Time Management Tuesday: A Holiday Hell Project for Writers

In December, 2021, I went deep into something I called the Advent Project. I like the concept of Advent, because I like temporal landmarks, and Advent, being a roughly month-long season in the Christian liturgical calendar, is very much a temporal landmark. However, not everyone knows what Advent and the liturgical calendar are. Many Christians don't know what the liturgical calendar is. It occurred to me that calling it the Holiday Hell Project instead would not just be better communication in terms of people understanding it, but better communication in terms of what is actually happening here. We're talking about a project during Holiday Hell.

My legions of followers know that I have whined and complained about surviving December for years. And years. But that 2021 Holiday Hell Project kind of turned my life around. At least in December. I described how it came about back in February, 2022. That's not a story to brag about. But I was happy with how things turned out.

How Did Things Turn Out, Gail?

Well, what happened was that I accepted that I wasn't a writer who could write a lot during the month of December. It's all I can do to juggle writing and personal life during regular times of the year. Holiday Hell...I won't say it's beyond me. But it kind of is. And I am aware that I have it easy. Years ago, it wasn't unheard of for me to have a contractual deadline for a completed book draft in January, which meant some under-the-knife work in December. Yeah, that doesn't happen, anymore. Plus, I do not have to generate income in December. We're talking a privileged person here, and still I struggle to get to December 26.

So, in 2021, I accepted that I wasn't someone who could write a lot during December, but I could write some. The writing I did was short starts of flash and humor. And my goal was to do one every day. I found material in old writing journals. Some may have come from working files, things I'd started and revised during December, 2021.

• In 2021 I started 31 pieces. Eight of them were later completed and published. One has been completed and submitted.

That was a major success for me. I actually looked forward to 2022.

Things didn't go as well in 2022.

• I had only 15 starts. One was recently finished and submitted, though I must admit that I'd forgotten that I did anything with it in 2022 and started over again.

Last year, 2023, was a mixed bag, though I was excited about how things turned out. 

• I had 31 starts, but some of them were extremely brief with just a list of writing prompt questions to work on with them at a later time. One of them did become a traditional short story, though, and has been subbed a few times. It's out right now, in fact.

Are You Doing This Again, Gail? Because It Doesn't Look as If You Kept Up with This Very Well

Well, here's the thing. In December of 2022 and again in 2023, we had a family member waiting to have medical tests and/or waiting for results of medical tests. All resolved itself well, very well. But it's called Holiday Hell for a reason, folks. Even this year the cat just started two meds. 

But as Holiday Hells go, this year's is pretty copacetic, as a man I worked for when I was a teenager used to say. I am enjoying my Holiday Hell project this year.

In fact, I'm going through the starts from earlier years, seeing if there's anything I want to continue with. And by golly, there is. I haven't finished looking at the 2021 starts, and I've already moved six to this year. And there's a couple more I've got my eye on. Then there are the 2022 and 2024 starts to look at. And my writer's journal. And my filing cabinet. I suspect I won't even get to that, though.

I'm hopeful that what I'm doing this month will make it possible for me to hit the ground running in 2025 and bring a bunch of these starts to completion. Then start submitting them.

For me the Holiday Hell Project takes a lot of the work burden off December and leaves me feeling very positive about the upcoming new year. It's all good.

Except for that title, of course.

Time Management Tuesday: December! Still Another Temporal Landmark

You haven't been seeing much of me here, because I've been intently working on my National Novel Writing Month project, which I did, indeed, finish his past Sunday, five days early. As I've tried to make clear, I wasn't doing a traditional NaNoWriMo 50,000-word first draft. I was doing a revision of a completed manuscript that I think comes in around 80,000 words. Nonetheless, it is probably my most successful National Novel Writing Month effort.

