A Day for Love (Monsters)

Every online journal I’ve had shares a similar post about Valentine’s Day.

About time this one followed suit.

Each year, I hear people say they don’t celebrate Valentine’s. Their reasons are typically one, it was started to sell greeting cards, or two, you shouldn’t need a day to celebrate love.

Here’s another take.

You don’t need to wait for the holidays to give gifts, eat candy, or play dress up, but many of us celebrate holidays where giving gifts, eating candy, and playing dress up are a big part. So why should love be any different?

Show some heart every day, and when Valentine’s comes around, consider showing it again and showing it more. And regardless of how it started (I believe the aforementioned beginning is a myth) or even if it’s become commercialized, you don’t have to spend money to express nice sentiments for another. Do it however feels best to you. Remember, there are worse things to celebrate in the world than a day of love—and it’s even more beautiful to think that millions might be celebrating it at the same time. Imagine what the world might be like, if we celebrated love together a little more often.

With that, I leave you with a monster doodle of love that cost nothing and was fun to make. We’ll call him Heartmouth, and he hopes you’ll join him in wishing others a Happy Valentine’s.

Monster Doodles

I’ve been doodling monsters.

I often doodle them to unwind. I’ll either grab a notebook and a pen or my iPad and Procreate and just start drawing. I treat the process like a first draft of writing, focusing on a smidge of an idea and seeing what lands on the page. If I’m using Procreate, I usually start with a pencil tool, then add a layer to go over it with a pen tool. Sometimes I add color, sometimes not, whatever I’m feeling in the moment.

These doodles are brief but wonderful escapes from the day, and I try not to worry about the finished product or making “mistakes.” They’re supposed to be messy and fun and offer a moment to not worry about “mistakes,” but let seemingly errant lines lead where they may.

You’ll likely see some of these doodles wind up on my site, like the guy on the homepage, and you can also see them on Instagram. I’ve reduced how much I use social media—I’ve virtually stopped on X after having to block and report over 100 bot followers, plus no longer being able to make much sense of my feed—but I realized that the little I was using the socials, I was opening Instagram for cats and art. That brought me small moments of joy, so I figured I’d play around there for a bit. The plan right now is to share doodles, book and movie reviews, likely some writing tips and tidbits, and anything else that feels fun. Say hi if you’re around those parts, and feel free to share your own monster doodles!

And with that, I’ll say goodbye with two colored versions of the homepage monster doodle. Find more on the gram (@mattisnotscary).