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.
Can you tell I’m already exhausted?
Sad part is, in my Grinch-like state, I’m forgetting why we do all this mad stuff.
This year, my holiday list is different.
- Decide what brings joy to my family/friends/self and bring about more of this.
- Identify what provides the least amount of joy and cut back on this.
- Schedule writing into my calendar.
For me, what usually tops my ‘New Years Resolution List’ after the holidays, is my wish to carve out more time for my writing. I write in the crevices, not even the cracks. Imagine that cliff face, beaten down and carved out from centuries of weather and that tiny crevice travelling between immobile, massive chunks of mountain rock. The rocks are my family time, mealtime, work time, chore time, and sleeping. That crevice is where I attempt to squeeze my writing. Like now, huddled in my car, now mobile office, console turned desktop, drafting my blog. I write during my daughter’s skating lessons and while my son dresses for hockey. I get up to write before ‘not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse’ and then start my regular day.
For this holiday season, I’m gifting myself time for what brings me joy—writing. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Hallmark Christmas movie while I’m folding laundry, I relish the warmth of the fire, and romantic Christmas lights… but this year, I’m going to be writerly selfish. Some may even call me the Grinch. I’m going to bring my writing out of the crevices and plunk my desk up on top of that cliff face to make time to write.
I’m living my life through google calendar. My work schedule sets the stage and then I add hockey games, medical appointments, dinner plans and concerts. This season, instead of looking back and cursing at what I haven’t done, I’m going to put writing blocks onto my calendar.
Writing events are easy; dinner with writing friends, a critique group writers meeting, that course to freshen up my new manuscript query. So, why not add my goals and book the time to write that blog, draft my Christmas letter, polish those pages for my edit in January? I’m going to break daunting challenges up into achievable small chunks. I can’t possibly cut 10,000 words at once (at least without crying a bunch). However, if I can cut 500 words a session… then I only need 20 small chunks of time.
I’m going to let the unimportant things go! As a child, I couldn’t fathom why adults grumped and complained, got cranky and laughed less during the holidays. I’m beginning to understand. Without some forethought and planning, I could easily miss the true meaning of the season.
I don’t want to be the Grinch.
With a little planning, I’m hoping this Christmas season will be joyous and merry and that I’ll grow as a writer and maybe, just maybe, Santa will bring me some good querying news under the tree.
