Betwixtmas, the dreamlike span between Christmas and New Year’s Day, finds half of us resting and recharging and the other half of us . . . itchy.
Since I was a kid, the period between Christmas and New Year’s Day has been exciting. School was out, family and friends were in. There was always lots of good food, good conversation, planning, and traveling. And because night descends earlier in winter, this period often felt like a gift to my creative self.
Without a daily schedule to keep in check, I had plenty of time to allow my mind to wander, to roam, to think up the new and possible, the ancient and fantastical. Winter was always a time for storytelling, music, and visual arts, a time for creators to create.
Creation is an exercise in brain elasticity and adaptation. And for creators, this stretch of time provides us the space and mental fortitude to plan for the next thing we’re going to do. If you, too, fall into the “I need something to do!” camp, January is the perfect time to stop wandering, set goals, and adopt new habits.
If you’re in the “rest and recharge” part of your year, do you. Recharge those batteries, finish off those holiday cookies, wear all the fuzzy socks — whatever floats your betwixtmas boat.
But if you’re itchy like me, stop wandering through those piles of discarded wrapping paper, invite structure into your life, set some writing goals for yourself, and then let’s get cracking.
It’s time to write your story.
Invite Structure for Focused Writing
After the long and awkward holiday stretch, schedules can feel a little loosey goosey. This is especially true for those of us with children who are home during times they’d otherwise be away. Fitting in quiet time for creative awakening and imagining can feel a little silly, what with all the noise and bustle going on around us.
During this time of the year, many folks put away their creative projects because they believe they don’t have time to fit them in. It’s often easier to seize 20 minutes of writing time after a regularly structured day than it is to create 20 minutes of writing time during chaos. But it is during those periods of chaos that structure is often most important.
While I won’t give you a hustle-bro schedule to follow complete with a 5 a.m. ice bath and a midnight recap of your day, I do fully support creating some kind of structure to help you see whats possible within the time you do have.
Here’s a loose structure that works well for me and the authors with whom I work.
If you’re a busy parent or have an otherwise busy life, setting your alarm clock to wake up early can easily give you an extra 20 minutes in your day. But if you’re exhausted and shaking off the sleepies for those 20 minutes, there’s really nothing for you to gain by waking up early. Instead, I advocate for seizing the first 20 minutes after you wake to rouse your creative self. When you wake in the morning, grab your coffee or lemon water and go straight to your writing place.
Don’t turn on the radio or the television. Don’t crack open that newspaper.
Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, open an internet browser.
Grab your preferred writing tool, whether it’s a decomposition notebook and a pen or your laptop, and start writing. Don’t lift your pen off the paper or your fingers off the keys. Just write.
Write about sitting in that chair, being hysterically tired, your love affair with flavored coffee cream, how your dog’s feet smell like cheese, the texture of dragon fruit. Pick a topic, planned or otherwise, and write about it uninterrupted for 20 minutes. If you run out of things to say about your topic, move onto another topic, whether it’s connected or disconnected from the original topic. Whatever you do, keep writing, keep moving forward, and allow your morning writing habit to take shape.
Some of you may be asking how you’re going to seize those 20 minutes when your kids have an uncanny ability to sniff out an awake parent, and I get it.
Back in my old life, I had to wake at 4 a.m. to pump breast milk, and my infant daughter always seemed to wake up just as the milk began flowing. On those days, the first 20 minutes went by laughably fast, and I let them go. I didn’t have the energy to chase them. Instead, I shifted my 20 minutes to the morning commute, choosing to record voice notes for myself while driving to the office. While the process wasn’t as clean and simple as a notebook and a pen, voice notes did allow me to think through what I wanted to say, and how.
Regardless whether you seize the first 20 minutes or make 20 minutes during a commute or find some other way to make time for writing, when there’s a will, there’s a way. And if your way means something to you, you’ll find creative methods to priorize your creative work.
Some days, those 20 minutes may be all that’s available to you for writing. Eventually, though, those first 20 minutes of your writerly day will become an early and much-needed salve for your creative soul.
Set Meaningful and Managable Writing Goals
As you’re inviting structure into your creative processes, don’t forget to set meaningful and manageable goals for yourself. Goals that work well are those that are specific, measurable, achieveable, relevant, and timebound. In other words, goals that work are SMART. “Write for the first 20 minutes of every day” fits the SMART goal framework. “Write a novel in 2025” does not. “Send out five queries per week” is a SMART goal. “Sign with a literary agent” is not.
Before you begin blindly setting SMART goals and working toward them, define where and how your goals fit into your overall writing future. Until the story is written, at least a shitty first draft, there’s little reason to think beyond the writing itself. For example, if you want to write your novel in 2025, start with SMART goals that are directly applicable to writing; stay away from goals that necessarily come later in the process, like querying agents, finding cover designers, and more.
If you’re just beginning to write that book, you may benefit from a few early goals designed to jumpstart your story.
- Write a pitch sentence
- Write a blurb or description
- Outline a handful of scenes or chapters
Once you begin writing, you’ll pick up momentum. As momemtum builds, the story ahead becomes clearer. And if you’re further along in your writing adventures, you may consider tangential goals like learning a new skill, unabashedly protecting your focus, or breaking your finished draft into chunks for the self-edit.
Whatever your creative flavor, set meaningful and right-sized goals that are both exciting and achievable.
Writing Is Work, So Get to Work
If you’ve been here for some time, you know I’m not too keen on New Year’s resolutions. For most people, resolutions are just declarations shouted into the annual void, fantasies that allow us the fun of a daydream without the difficulty of actually doing anything about that dream. Don’t do that to yourself.
The folks who sink into fanstastical resolution fun often end up rinsing and repeating their resolutions for the next year and the next in perpetuity. They’re also the same folks who end up with a laundry list of life regrets and thoughts of what could have been.
If you’re currently having a moment of self-awareness and realizing you may not be as disciplined as you thought you were, know this: It’s possible to train yourself to be disciplined. Writing, at its root, is about self-control, the ability to stay on course and share an important message with the future readers who need to hear it.
When many think of discipline, they construct an almost military-like view of a writing practice: Immovable time blocks, planning scenes and chapters down to the minutiae, reaching daily and consistent word-count increases. Unless you’re a suped-up Type-A tickled by a wild writing hair, though, you don’t need to approach your writing the way a marine approaches a war zone. But being disciplined enough to write, especially when you’re stressed, tired, and just over the day, is a creative superpower.
Lean into that superpower. Your personal Metropolis only springs into existence when you write it.
So, how do you work through dreamlike betwixtmas and early winter to write the stories of your dreams? Share your techniques and tips in the comments for fellow writers.
Happy writing!
♥ Fal
P.S. Your story is a gift to the readers whose lives will be positively affected by your words. Tis the season.
Prefer video?
Come hang with me on the MetaStellar channel:
Fallon Clark is the book pal who helps you tell your story in your words and voice using editorial, coaching, writing, and project management expertise for revision assistance, one-on-one guidance, and ghostwriting for development. Her writing has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine. Check out her website, FallonClark.com, or connect with her on LinkedIn or Substack.