It’s hectic, loud, expensive, and in Australia, Christmas time is hot. It’s a time for family and friends, either the making or breaking of them. It’s the time of loss and gain. For a lot of us, it’s a time we find harder to cope with for whatever reason.

Finding time to write among the chaos, and battling the guilt of taking that time when so many Christmas parties and breakups are going on is beyond hard. 

One thing we must remember this time of year, when our energies and emotions are stretched in all different directions, making us exhausted before we even get out of bed each morning, is to practice some self care.

Take that hour (or however long) each day to write, to let yourself steep in the world you’re creating.

Know you can say no. To parties, shopping, Christmas Caroling, or anything else that will zap what little time and energy you may have hoarded.

Tell that little nagging voice that says you are selfish, that people depend on you to be there, that you should do all these things, to shut up. Just because most people thrive on the crowds, the buzz, the energy of this time of year, doesn’t mean we all do.

If your energy charge is to lock yourself away for a certain amount of time each day and write, then do it.  

Better to be relatively sane over the holiday period, than a wreck who breaks down and screams that everyone will end up in the next book as victims of some awful petulant plague that kills its victims viciously and horendiously painfully slow.

Just my thoughts.

I hope you all have a good holiday season, a happy Yule, merry Christmas, and any other holidays celebrated this time of year.

As always, have fun