Michael T. Hare

Well, that happened…

Halloween is officially over, traveler, and the Christmas season has begun (yes, we start celebrating on November 1st). The holidays are rich with good vibes and inspiration for writers, but they can also be significant stressors for people like me.

I don’t know about you, but I am a big mood reader. The majority of the books I covet remind me of seasons and times in my life that I loved. As a result, I’ve also become quite the mood writer and want to capture the festive months in my books.

This issue usually arises during the drafting phase. It’s easy to publish a book at a particular time of year and have it be a Christmas book, but what about drafting? I like my family to read chapters as I write them, which means I gotta stay consistent if I want this story to feel like the holidays for them and me. I can’t afford to succumb to procrastination. The holidays are precious and are only around for so long. I need to write NOW!

This is easier said than done, but there’s a simple fix. Not an easy fix. A simple fix, and that fix is consistency. Consistency looks like sitting down, intentionally, and writing for a fixed period of time. It’s brain training. Keep it up long enough and it’ll become a habit.

Making a habit of something doesn’t always make that thing more enjoyable, but it does make it easier to get in the flow, resulting in a more satisfying life overall. Simply put, you may never enjoy the drafting process, but you’ll enjoy the satisfaction of having finished multiple chapters by the end of the week.

Consistency is a miracle worker—as in, you do the worker bit and the consistency does the miracle bit. I know it’s hard, but your brain isn’t gonna believe it until you do it.

Holiday writing is the best kind of writing. An abundance of joy floats around us, making it easy to channel our best selves into our projects. But for procrastinators like you and me, the holidays can be stressors as well. With a dose of consistency, we can make our writing lives better, more enjoyable in the long run, and full of exciting chapters.