December Slump

It happens every holiday season. During November, I'm going great guns, cranking out my November novel and feeling that this year, it's one of my best (yes, I feel that way every year, even 2004) and then come December, I think "it's time to take a little breather." And I pause to do a little gift shopping and visit family. I fully intend to take up my pen again and finish the masterpiece I've started, but it just never seems to happen - sometimes not until months and months later.

I still haven't found why I'm a freakin' dynamo in November and a complete slug the rest of the year. My first year, as many people know, I lost my job and had a death in the family in November. I had to travel out of state for the funeral, keep doing my regular job AND look for a new job and STILL managed to write over 100,000 words in 30 days.

Granted, I'm not the best person to ask. During all the time I was doing these things I have no memory of washing a single dish, preparing a meal, running a load of laundry or seeing either my husband or my children. I'm sure that they were in the house during November, and that they ate from clean dishes and wore clean clothes. I'm just not sure I had anything to do with it.

Over the years I've figured out how to better integrate writing with the rest of my life so that my family doesn't necessarily have to suffer for me to get stuff done, but it has meant that my productivity has taken a bit of a hit.

What eats at me in December, the busiest month of the year for the people where I work, is that all the people that I know who are successful writers have become successful because they were able to quit their jobs and concentrate entirely on their writing. For a ton of reasons, I'm not going to be able to do that for quite a while, but it's something that, in my fantasies, I'd love more than anything.

I guess the only thing for it is to continue to steal the odd hour hear and there and finish what I can. One day, this will all pay off and December won't be the slowest time of my writing year anymore.