Blogger: Rachelle Gardner
No getting around it, the holiday season has arrived. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, families are gathering, and Christmas music will soon be playing. The joys, the stresses… here they come!
What does this mean for writers? I’ve noticed that this season often leads to frustration for people who work at home while also trying to juggle a busy life. The time available for your writing dwindles and you start to feel behind and get stressed that you’re not meeting your goals.
So I propose that today, or this weekend, you take a few quiet moments to make yourself a Holiday Plan. Let’s approach this time of year with a strategy that will take us through to January 4th with the least amount of stress possible.
How do you approach your Holiday Plan?
1. Look at the calendar. Try to accurately assess the amount of time you’ll have for your personal writing pursuits in the next month.
2. Divide that in half, and assume that’s how much time you’ll realistically have.
3. Set reasonable goals. Is it a word count? Is it simply to have a certain amount of time each week to enjoy writing, without having an expectation of results? A good goal for some people is “I will put away my WIP until January 4th, at which time I will come at it with fresh eyes and a renewed sense of energy.” The key is to set goals that are completely attainable given your life circumstance.
4. Make a plan of action. Schedule the writing time on your calendar, or alternatively, put Post-It notes on your desk or bathroom mirror reminding yourself of your writing hiatus.
5. Decide what you need to cut back. If you’re contracted for a book or article, and you have deadlines during the holidays or immediately after, then your Holiday Plan is even more important. You may need to cut back on some activities, or delegate more of your usual holiday tasks—cooking, cleaning, decorating, shopping.
6. Call in the reinforcements. Be realistic about whether you’ll need help to meet your goals. Do you need a babysitter? Do you need your spouse or older kids to take over some of the cooking or shopping? Do you need to solicit the help of extended family in making the holiday more manageable? Now is the time to think about it.
7. Avoid magical thinking. Don’t go into this season simply assuming that “somehow” you’ll get it all done. Make a plan!
You want to go into the holiday season with realistic expectations about what you can accomplish. The holidays are stressful enough without adding to it with impractical goals!
Tell us about your Holiday Plan. How will you handle the balance between your work and your life? What are your goals? Put your plans in writing and share them here!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
We will see you here at the blog on Monday.
P.S. I usually avoid obvious promotion here, but one of our Books & Such clients has a book that is incredibly helpful at this time of year: Get Yourself Organized For Christmas by Kathi Lipp.
TWEETABLES:
Writers, do you have a plan to get through the holidays? Click to Tweet.
Enjoy the magic of the holidays – but avoid magical thinking! Click to Tweet.
I lower my expectations: magazine-worthy decorations, amazing food and perfectly clean house, all exchanged for happy and good-enough.
A bundle of Thanksgiving blessings to my Books & Such friends!
Hi Rachelle,
I lost sleep praying and thinking how I was going to find time to work on my WIP. I love the story I’m writing, and there’s no way I can set it to the side until January. You’re post will help me not panic and stay realistic.
Thanks so much, and happy Thanksgiving!
Jackie, there’s little sweeter than loving your story so much you can’t wait to wake up to hug it! 🙂
Dear Rachelle, I can’t comment much on the above, but I do wish you, the team at BAS and all at Between the Lines, a blessed and wonderful thanksgiving. Forget not His benefits. P
Good stuff to think about, Rachelle. Women especially seem to impose great holiday expectations on themselves. I jokingly refer to it as the “Clark Griswold” effect. We want everything magazine perfect, which is unrealistic as it actually takes countless hours just to get everything perfect for that two page photo shoot. So, I learned the hard way that less is best. I also accept that writing will take a back seat until January. I still journal new ideas or changes I want to make to a WIP, but I never put them into action until later. I’ve actually found the holiday distractions can be a good way to clear my head from writing yet still promote new ideas.
I hope everyone has a blessed Thanksgiving.
The Holiday season is just like summer break for me, or any time my 3 active boys are home from school. It means I must revert to the writing schedule I held when my guys were little. To bed by 9:00 and up by 4:00 gives me plenty of time to write. It also means that in order to have a date night with my hubby where we stay up and watch a movie, I must write 6 days a week instead of 7. I will probably skip writing on Christmas morning but other than that, this schedule works well for me and I can dedicate the daytime hours to my busy family.
