Learning is my happy place

Class is in session and man, it's fun

Last time, I dove into the question, “Is it burnout or creative evolution?”

I really loved the discussion in the comments (thanks for that!), and the topic definitely sent me down a (good) rabbit trail. I know most of you who follow this newsletter probably also follow my main author newsletter. But in case you don’t, last week I wrote this post:

Have I hit peak nerdiness? Yes, yes I have.

In the post, I talk about making a syllabus for yourself in order to either tackle a topic you want to learn more about or to use as a goal-setting framework. I then shared the two syllabi I made for myself: Roni’s Modern Horror Writing 101 and Roni’s Horror Film Study 101. You can see screenshots of the syllabi in the post linked above, but basically, I have assigned myself novels, craft books, and films to study and have designed a timeline for those things.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, I’m two weeks in, and I just wanted to share what a joy it has been to dive into this! If burnout is a rusted-out old car with a dead battery, I have just left that car on the side of the road and bought a whole new one. Maybe not a shiny new sports car yet, but a reliably pleasant sedan with good air-conditioning. (How far will I drive this metaphor into the ground? ←drive, heh. Okay, I’m done.)

So what have I been doing exactly? Well, I have read a few books (both fiction and craft-focused) from the writing syllabus and watched a few movies from the film syllabus. For each, I’ve written detailed responses/analyses using these templates that I made in the Day One app:

Novel Template

Movie Template

It’s not rocket science, but going through this process has gotten me thinking about stories again in a way I haven’t in a long time. It’s giving me “energy pennies” (in Becca Syme speak) not just because it’s fun, but because it’s bringing me back to that “beginner’s mind” place again.

I’m at my most inspired when I’m learning. It makes me want to play with ideas and experiment—things I haven’t been excited to do in a while. (By the way, this isn’t me announcing I’m writing a horror novel. I’m not writing anything yet. But the gears are at least turning again, and who knows what type of story or mashup of genres will come out the other side?)

So, I wanted to share this even though I’m still in the beginning stages of this project because maybe it might give one of you ideas about what fresh things you could inject into your creative life—especially if you’ve been dealing with burnout. Is there something you would be excited to learn about? A new technique? New subgenre? New type of story or format?

What could make writing fun for you again?

Because that’s really the ultimate question, right? Most of us had fun with our writing at some point. Maybe you still are and can ignore this post. But many of us, especially those of us who’ve been publishing for years, lost that somewhere along the way—or the fun only pops up in fleeting moments now. There’s got to be a way to reconnect with that current of creative energy, but maybe it’s in a new zone that you haven’t explored yet.

Thoughts? Questions? I’d love to hear what your syllabus would be about if you made one!