Now December will bring various social gatherings, more shopping and the time to decorate. Baking, cleaning, and other various chores can overtake my life and the writing business gets pushed aside. It's during this time of year that I most often have to remind myself that this is my job, not a hobby to be picked up when I have nothing else to do. I have to put writing first just like I was going out of the house for a day job.
So I'm doing my shopping online. I ordered something for my daughter from this list of gifts for writers. Not saying which one in case she stops into my blog today. I'm hitting up Amazon for another small gift for each of the kids. I marked a few things at AC Moore craft store for family gifts and already have Christmas cards though I send out a small fraction of what I used to. My daughter is home to help with the decorating so that speeds things up. I also have the Christmas menu planned for this year, a plan to make it less work for me.
What I'm trying to do, is remove all the reasons I give into the temptation to cheat my writing time.
"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else." Benjamin Franklin
Next Wednesday is the first one of December so get your IWSG post ready. This month's suggested but not required question is:
In terms of your writing career, where do you see yourself five years from now, and what's your plan to get there?
There's what to get you thinking.
Don't know about your house, but there was SO MUCH football on at our house over the past holiday. Many of you know I'm from PA, so there was a lot of Penn State fan culture happening. Fun times.
Did you watch some football last weekend? What percentage of your Christmas shopping have you completed and how much did you do online? Does your writing time suffer at this time of year?
20 comments:
Last week was four days of football excess. Awesome!
I do almost all of my shopping online.
Mine doesn't suffer too much. Any shopping I do is mostly online too.
I'm scaling gift giving down big this year; just concentrating on the two grandchildren with a few small gifts for others, so I'm almost done shopping :) Less stress and more enjoyable this way :) Watched a little football this weekend, watched the Chiefs and Broncos last night, that was a good game. We were out of town for a bit, so didn't watch as much as we normally would have :)
betty
Love that list of writer gifts. Now I kind of want to forward that to a few people I know...
We watched a lot of football over the holiday weekend, and so far I have purchased only one Christmas gift...for my friend's dog. (But I did get it online!) I'm a little behind.
Needless to say, my writing will certainly suffer this time of year. :)
No football here. A lot of words, though. Lots and lots of words. :)
My writing career five years from now? Ack! I haven't even written my IWSG post for next week yet! :o
My Christmas shopping is done but I'm still recovering from the flu, so I'm caught between refinishing my floors and decorating. I can't start the decorating until I get the floors done, and I can't get the floors done until this flu is finished with me.
Catch 22.
Getting it done bit by bit is good. My mom visited earlier this month and I got almost all my shopping done. I just have a few things left to pick up for my son. My writing did suffer last month, but I hope to be very productive before Christmas break begins.
The holidays mean so much more work, and the two biggest ones are just a month apart! No wonder it's hard to find time to write. And those writer gifts are a great idea. Any one of them would be great to have.
I think I got most of my Christmas shopping done. My parents don't really want anything, so I'll probably just get my dad some of his favorite candies.
Christmas cards, aargh, I always try to do them on Thanksgiving and I forgot. Thanks for reminding me.
Ha, I've done that secret Santa gifts for the Christmas parties that happen before Christmas, but nothing else. Eek! And yes, all too often we put our writing last. Silly us.
Christmas used to be hetic for me when my husband was alive and the children all at home, but time changes all three are gone their separate ways and dear hubby no longer here. I just send the kids and grandchildren a card and cash so their is no hetic shopping to do.
Hope you enjoy your run up to Christmas.
Yvonne.
we had tons of football on. Thanksgiving alone had 3 games that day for NFL and I loved it. I'm almost done my holiday shopping. cut back a lot with kids getting older and there really isn't anything they want nor my husband. Now its on to cleaning for Christmas. nano has helped with getting writing time in. I did more writing in the last 4 weeks then the last couple of months. that's HUGE
Online shopping is great. That's how I'm doing it this year, too. I love the list of gifts for writers.
I'm a HUGE fan of online shopping. I've never enjoyed shopping and being able to click and buy is awesome!!!
I've doing most of shopping online for the last five years, so much easier and less stressing. No football though.
Juneta @ Writer's Gambit
To top off all the crazy of the season, this is tourist season in Florida. We see so many family and friends who come and STAY AT OUR HOUSE. So, on top of the normal crazy, I'm hosting a bed and breakfast/tour agency. There's no time for football, and we're about 90% done with our Christmas shopping. The last 10% is pretty much all me. *sigh* I need to get my time stopper working again. =)
I survived Nano, coming in with a finish at the last minute, and today I took a break. I celebrated what I had done, and I'm making a plan for a smaller goal this month. I'll be writing Christmas cards - and that will be distracting.
I did the full on feast for Thanksgiving, but have announced to family that we're all to bring snack foods to Christmas Eve dinner, and that everyone is contributing. I'll still have to clean, but am just doing brie, veggies, and some meats. Plus whatever they bring. And I'm shopping right now online. In other words, I'm right there with you!
All of those gifts for writers are fabulous. Thank you for sharing that. You just helped me with a ton of my Christmas shopping. (And maybe some gifts for myself!)
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