What About The Writing During The Holidays?

Yzabel / December 28, 2005

I’m not proud to announce that I haven’t done as much as I could have, in the past week, when it comes to writing. On the other hand, I suppose that the whole Christmas holidays thing isn’t “the right time to write” for many people, and that I’m no exception.I’m slowly reaching my 75k goal–I should be there tonight or tomorrow at the worst, but the beast isn’t finished yet. It seems I’m really crap at estimating the length of my works. Now I hope that by 80k I can call it a quit, since I know myself well enough now, and if left to my own devices, I’ll add ten more plot twists to the whole thing, just because I have too many ideas spring to mind, once I’m within my rut.It’s weird, but the period between Christmas and New Year is always a period of “depression” for me. Not in the clinical sense of the word, I’m not sick. Just feeling tired and not motivated about anything, including writing/drawing. I bet this is the downside of the pre-Christmas hype, gifts run, housework, and then spending every day at a different member’s of the family. It’s stressful in its own ways, and as a result, I don’t have much energy left. To be honest, the most productive things I’ve done in the past two days was to install my programs on my laptop, look for UxTheme and a good free PIM software, skin my Windows XP, and play Sudoku.Ah, but after New Year I have another week of holidays. I hope that I’ll be able to use that time to its full extent, with inspiration and without tiredness. It’d be a shame to waste it!holidays, writing

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  • fredcq

    I haven’t done any editing in days. I got started again today but I am moving so slow. I have so much work to do with it. Also, I am starting to get lots of ideas and the urge to start the next book is growing stronger. I wish that I could clone 2-3 of me just to get the work done and have at least one of my around to just relax, lol.I think lots of people get depressed around the holidays. It’s a huge build up to Xmas and then it’s back to the normal day to day routine. Having my daughter this year made the holidays much more fun.If you don’t mind me asking, what genre is your book?

  • Yzabel

    It’s science-fiction, with a healthy dose of cyberpunk. Not the kind with aliens, but the kind that deals with colonization of “close” worlds (in this case, Mars).What’s weird is that I have lots of fun with this story, but these days I feel more “satisfied” daydeaming about it than actually writing. As you said, though, I’m right in the being back to the normal day routine”, so it doesn’t help in being all energized and ready to work. I don’t doubt it’ll be better after everything’s back to normal for good. 🙂

  • Chris Howard

    I got a Wacom tablet for Christmas, so I’ve been more in the drawing mood than writing, but something strange happened Saturday (24th) morning: I woke with an entire plot for a novel, maybe several. I’m talking characters, names, one has this…weird perceptual power, there’s a murder, pursuit, a psych ward, feuding subcultural groups. I developed a magic system and a bunch of minor characters. I dream up scenes all the time and journal them, but this was really vivid and whole. It was like watching a movie. What I outlined for it isn’t nearly as complete as what I’d dreamed, but most of it’s there, and I can get started. Crazy.Of course, here it is Wednesday, and I didn’t have time to write, but I’ve walked through the plot a couple times since Saturday and it still looks good enough to pursue.To your title question: I don’t usually have time to write this time of year. I think it’s more of not being able to concentrate with all the activity, but I do try to do some reading.

  • fredcq

    I love Cyberpunk. My novel which is a mix of Fantasy and Science fiction has a dose of Cyberpunk thrown in. I think that I will always be heavily influenced by Neuromancer by William Gibson.My friends and I used to play the Cyberpunk RPG for awhile too. It was lots of fun. We even played Vampire too but I don’t think we were playing it right. Our vampires were not the brooding Anne Rice kind, lol.

  • melly

    Yeah, holidays are weird. I much rather do some coding these days than writing. Beats me why…

  • Benjamin Solah

    I haven’t done much writing at all lately, but I got some down last night. Christmas is a time for fun, and seeing as writing is supposed to be fun for us, there should no hesitation and no guilt in writing during the holiday. But there is. It’s weird.I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately (see the mass of movie reviews on my blog lately) and it spurred me to get a page done.With the depression thing, yer, I get it all the time. I need to work some things out, and I think that is what is affecting my writing.I’m sure it’ll come to you, rather than you going to it. It always does.

  • Yzabel

    Chris — That sounds awesome, coming up like this with an idea for a story, and moreover, with enough to start outlining 🙂 I hope you can do something with it later on. Can I say “serendipity” here?And that’s exactly it. My ability to focus is, er, gone for some time. That’s also why I always take days off in that period of the year, because this + things being slow at work = I don’t do anything and I’m a waste of space at the office!

  • Yzabel

    Fredcq — Funny enough, my reading of Neuromancer goes back to more than a decade ago, and the memories I have of it are pretty much blurred. I’ve been more influenced, I think, by the Cyberpunk 2020 RPG.We played VTM too, and in the same way, we were far enough from the Anne Rice stuff (we put gothic into the punk, I guess, not the contrary). Which I don’t care about, because it was interesting nonetheless.

  • Yzabel

    Melly–Well, coding can be useful as well. At least you don’t have to worry about it anymore when comes the time to focus on writing again 🙂

  • Yzabel

    Benjamin–It went in a somewhat similar fashion for me yesterday evening (after having written this post). Tomorrow, I’m bringing my laptop in the train to go visit my parents. I have 1h20 to shoot down, and this tends to inspire me a lot :DI haven’t even seen a single one of the movies you’ve posted about on your blog. Shame on me.

  • Deborah

    The Mars colonization reminded me of a book I’d read by Pamela Sargeant 25 years ago. I’d love to read your story once it’s finished.It seems that most everyone is suffering from the same writing malady, although our side of the blogosphere is starting to show some signs of life after the NaNoWri contest. I’m thinking everything will return to normal by mid-January.Myself: I’ve managed to get five pages written (mostly dialogue) despite feeling the pressure to start on two projects that I’ve been holding off on for a while.

  • Fredcq

    I am itching to start something new but I have to finish editing my current novel. Grrr..editing is such a slow process!

  • Jennifer

    You’re not the only one who’s slow with writing when it comes to the holidays. I’ve been behind on everything! The only thing I have done is catch up on reading!Hope you had a great Christmas and Happy New Years!

  • Yvonne Foong

    Hello there! Merry christmas and happy new year! Don’t fret. I’ve been lazier than you. LOL!

  • Yzabel

    Deborah: I’m sure I’ll need a few “beta-testers” sooner or later for this story, so if you still want to read it, I’ll send it your way 😉

  • Yzabel

    Fredq: Hear, hear! Editing sure isn’t the funniest part of the job!

  • Yzabel

    Jennifer: Er, I haven’t even done that–I’m so late on my reading hat it’s not even fnny anymore * lol *

  • Yzabel

    Yvonne: Thanks for the wishes!At least it’s a time of the year when we have an excuse to be lazy 😉

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