Preventing Post-Holiday Writer’s Guilt

Christmas tree decorated by the kids.

Don’t panic, but there are only six days until Christmas arrives and only 12 days until the year ends. Holidays are approaching fast, and I realized I still haven’t achieved everything I wanted to this year. Now, I am worried about all the things I won’t get done over the holidays. 

Instead of stressing about the post-holiday writer’s guilt already, I decided to take a deep breath and plan to keep writing a couple of hours each day despite all the festive Christmas parties littering my calendar with work, family, and friends. My holidays will be packed full, but I have ten days off, and it would be great to make some progress on a writing project or two. Therefore, I need to figure out how to juggle the schedule to make sufficient time for work, family, exercise, writing, and a little bit of sleep.

Connecting with family and friends at this time of year is important, and fitting in the job stuff is required to pay all the bills, which is why making room for writing feels difficult and complicated.

So, if you are reading this and would like to prevent the post-holiday writer’s guilt, then check out my suggestions to help us achieve our writing goals together. 

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Call Me the GRINCH

Tis the season of stress. The season of hunting for that perfect precious gift while you get your elbows up to wrestle for that last sale item on your list. Not only do you need to tackle your regular laundry, dusting, vacuuming, dog walking, work and dishes… but now you need to clean your house before you can hang up those pesky decorations and Christmas lights (fit in the marital spat over the lights, apologize and then make up for your poor behaviour), drag out and dust off the ol’ Christmas tree, and then somehow remember to move the freakin’ Christmas Elf every night before bed. Read more

Practice make Perfect… eventually.

Oh yes, warm bagels from the oven!

I love bagels. I discovered the bagel when I was about seven years old. It was not a fling, nor a passing trend, like many other bread products, but a life-long love. New York or Montreal style, you ask? I must admit, I love them all. For me, the ultimate comfort food is a toast bagel with plain cream cheese.  

I decided that 2022 was the year that I would conquer making bagels. I had tried at various times in the past with meh results. 

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Fear

The theme of fear keeps popping up for me this month.  My spiritual teacher used it for a focus of discussion at the beginning of the month and I’ve been contemplating what my fears are and which ones I need to push through and which ones I need to honour. For instance, the old example of jumping off a cliff into water. I’m okay with not doing that. I don’t chase an adrenaline high. Maybe I’m missing out, but I generally don’t like falling. Perhaps I’m just a creature of comfort, but I also know I have to push outside my comfort zone to grow anything.

I’m also listening to the book, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence, by Gavin de Becker. He tells us how our bodies know when something’s wrong, it’s whether or not we listen to our own inner warning signals. The signs are always there even though people often say, I had no idea. Becker uses the example of our dogs, how they will react negatively to a person who wants to harm us in some way. The dog is not reacting to the stranger, the dog is reacting to you and the signals your body is giving. Often, in an effort to be polite, or nice, we override our own gut instincts getting us into trouble we could’ve seen coming. Read more

Reasons Why A Writer Might Be Obsessed With Pre-Ordering Certain Authors

Lately, I have become obsessed with pre-ordering my favourite author’s upcoming releases. I get excited about receiving the book on publication day (or close to it, depending on my delivery choice). There are some authors I love so much that they become an automatic buy for me, which means I pre-order the book the minute I know it is available to do so. It arrives several months later on my doorstep and ends up being a bit of a surprise (because I know it is coming, I just don’t know exactly when it will arrive). This is what makes me happy.

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Witchy Women

October 31st is All Hallows’ Eve. How could I resist writing about witches, my favourite symbol of Hallowe’en?  

A dark, violent history was the lot for many thousands of women who were condemned as witches over the centuries. Today, the rise of the feminine is countering the dominant negative stereotypes that have endured since then.

I have noticed an increase lately in the number of novels on bookstore shelves that have some form of the word Witch in the titles. Witching and witchery titles usually get a closer. A recent novel by author Bianca Marais included this epigraph on the cover: ‘Why were we taught to fear witches and not the men who burned them?’

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It’s All About Temperature

Photo credit with thanks to Sarah McCraw Crow. @sarahmcrow

Blink and their gone.

What am I referring to?

Fall leaves.

It seems that one day I’m trying to remind myself to appreciate the stunning red and yellow canopies and then suddenly, the trees are bare, and snow begins to fall.

Photo credit to Donna Curtin.

But I’m determined this year to slow the clock, to breathe in the leaves fermenting on the ground. Is that what makes that smell? Rotting leaves? Mold? Mushrooms? Some magical combination of rain, cold nights, and the sap draining from the trees and into the ground to hide away until maple syrup season? Read more