The Last Month Left To Write

It’s the last month left to write before the end of the year. Read our post for last month suggestions for writers.

The Last Month Left To Write

Well, the year is drawing to a close. Very soon, December will arrive. It will come sneaking in, quietly, almost unobtrusively. Without warning pine trees will appear in the lounge. You’ll wake up one morning to discover it has grown tinsel, and shiny baubles. This will trigger an emotional response in any human within a twenty-metre radius. Lists of items that other humans, especially those biologically related to you must be made, and these items secretly sourced.

Not many days afterwards, rolls of colourfully decorated paper will appear almost by magic on the dining-room table. Scissors, tape, ribbons of varied hues and substrate must be found. A frenzy of disguising the previously sourced items follows.

The very word, December, triggers another response in humans. This time – gastric. Food must be created and consumed in vast quantities. Quantities far larger than those consumed in the other 11 months! This consumption takes place in restaurants, the homes of the biologically related, sports clubs, places of worship, and the homes of those with whom humans have friendly relationships. There are Christmas fairs, carol concerts, school nativity plays, and prize-giving ceremonies to attend. And we still haven’t mentioned finishing projects at work.

It has been noted that all of this creates a certain amount of stress among the species. An extra burden of stress appears to afflict one particular portion of humans. Those who call themselves, ‘writers’.

These enigmatic creatures have been trained to believe that they must write every day. They must tap energetically on a plastic box that makes words appear on a bright rectangle in front of them. They must placate the muse! Writers are tormented by accounts of famous members of their club who, whether it is raining, shining, or snowing, whether there is lava flowing in the streets about to consume their homes, or a sky out of which are falling vampire sharks, manage to write ten-thousand words a day, every day.

There they sit, wracking their brains for moving descriptions, snappy dialogue, twisty plot developments that will drive their novel up the best-seller ranks, and at some nebulous time in the future, turn them into best-selling authors.

Now, all of that is true. Except maybe the rain of vampire sharks.

So, what is a writer to do?

Here Are 11 Tips To Help You Navigate December As A Writer

Do you have a publisher’s deadline that requires you to send them a finished manuscript on 1 January 2024? – Tell your family you love them and then book yourself into a B&B and write. Or…
Schedule smaller amounts of time each day to write; 30 mins after everyone’s gone to bed or before they wake up. If you do that already, you’re good. Keep doing it. Don’t be tempted to go beyond the time limit. Christmas, while it is a holiday, can be exhausting.
Is the only deadline that you have a self-imposed one? Pour yourself some Glühwein and reassess your writing plan. It’s Christmas. It only happens once a year.
Keep writing, but cut your daily word count to half, or a quarter.
Schedule in a writing cut-off time and date into your calendar. And stick to it.
Don’t write when fun, seasonal holiday stuff is happening – decorating the tree, buying, and wrapping presents, etc. And don’t use writing as an excuse to miss your kids’ nativity play, or your spouse’s choral recital, or office Christmas party – are those still a ‘thing’?
Take a ‘marinading break’ – let the story marinade in your sub-conscious for the duration. Your story, your readers, and your family will thank you. Don’t think about the book at all. There’s so much going on during Christmas, you will probably find this very easy.
Be present for your family and friends. Live in the moment. Don’t write, and don’t talk about writing. If you begin to feel jittery, schedule a lunch or a coffee date with other writers and then talk about the book and writing.
Keep a notebook handy for any marinading gems or questions that pop to the surface.
If in doubt, drink more Glühwein or hot chocolate.

The Last Word

If you don’t have family with whom to celebrate, write to your heart’s content. But don’t forget, it’s important to take a break. To step away from the work, for your health and the health of the story. Or…

Send out invites to other writers in a similar situation and have a literary-inspired Christmas celebration with them! It could be a themed Christmas. Dickens springs to mind, so do the Muppets. All presents must be literary in some way – notebooks, pens, brightly coloured Post-it notes, leggings with the text from Pride And Prejudice on them, mugs adorned with quotes from famous writers.
Indulge yourself with all things literary, except your own writing.
And curl up on the sofa and read books!

by Elaine Dodge. Elaine is the author of The Harcourts of Canada series and The Device Hunter. Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.

1 thought on “The Last Month Left To Write”

Anne
8th December 2023 at 1:19 pm

Love your style, Elaine. Indeed, way back when I was a young working mother, with two sets of parents (mine and my husband’s ) living in the vicinity, I did the whole Christmas thing. Tinsel and crackers, turkey and plum pudding, carefully selected gifts elegantly wrapped – all the preparations squeezed into a couple of hours after work each day. Back then, there was also the chore or buying, inscribing and posting Christmas cards – do you remember licking the stamps and sticking them on the envelopes. But now I’m 90, the parents and husbands (I had two – sequentially, not concomitantly) all gone; my son and his family living at the other end of the country; I sit back and relax, and watch other people trying to survive the frenzy. Oh, I do make a nod to Christmas. I have a little, ready-decorated tree, which I take out of its box and stand on the dining-table. It came with a set of flashing lights installed. And of course, Christmas cards have now been superseded by virtual e-mail greetings. Oh – I have bought a fowl to roast – it’s a tiny petit poussin the size of my fist – I’ll bung it in the air-fryer for about 20 minutes of so, and consume the whole thing. If I feel energetic, I’ll warm up some frozen peas in the microwave; maybe even chuck a potato into the air-fryer with the poussin.
No more sweating over a hot stove in the middle of an African summer for me.

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The Last Month Left To Write