Holiday writing blues

Graphic by Peg Ihinger

November is possibly the second-worst month in which to start a new novel. I’d peg December as the worst one, for the same reason: everyone is always extra busy and distracted during the end-of-year holidays. (These are also bad months for trying to finish a novel. In fact, neither one is a particularly good month for writing.)

This is because the period between Halloween and New Year’s Day is crammed with holidays, celebrations, and remembrances, no matter what country you’re from or what religion you follow (or don’t). Many of them involve special, once-a-year meals with family and/or friends, as well as special, once-a-year activities. Both things disrupt regular routines and suck up time and energy that could normally be devoted to writing.

Writers I know generally take one of two approaches to this issue: Either they cling grimly to their normal writing routine (whatever that is), or they deliberately and consciously take time off (how much depends on the writer) so they don’t have to deal with one more thing on top of holidays.

Both approaches have their merits and their downsides. The trick, as always, is deciding which will work best this year, for you. Because what works often changes from person to person and year to year. Some of what changes is under the writer’s control; other things are not.

That massive ice storm that cut power for ten days in the middle of the holidays means, at the least, that the writer will have to switch to pencil and paper for any writing, which slows progress for most people. If there are family get-togethers and ancillary problems like burst pipes and rapidly thawing freezers, time and energy will have to be spent on coping, further diminishing potential writing time. Those for whom writing is a coping mechanism may find it worthwhile to keep up a few minutes of daily work as stress-management (though even for them, there can come a point where trying to squeeze in anything else is more stress than it’s worth). Those for whom writing is already stressful may benefit more from guiltlessly dropping the effort to keep writing in favor of the effort to get their life back on track.

Sometimes, people cause their own problems. At the start of a new year, quite a few people decide “This year, I’m going to finish my book!” Which is a fine thing, except that it implicitly sets January 1 of next year as the self-imposed deadline. This almost inevitably results in the writer spending the last two months of the year either scrambling to finish all the work they put off, or agonizing about spending time at holiday events instead of scrambling to finish. Either way, the self-imposed deadline doesn’t get met.

A wiser choice is to set any self-imposed deadlines for one’s birthday (or half-birthday, if one was born between November 1 and January 31). Or pick a random date that avoids known “busy times” such as exam week, the month before/after any wedding you’re involved in planning, that annual family vacation/reunion, the week you’re having your bathroom/kitchen remodeled, and so on.

Deciding how to handle writing time during the holiday season is, like the holidays, an annual event. The first consideration is one’s personal rhythms and known preferences. A writer who knows that their work loses momentum easily and goes cold after a week will probably want to keep at it during the holidays (though perhaps at a slower pace than normal). Introverts may need to write as an escape from the relentless socializing in real life. Page-a-day writers may get irritable if they don’t get their fix.

Extroverts, on the other hand, may need a break from their rather solitary writing routine. Burst writers may simply prefer to schedule their annual month of sixteen-hour-days-at-the-computer for some other time of year—February, maybe (it’s a short month…) Some writers get great gouts of psychic energy from getting out and celebrating for a month straight, which fuels them for the next six months. Others get the same kind of energy from simply taking a guilt-free annual break. (Writers are allowed to take vacations that are totally not writing-related.)

External circumstances include things you can’t control, like ice storms, editorial deadlines, breakdowns of vital machinery (cars, computers, major household appliances, furnaces), accidents, health emergencies, and so on. They also include things you can control, but either consciously chose not to (taking that trip to spend New Year’s in Paris was just too tempting…), or forgot to keep track of (you didn’t realize you’d accepted six dinner invitations, three holiday cookie-baking get-togethers, five “holiday special event” invitations, and a partridge in a pear tree until you got around to putting them all on your calendar…).

Things you can’t control just have to be coped with. Sometimes, that means cutting back on writing time (the same as if the emergency/event happened at some other time of year). Feeling stressed about emergencies is normal; there is no need to add to it by feeling guilty about not writing. There is also no need to add to stress by feeling guilty about doing your writing, especially if it helps you cope or makes things feel a little more normal.

Things you consciously chose…well, sometimes, the answer is obvious. You knew when you scheduled that Paris trip that it was a once-in-a-lifetime vacation; treat it that way. Assuage your guilt by keeping a trip journal, but don’t feel guilty about not working on your fiction while you’re away. Other times, it’s a learning experience. If you’re determined to write, you’ll have to cancel some of your engagements and resolve to do a better job of keeping track of your schedule next year. Or, you can just accept that this year, you’re taking your writing vacation in December.

It all comes down to this: You are allowed to choose to take time to write during the holidays. You are also allowed to choose not to write during the holidays. Make the choice deliberately, based on what works for you, in your circumstances.