"Me and the kids were going to spend Labour Weekend at the Nelson Arts Festival, then that got scaled right back, then one in Christchurch was postponed.
"A few things haven't gone according to plan, but I've been getting through what I need to do at work and I'm hoping to have a bit of time next year to get back into more creative stuff."
What that creative stuff might look like is still to be fully pinned down, although a bunch of projects are in the works.
There would always be a trade-off between financial security and creative endeavours, Beautrais said.
"The one thing I really want to spend more dedicated time on is writing some essays, and if you're doing that kind of things it's good to do a lot of reading around your topic.
"I guess with poetry and fiction you can just sit down and write whatever comes into your head, but with non-fiction you do need to know what you're talking about."
As for the art of the short story, Beautrais said, like anything, it took hard work and practice.
"Behind every successful story there are all the attempts at writing stuff.
"With music, you need to listen to music to know what it sounds like. To be able to write you need to read books.
"You will fall on your face a lot, and in painful ways. It's a 'high rejection' kind of field, and that's something a lot of people find difficult when they get into creative writing."
Dealing with reviews, whether good or bad, was another thing a writer had to contend with, Beautrais said.
"Sometimes the bad ones help you to see your weak spots. Even if you don't agree with all the criticism you can see where the reviewer is coming from.
"A bad review is better than no review. A really disappointing thing for a lot of New Zealand writers is that their work doesn't get reviewed at all.
"I think getting mixed reviews is the best scenario, really. If everyone says it's great I feel something's probably gone wrong."
Beautrais will be at the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts on March 5 and 6 next year.