Now, this fall I went on, and not for the first time, about the splendors of NaNoWriMo as a temporal landmark, a special occasion/calendar date(s) that mark out a period of time that's different from what came before, an event or period that creates an opportunity for a fresh start. (Paraphrasing myself there.) Damn if we don't finish the NaNoWriMo temporal landmark season then we head right into another. 

Advent/Holiday Season/End of Year

Whether you want to go all Christian and think of December as Advent or you'd prefer to think of it as the holiday season, because there is a boatload of them (the article linked to is from last year, so many of the dates aren't accurate for 2023), or just preparation for the end of the year, December makes many of us feel that it's different from what came before and most definitely different from what will come later.

Often that difference involves being overwhelmed, because even if we're not big holiday people, ourselves, our culture (capitalist culture?) loves them. Town events, school events, family events, musical events--the demands and distractions go on and on. Additionally, many day jobs may require end-of-the-year rushes, because even if the year's end isn't the end of the fiscal year, it's the end of the year. Come on, people, everyone knows that means something.

Writers In December

Writers, especially writers with day jobs or families or day jobs and families, who also have a contractual end-of-the-year writing deadline--congratulations! Though it's been a long time since I've been in this situation, I know it's going to be rough for you. I'm going to be honest and say that I don't have much advice to offer other than:

• The only way out is through.
• Nothing lasts forever.
• When this is over, think about some end-of-the-year life prep you can do in the future well before December to help if this happens to you again. 

For the rest of us, December may not be a good time to start working on a new novel or that history of women who received master's degrees in the nineteenth century. It may not be a good time to decide you must get up at five every morning to write or even to write two hours a day. Taking on big things when you're strapped for time is a good way to wreck your self-esteem and wrecking your self-esteem leads to failures of impulse control and once you're impulse control is shot, well, it's going to be difficult coming back in January.

That doesn't mean you should take the month of December off, either. December is a great time to work on small things that will help us next year and additionally support our identities as writers. Such as, Gail?

• Got a manuscript ready to submit? Researching agents takes time, but can be done in short bursts here and then. Prepare a list of agents you can submit that project to in January. 
• Do you write short pieces? In 2021 I spent the month of December just starting 31 short story or essay a day. That was one a day. Of those 32 starts, 6 have been completed and published. I started to do the same thing last year, but only made it to 15. Hey, but 15 starts. 
• Research for a novel or nonfiction! I love research! It's great for December, because, like researching agents, it can be done in bits and pieces whenever you can make time. 
• Reading markets, which is another way of saying researching markets, can also be done in odds and ends of time. I'm talking about reading print and on-line journals to see if they publish the kinds of things you write and would thus be a good choice for a submission next year.
• Cleaning your office wouldn't require a lot of mental energy from you at a time when you may not have much. At least get the filing done? Make sure you're up-to-date with keeping track of your submissions? Yes, I have some things sitting on the desk that surrounds me that I could try doing something with. 
• Have you got craft books (by which I mean writing craft) and articles stowed away somewhere? Another task that can be worked around the end of the year chaos.

Doing one or more things like these during December would mean truly accomplishing something, not just making you feel you have. 

Additionally, these are also all examples of how writers can work every day, or nearly so, without having to enslave themselves to the write-every-day order. Because being a writer involves more than writing. Working through December can help us learn that.

Time Management Tuesday: Let's Take A Moment To Complain About December

I am taking a break from my Dan Harris arc to complain about December, an almost annual event here for at least ten years.

As I said in 2017, 

"My control of my time is so tenuous that anything new that enters the playing field, like a holiday that requires hours and days and weeks of preparation, like two of them coming a month apart, is overwhelming. December/the Christmas season packs a double whammy, because in addition to being very time consuming, it involves an emotional toll. Christmas the secular event is supposed to be magic, whatever the hell that is. We're supposed to be creating magic. Yeah, we're talking a whole other level of time with the magic thing." 

