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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
Don’t Look Up is a movie that’s been getting a lot of flack. Written by David Sirota and Adam McKay, this dark comedy has been panned by critics and reviewers all over the place.
If you saw the movie as I did, then read the reviews, as I did, you might have gotten a chuckle from them. Because I swear, they might have come right out of the film. It’s almost like the writers knew exactly what they were talking about. It’s almost, almost like they wanted to hold a mirror up to America in the desperate hope that we might see exactly how stupid and suicidal we’re all being.
This isn’t a review of the movie. Yes, you should watch it because it’s funny. But you should also watch it because it’s honest.
The premise of the movie is simple. A comet is going to hit Earth in six months and kill everyone. Two scientists, named Randall and Kate, discover it and try to warn the president. But things get complicated fast. The president, played by the historically amazing Meryl Streep, doesn’t care to do anything about the comet. Until it hurts her politically.
So let’s talk about climate change.
At this point, I assume most of the people reading this are pretty liberal-minded. So I’m going to talk to you the way I need to be talked to.
We have got to stop being performative and start insisting upon real changes.
What do I mean by this? I mean attack campaigns against people using plastic straws. I mean believing that buying less plastic on a personal scale is going to save the penguins. I mean posting Instagram pics of the sweet new reusable paper towels you bought. (They’re called washcloths.) All of these things are the product of marketing campaigns intended to prey upon our good intentions. And they do not do a damned thing.
We don’t do these things because we’re bad people. We do them because they feel like action. Because they feel like something we can control. And the people who are responsible for boiling our seas and burning our forests laugh at us while we do it.
Do you know what’s going to help fight climate change? Electing people into power who are going to fight for real, sweeping changes right now. Protesting companies who pollute our world. Protesting politicians who write laws that let them. Shutting down fossil fuels right now, not in five years. We need to vote. We need to run for offices. We need to educate ourselves about who’s doing the damage. And we need to make it clear who those people are. Call them out on social media. Say their names. Educate others.
While we talk about climate change, let me be clear about who I am and where I come from. I’m from Western Pennsylvania. There’s a lot of coal here. And a lot of fracking here, too. When I say we need to do something about climate change, I understand what this will mean for my community. My neighborhood, my beloved hometown. I’ve compared my town to a racist uncle that never forgets my birthday. I love it and hate it at the same time. But I need to be clear about this. I care about this place. I care about the people who live here. I don’t want them to lose their jobs, their livelihoods, their homes. Trust me, enough broken souls are haunting this place already. I am fully aware that shutting down fossil fuels might very well mean the death of my hometown.
But here’s the choice we’ve got, folks. We can do what is needed to stop climate change, and we can do it right God damned now. Or we can suffer the consequences. And I do mean we.
Not our grandchildren. Not our children. We are dealing with rising temperatures right now. You don’t have to believe me. Believe your own eyes. Believe what you can see right in front of you.
Well, 2021 is almost in its grave. And good riddance to it. I for one am hopeful that 2022 will be a better, brighter time.
Whether it is or not, we’ll have better, brighter content here on Paper Beats World. I’ve got lots of exciting plans for the new year. But before we get to that, let’s indulge in our annual look back. Here’s a list of the top ten most popular posts of 2021. I’m always surprised by this list. But I’m thrilled that I might have helped you learn something.
A lot of this series ended up on the list, but I put them all together. This was a really fun series to research and write. I’m glad it helped so many of you.
Still so proud of this post. It honestly might be the best one I’ve ever done.
So that’s it. Another year down. If you have any requests for posts or topics you’d like to see me cover here on Paper Beats World, let me know in the comments. We’ll be back with new content next week. I hope you all have an awesome New Year.
It’s Christmas Eve. I’m going to the day job today, but that’s alright. I help people at my day job. Not a bad way to spend the day.
Later today there will be celebrations. We’ll have a nice dinner and open crackers. We’ll watch Elf and play games. Then we’ll go to bed early. Not because we’re eager for Santa’s arrival, but because I’ll be up bright and early to be at the day job again on Christmas Day.
I had Yule off, so it’s not a big deal.
There’s lots of excitement to come over the next 48 hours. Lots of fun, lots of food and wine. It really is the best time of the year.
I hope that you have a beautiful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I hope that your Yule was wonderful if you celebrate it. If you celebrated Hanukkah early this month, I hope that was great. I hope that your whole month was great.
And I hope that, even if it wasn’t, you give yourself some time today and tomorrow to just enjoy life. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, everything is shut down so you might as well take some time for yourself.
Read a book, enjoy something indulgent, watch a movie with people you love. Don’t suffer people you don’t care for. Play with your kids, your pets, your friends, your partner, your co-workers. Make someone laugh today. Let yourself be a kid. Do what you love most, as much as you can.
Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Have a beautiful day.
It’s that time again. With just a few weeks left of 2021, it’s time to look back with fondness at the good this year brought to us.
I mean, there’s not a lot of good. This year was another dumpster fire from start to finish. But at least I had lots of good books to read.
So today I want to share with you the top ten best books I’ve read in 2021. Most of them didn’t come out this year, it’s just the year I got around to reading them. And if you haven’t read them yet, 2022 might be the year to do so.
The books are listed from least to best. I’m not going into a lot of detail about any of these books, because either I reviewed them here or on Haunted MTL. Or, I’m going to.
Velvet was the nightby Silvia Moreno-Garcia
I think this is the weakest of her novels so far, and it’s still on my top ten list. That should tell you something about her other books.
Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva
I said this last week, but it bears repeating. This is Silva’s first book. I am just blown away.
Mr. Mercedesby Stephen King
This book is clever, dark, and disturbing. So, you know, it’s a King novel. Keep an eye out on Haunted MTL for my review.
Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Dexter was a mood for me this year.
Ms. Peregrins School for Peculiar Childrenby Ransom Riggs.
This whole series was fantastic.
The Halloween Treeby Ray Bradbury
If you haven’t read this book, go get it right now and read it.
Savage Legion by Matt Wallace
I have the second book in this series sitting on my desk staring at me. I cannot wait to get my hands on it. But, you know, life.
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This was a real treat. I just got lost in it.
Lovecraft Countryby Matt Ruff
I read this during a vacation in Spring. It was delightful.
The Ocean at The End of The Laneby Neil Gaiman
Gaiman has the amazing ability to write fairy tales for adults that scare the hell out of me and make me feel like a little kid again at the same time.
So that was it for my list this year. Now I want to hear from you. What was the best book you read in 2021? What are you most excited to read in 2022? Let us know in the comments below.
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