On the first Wednesday of every month, members of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (open to anyone and full of great resources and information for writers) post their answers to a monthly prompt on their blogs.
Authors benefit from getting an insightful prompt for generating more blog content, and IWSG links all respondents, which is a way for writers to discover each other. Pretty neat!
December 7 question – It’s holiday time! Are the holidays a time to catch up or fall behind on writer goals?
The holidays are absolutely a time to catch up on writing goals. I say this every year, but… it’s been a busy year. Getting married, a honeymoon, lots of personal and work travel, a Ragnar Trail and now training for a marathon… I’ve had a hard time prioritizing or even finding time for writing lately. I’m looking forward to the holidays as a chance to take a break from the normal routine and schedule and spend some quality time with my notebooks.
In years past, I would have set a concrete holiday goal, such as “I will have 10,000 words by the end of December!” I’ve come to realize that such goals often create unnecessary pressure, and often result in half-finished junk that I never end up following up on.
This holiday season, my writing goal is to simply fill one page in my notebook per day, with no restriction on whether it is word-count prose, hastily jotted down notes, a mini scene that has nothing to do with anything else, or even a sketch of some aspect of a creative idea. I need to get back in touch with my creative spirit. I expect that grace and coaxing are bound to work better than hammers and roared accountability.
Hello, nice to meet you! Congratulations on your marriage. These are also busy months for me. I rarely put two words together on my WIP. You will find that creative spirit of yours soon. Merry Christmas.
Congratulations on your marriage! Flexible writing like what you plan to do in your notebook is a great way to get back into the creativity and writing routine. You sound like you have had a really loaded schedule this past year. Just keep writing as much as you can.