goal for four months was great. But it turns out that it’s a lot more productive to find other goals that A, bring you joy, and B, feed your main goal.

For me, that was finding whimsy and joy in life. Experiencing life in a way that brings me joy is, to put it mildly, fucking hard right now. But it can be done, and it feeds my writing.

This is something I hadn’t considered before. I tended to feel like if I was going to focus on one goal, I was to focus on just that goal. But no part of our life is in a bubble. Our job impacts our home life, impacts our craft, impacts our world view. So finding side quests that might depend on another area of your life will help prop up your lock-in goal.

So simple, but it was a game-changer for me.

So, why am I telling you all of this? It was last year, right? The time for locking in is over.

Well, here’s the nice thing about personal growth. It’s a personal journey that you can start at any time. Yes, lots of people enjoyed the community aspect of the Great Witch Lock in. But, I didn’t. I loved the prompts and Aunt Carla’s videos. But I worked this lock in alone. And I did great things I didn’t think I could do. I put my writing first and amazing things happened.

So you can start your own lock in right now, today. No prerequisites required. Just a determination to get one part of your life locked in.

If you love what we do here and want to support Paper Beats World, please like and share this post. You can also support us financially on Ko-fi.

Want to start of the year with a free book? Check out Seeming, book one of Station 86.

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Fallow Years

I’m here! I’m alive!

I’d understand if you were a bit concerned. Normally, I’m nothing if not consistent. Since 2014, I’ve rarely, if ever missed a week posting without warning. Let alone two weeks in a row.

January was tough. It was tough for everyone. I’m not going to belabor that.

Today, I want to talk about something I’ve alluded to a few times so far. Something that I have some real deep feelings about. Something that maybe a lot of other writers have gone through, or will go through.

I don’t have a book coming out this year. Not a new book, not a relaunch. Nothing is coming out this year. And honestly, I don’t know when my next book will come out.

Right now I have three books on my desk. I have one book that’s on its second draft, but I’m pretty sure the whole thing needs rewriting at this point. The other two books are in rough draft phase. And by that, I mean that one book has fewer than two thousand words written, and the other is a page in my sketchbook that’s mostly just vibes.

As always, I’m of two minds about this. The artist part of me is perfectly happy. I’m listening to my muses. I’m giving myself the time and space to write something great. I’m enjoying the process. I’m creating something I can be really proud of, no matter how long it takes.

The self-loving part of myself is also happy with this. I’m leaning into a caretaker season in my life. The Darling Husband is still healing from his stroke, so a lot of my time and energy is spent on caring for the two of us.

Writing is still a big part of my day. It always will be, God willing. But I have other commitments.

All that being said, the ambitious part of me is losing her fucking mind. And she’s got a lot to say.

Publish or perish! People are going to forget about you! People are going to move on and stop caring! Put something new and fresh in front of your audience right now, or they’re going to jump ship.

I know this isn’t true. I know that fans will wait for the ending of a story. God knows I do.

My inner critic is never louder than my ambition monster. In some ways, that’s good. I don’t have a lot of fear in hitting publish. In other ways, it’s terrible. I have a ticking clock, insisting that I publish something, even if it isn’t something I’m totally proud of.

All that being said, how I feel about this situation doesn’t really matter. It’s still the situation I find myself in. So, what am I going to do about it?

Well, for starters, I’m writing. The only way out is through, after all. These fallow years won’t end until I, you know, finish a book. So that’s my main focus. By the end of 2026, I want to have finished two rough drafts, and possibly one second draft.

I’m also going to try to post more microfiction on Instagram. I tried to post something every day for a year, and failed. But I’m going to try again soon. Microfiction and poetry are great ways to sneak in a little bit of creativity, even on the busiest days. And I like putting them together in an aesthetically appealing way. So, I’m going to try to post something every day for 365 days. Don’t know yet when that’s starting, but look for it soon.

I’m focusing on promoting the books I already have out. And there are quite a few of those. Station 86, Woven, Quiet Apocalypse. I have work out there, guys. And if you haven’t read it, it’s new to you.

Finally, I’m writing some short stories set in the Station 86 world. That way, fans have something new for now, while waiting for the grand finale.

I don’t know how well any of this will work. I’ve published or republished something almost every year since Broken Patterns came out. So, I’ve literally never done this before.

If you’ve experienced this, I’d love some advice. Please drop it in the comments below.

For those of you who are fans of my books, and not just my yapping about books, I want to let you know what I’m working on. There are more books coming, I promise!

First, of course, is the final Station 86 book. I have written so many rough drafts that didn’t work for this book. That’s one of the reasons I don’t have anything to put out right now. It’s slow. I don’t think the story is ready yet. But when it’s done, I want it to be the best book I’ve ever written. Sennett and Godfrey deserve that.

The other book, and the one I’m working on right now, is a little different.

Those of you who’ve been around a while know that I used to write for a horror site called Haunted MTL. I did reviews and sometimes wrote short stories. I also wrote a horror sci-fi podcast called AA. Last year, after writing and producing two seasons, Haunted MTL shut down. I was heartbroken for many reasons, not the least of which was that it meant there would never be another season of AA. I just don’t have the time or resources to put out that sort of thing on my own.

But the last season left so many questions unanswered! And I want to answer them, you guys. So, I’m doing the only thing I know how to do. I’m making a novelization of AA.

It’s probably going to have a different title. Can you imagine trying to search for that at Barnes & Noble? But yes, all questions will be answered. If you were a fan of AA and have some burning questions in mind, please feel free to drop them in the comments.

That’s it for today. I promise to be around more consistently and have lots of good things planned. Remember that art gets us through our darkest times, and we can all make art. See you next week.

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