Writing Over the Holidays

Although I had a five-day weekend (my son had no school on Wednesday, so I took the day off too), I got very little writing done. I spent a lot of time cooking, baking, washing dishes after cooking and baking, cleaning, and decorating the house ready for Christmas. Oh, and I visited Christkindlmart and participated in two parades. Thanks to fellow Midwest Garrison members Kim McCaffrey and Ted Ruler for the photos below.

 (I'm the Jawa in the front row, next to the female Tusken.)

My normal weekday schedule is to write on my lunch hour at work and before bedtime. When I'm home, I generally don't get that lunch hour. Sometimes I'm able to take some time in the afternoons to write, but it depends on how many household chores I need to catch up on or if we're doing something else.

With the holidays, there are extra demands on people's time to shop, wrap presents, decorate, bake, and/or attend social events. How can a writer protect her writing time during this season? I struggle with this myself. Here are a few ways to make holiday prep a little easier:

1. Start early with gift shopping.
2. Order presents online.
3. Delegate some of these activities to someone else.
4. Scale back to the most meaningful activities.
5. If you still have vacation time at work, take it.

What else would you add to this list? Feel free to share your ideas in the comments.