The Most Wonderful Time of the Year to Write

‘Tis the sea­son to dec­o­rate our homes, shop for gifts, and attend oodles of school pro­grams and events, office par­ties, and church and com­mu­nity func­tions. Between all of those activ­i­ties, will you have time to write?

Every­one loves a happy end­ing, of course. And what kind of sto­ries have the best happy end­ings? Sto­ries in which the hol­i­day sea­son is the back­drop, of course! It would be inter­est­ing to know how many of our favorite sto­ries in which the hol­i­day sea­son plays a lead role were actu­ally writ­ten, in whole or in part, dur­ing the arguably busiest month of the year.

Of course, every time of year is a busy time for those of us who man­age full-time careers, homes, chil­dren, com­mu­nity activ­i­ties, etc. Viewed from that per­spec­tive, is this month really any different?

For those who par­tic­i­pated in NaNoW­riMo, the arrival of Decem­ber may sig­nal pure relief from the pres­sure of con­struct­ing a 50,000 novel in the course of a mere thirty days. How­ever, I hope that those of you who were able to join in the Novem­ber chal­lenge are able to main­tain your momen­tum and keep work­ing on your nov­els this month.

Not hav­ing par­tic­i­pated in NaNoW­riMo, I am look­ing for­ward to tap­ping into the sights, sounds, and emo­tions of the sea­son to help me write this month. I chal­lenge all of you, espe­cially those of you who main­tain blogs, to step out­side your com­fort zone this month and try some­thing dif­fer­ent. If you have never writ­ten poetry, for instance, per­haps you will be inspired to give it a try. If you have never felt com­fort­able writ­ing fic­tion, this month might be a good time to take a stab at it by focus­ing upon a hol­i­day theme. Per­haps you could use a hol­i­day mem­ory as a start­ing point and, from there, weave an intrigu­ing tale. If you have never pre­vi­ously writ­ten about your own fam­ily tra­di­tions, a par­tic­u­larly happy year, an unex­pected hol­i­day guest or a sim­i­lar topic, this might be the year to do so!

This may be the most won­der­ful time of year to write and, more impor­tantly, write from a new per­spec­tive or with new pur­pose, despite our time lim­i­ta­tions, because of the many addi­tional sources of inspi­ra­tion. Of course, inspi­ra­tion can be found in the mun­dane and ordi­nary or the extra­or­di­nary, as O. Henry, author of one of my favorite hol­i­day sto­ries, “The Gift of the Magi,” observed. He is cred­ited with not­ing that “there are sto­ries in every­thing. I’ve got some of my best yarns from park benches, lamp­posts, and news­pa­per stands.”

Be sure to leave a com­ment and let me know what writ­ing projects you are work­ing on dur­ing this won­der­ful time of the year!

Tech­no­rati Tags: Col­lo­quium on Writing

On the Same Topic:

• I Heard the “D” Word on Christ­mas Day (Part Two)
• In 250 Words or Less …
• Writea­palooza: The Best of 2008
• The Power of a Word
• Scary Christ­mas: Hol­i­day Real­ity Checks