December already! If you’re like me, you’re wondering where the heck the past 11 months went.  

If you haven’t quite accomplished everything you wanted to, writing-wise – well, you still have the month of December to go.  

If you did bomb through all your writing goals, congratulations! You can take it a little easier this month. You may even want to start planning for next year.  

Before I discuss the topic of this week’s post, I want to circle back to the “4 Burners” post from a couple weeks ago: Burned Out? The 4 Burners Theory of Energy. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to rebalance my life, and make the time I do spend more meaningful. Which means that, at least for now, I’ll be greatly curtailing my blog posts and newsletters – from once a week to once a month. I may post more frequently over on my Substack – or I may give that up, because honestly, as much as I want to cultivate a community there, it is yet another burner that I don’t have the time to fully devote my attention to.

I had my first pumpkin spice oat milk latte today (homemade) so it must be... Fall! Actually we’re in that sweet spot where the mornings are cool (even a bit chilly) and the days are warm and sunny and not humid. But still, it feels like we’ve turned a corner. Kids are back to school, most vacations are over, time to get back to work.

The idea of “choosing your hard” has gone around self-help circles as a sort of tough-love motivational quote. To be fair, most of us need this reminder every once in a while in some area of our lives.  

There are times when we don’t feel like writing. We don’t want to expend the energy. We find a million other things to do that seem way easier in that moment. What it comes down to is, the things that are worth doing are hard, but the cost of not doing them is harder.  

I used to think that if I didn’t write every day in order to be a “real” writer. Or write a certain number of words per day, or hours per day. I believe it was Stephen King who writes 2000 words every day without fail, including holidays (I have his book On Writing here somewhere but am too lazy to go look up an exact quote).

Nothing makes me more eager to clean my house than the prospect of actually having to work on a writing project I’ve set aside for a while. Household projects that have lingered on my to-do list for months suddenly take on new urgency. Errands must be run. Friends must be contacted – preferably for a long, two-hour chat. Oh, is that the time? Guess I’m not writing today.

It happens to all of us, despite the best intentions. We make plans, we set writing goals – and next thing you know, we’re staring at the end of another week where we haven’t done as much writing as we’d hoped (maybe even none at all).  

I used to have a sign in my office. It was a photo of a cat lazing on a sunny windowsill, and the caption read, “The fun isn’t in doing nothing. It’s in having lots to do and not doing any of it.”

I admit, I’m certainly contrary that way. I’ll spend time doing anything I’m not supposed to be doing, but when you tell me I have to relax, or laze around in bed – whaddaya know, all I feel like doing is jumping up and getting stuff done.

It’s reverse psychology at its finest. A well-known human paradox that as soon as we have to do something, that’s the very thing we resist doing.

But still, you may be asking, Why would I want to spend LESS time writing?

I heard this from a writer the other day, and she’s not the only one. She thinks she’s lazy, unmotivated, or worse – not a “real” writer. I’ve heard all this before. I’ve even felt it at times.

Lately I’ve seen so many writers on social media fretting about sales, wondering when they’ll be able to write full time and make a living from it. They may have written one book, or several, but they seem tormented by the fact that they aren’t seeing “success” like they envisioned.

This mostly is true of indie writers, but a fair number of trad-pubbed or wanna-be trad-pubbed writers seem to think that earning a full time living from your writing is a norm, or at least a strong possibliity.

Let’s have a reality check for a moment: earning a living as a full-time writer has always been rare. Even more so if you write fiction (I’m really talking about book writers here, not freelance writers).

That’s not a bad thing, in my view.

Is anyone else feeling post-holiday fatigue? I know I am. By this time, I’m usually focused on setting goals for the New Year. I have my planner, and clear descriptions of goals in different areas of my life – including writing, of course!

This year, not so much. This year, instead of planning a million things, I’m going to simplify.

I can’t be the only one whose productivity has plummeted in these final days of August. This week, I thought I’d write a quick post for all of who need a little jump start to stay creative even as the summer runs out.

Let’s face it, the blank page can be daunting. Once we settle on a schedule for writing, we still have to show up and do the work. In that moment of decision, it’s easy to defer our writing until later, until tomorrow, until we feel like it...

News flash: you may not ever “feel like it.” You’re not going to come to the page super-motivated every day. If you only write when you feel like it, you probably won’t get much writing done.

Having a starting ritual can help.