The holidays have no effect here – the house is a lifeboat, and the needs of the dogs trump everything. The fire[place has their sleeping crates gathered ’round, for some are old, and love the warmth (and yes, many like to sleep in crates, generally shared…they’re big crates).
* If I may, a commercial…please don’t forget the veterans who might be dealing with combat-induced PTSD during the holiday season.
* This time of the year makes it worse; the contrast between a killing ground and the “surely you’ll LOVE this!” of the season is jarring in the extreme, and there’s no ‘getting into the sing of things’. There’s withdrawal, and escape, and occasionally suicide.
* Be watchful and aware, please. The veteran edging toward the door may just need someone to open it for him, and hand him a jacket, so he can getaway from the merriment and look up into the stars and wonder why. He doesn’t need to be cajoled into the warmth and light. He may be more comfortable with an M4 in his arms than with the loveliest of dancing partners. I know I am.
* There is no fix; nothing that will cure the memories, and in truth, many probably don’t WANT them cured, because they are that which defines us, apart, and, arrogantly, a bit higher. We’ve seen beyond the veil, and part of the dichotomy of sorrow is the implicit wish that we were still fighting.
Third para, should have been “getting into the SWING of things”, though I guess ‘sing’ gets the message across.
Although he is not a veteran, one of my sons is in active service in the Navy. He gets lonely for family, I hear it in his voice even though the words are not spoken. A prayer for our military personnel is welcome. Thanks for the reminder, Andrew.
I usually try to get ahead of schedule. I make sure that I have all contracted articles written ahead of time. And I do. So I can breathe. That leaves me family time over the next month. And the last few years, it seems that’s when writing ideas come to me … in my free time.
And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! 🙂
Barb and I echo that, along with Sylvia, Ladron, Mochajava, Dukee, Humphrey, PITunia JezeBULL, Bella the Miracle Dog, Rapunzel, Red, Bray, Indie, Megan theTank, Josie, Reebok, Chris, Yoda, Daughtrie, Regis, Shelby, Rufus, Survivor, Duke, and Labby (the imaginatively-named Labrador). Oh, and Denali the Happy Husky.
Waves the Canadian flag.
You kids enjoy your day and remember to REST at some point during the day.
REST? Can’t find it in my dictionary, or my theserausaurus.
Okay, *everyone else* can rest. YOU just stay with us!!!!!
I’m going to try, Jennifer. But rest assured that if I don’t make it, your name, and the names of everyone here, will be presented to the Almighty with an action plan that will turn the literary world on its ear. And that plan will be implemented, because even in negotiations with the Almighty – I don’t back down, and I don’t lose.
I’m planning to work on a project for as many days as I can while the boys are at school. Once they come home, I’ll set writing aside until they go back on January fifth.
*I have blogs written to cover through Dec 15th, and a simplified idea for one for the 22nd. Then I think I’ll take a 2 week break for my blog.
*Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, Rachelle and the B and S ladies, and our special community!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, my Books & Such friends. Truly we should give praise to God for His abundant mercies He makes new every morning. I’ll be cooking and cleaning . . . The writing is on hold, but I will attempt to organize. Thanks for the suggestions, Rachelle.
In October I gave myself a gift, I took a personal writing retreat in my home (my teenage daughter was away on a hunting trip in Montana). I didn’t go anywhere or visit with anyone but spent three days by myself getting my manuscript in order. Wow was it wonderful. I wish I had the opportunity to focus like that more often. No interruptions at all, glorious. Grateful for this blog.
Grace is the key for you and for me.
But a good idea to get things somewhat planned. I, for one, try to get as much done as possible ahead of time. Christmas cards are signed already, even if the letter isn’t written. Address labels ready to go, stamps purchased.
Christmas presents?
Maybe next week . . . 🙂
Great advice, but that’s not unexpected from Rachelle. My plan for the holidays is to edit and polish what I’ve already written. That ought to sit well with my other holiday plans, which include a little nog, a little bubbly, and lots of connecting with and writing letters to old friends.
I never had a proper holiday plan and there were times, when everything happened the wrong way and other times – it went perfectly good. I’m glad I found this post on time this year and just pointed for myself some basic tasks. But it was quite enough to start moving things in the the proper way. I just finished with last cleaning task around and decorating is next . Thank you for your advises!