It’s time for another blog exchange. I’ve traded topics with Winona Hulsey: Surviving the Holidays as a Writer. You’ll find links to my thoughts and more about Winona and her writing after her thoughts on the matter. Now, without further ado… Introducing Winona Hulsey:
Author Wenona Hulsey spends her time scaling roof tops, kicking bad guy tail, and rescuing small kittens from tree tops. But during the time when she isn’t asleep, she’s a mother of two beautiful children and works a full time day job. She lives vicariously through great books and creates magical worlds in her spare time. She is also an avid social networker, who loves to meet new people.
The Writer’s Holiday Balancing Act
In one word I can summarize November to January for a writer: chaos
In November we have National Novel Writing Month where most writers who join in spend day and night hammering out words for 30 days trying to reach that coveted 50,000 words. Then on Thanksgiving Day writers venture out of their writing caves, looking like zombies with pasty white skin and dark circles deepening their eyes, to join in with family for a day of food and catching up only to hide away again at the end of the day to finish the last five days of writing.
Then comes December and all of its light hanging, Christmas tree decorating, present shopping glory and you still have to find time to write. Now if you’re not suffering from burnout after November, then you’re trying to fit in 500 to 1000 good words each day on top of writing Christmas cards, trips to the store, wrapping presents, and making sure that creepy elf is in the new place each night before your little one’s wake up. Then comes Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with all the baking, gift-giving, wrapping paper messes to clean up, and once everything is done, you will wont time to sit around and play with your new toys.
Finally we have New Years! A few parties to attend, maybe a little too much champagne to drink, then those pesky New Year’s resolutions like joining a new gym or taken up bicycle riding. But are you making time for your writing?
How do we learn to balance it all? Family, holidays, dreams of being the next great writer – everything has to have a healthy balance. Writer have to realize that we need time with our family, we need time catching up with love ones, we need to socialize, we need to read, we need to be outside, we need to be active, because without all of these a writer has nothing to write about. You have to experience living life to the great at your art.
So don’t sweat it if you don’t reach a word count goal every day during the hustle and bustle of the holidays. To ease your guilt consider those times with your family that run a bit longer than planned as research on living so your next great book will be perfect and, more importantly, when you look back on your life 20 or 30 years from now you will have wonderful memories with your loved ones to smile about.
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Thank you Winona. You will find my thoughts on this very same topic here. That’s also where you will find more about Winona Hulsey.
You can find her books:
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