Last year things were a lot better, something I put down in a blog post to being a practicing minimalist so I didn't have as much cleaning to do and my Christmas spark book. My conclusion was:

"The best I can offer for writers who observe a labor-intensive holiday of any kind at any time of the year is to get your house in order. Get rid of as much as you can and write everything down."

Things were better last year for another reason, too. A couple of years ago I stopped working on big, intense projects during the month of December. Instead, I spend the month just starting a short piece each day, humor or flash. The ideas are pulled from my journal. A number of last December's starts became published pieces this year.

Success Ruined Me

I remembered last December so fondly that I looked forward to it this year. My recollection of last December clearly became glorified and inflated. For the last six months I've believed that when December came this year, I'd be able to do so many things, because last December went so well. Why, in addition to all those starts I was going to do--coming up with something to do a few sentences and jot a few thoughts on every single day, without fail, you've got to do this, Gail-- I would be able to:

• Research all these agents I've been thinking about.
• Plan agent submissions, actually get them written up and ready to send next year.
• Get all these ideas I've been emailing myself into my journal. (I use my email as a to-do list.)
• Clean up my three email in-boxes (because, as I just said, I use them as to-do lists.)
• Do some extra blog posts.
• Clean my desk.
• Get some planning done in next year's bullet journal.

On a personal level, I would be able to:

• Get ready for Christmas.
• Sew.
• Write some emails/letters that I've owed since summer.
• Contact some contractors about some work we want done in the house next year.
• Bake cookies for a church event for the first time in, maybe, ten or fifteen years.
• Restart my daily yoga practice. 

By the 4th or 5th of the month, I realized things weren't going well.

Too Much

I planned too much for this month. I had seriously unreasonable expectations. I was living in a fantasy world, something I don't think of myself as doing.

My first thought while writing this was to say that all I can do now is slog through and keep on keeping on. But, no, the month is not even half over. Come on, Gail, pull yourself together, woman.

What I Can Still Do

I can still grab the unit system lifeline that has helped in the past. 

Again from 2017:

"...if you think in terms of forty-five, twenty, and even ten minute units of time, suddenly work options appear. Forty-five minutes at least a few times a week will work for editing a draft or maybe even progressing with  a new one. Twenty minute sprints each day can help keep you in a new project, even if you can't make a lot of forward movement with it. It can make a dent in blog posts or take care of some professional reading. Ten-minute sprints on a laptop set up in whatever room you're working magic in can allow you to knock off all kinds of work." 

I've used a couple of units of time this morning to jot down today's (and yesterday's) humor start, delete a couple of emails, and finish this blog post. I'll spend the rest of the day on creating magic. 

Tomorrow I'll begin again.

Time Management Tuesday: A Collection Of December Whine Posts

December is upon us. I dislike December. I dislike it so much that last January I created a goal to deal with it.

Goal 5. Expect the end of the year to be a disaster. Get as much done professionally and personally before mid-November. Putting it in writing so I won't forget. 

I have been getting ahead professionally, not so much before mid-November, but ahead. Sort of. Nonetheless, yesterday I only managed to write about twenty minutes. And it was only December 3rd.

So last night, because I was teetering on the brink of what we call here the Overwhelm, I decided to do a round-up of my December misery posts, primarily because I was too overwrought to come up with any new material.

The Whining I've Done About December Over The Years

Dec. 12, 2017 December Continues To Suck Up Time I was sick last year at this time. Well, at least I'm healthy this time around. So far.

Dec. 21, 2015 Know When To Give Up This post actually has a positive suggestion for dealing with Overwhelm. Pick something to not do. Seriously. It's a good idea.

Dec. 16, 2014 The Unit System Lifeline During That Time Of The Year The title of this one says it all.

Dec. 3, 2013 Will Sprinting--And A New Laptop--Get Me Through The Holidays. Another one with a title that pretty much tells you what's going on. Sprinting really is helpful, like not doing something.

Helpful Much?

Oddly enough, I found these posts helpful. I'll go into why next week, because I'm choosing not to do any more this evening.