The Weird Holiday Nowheretimes (And Why Knowing Thyself Matters)

You know how if you have, say, an Important Meeting or Significant Task To Do set at a certain time in the day, that in the run-up to that thing you mostly just sit on your hands waiting for that thing? You’ve got a 2pm whatever, and until 2pm, you’re like a LOADING SCREEN on a new PC game trying to run on a computer that can’t fucking run it. You’re an old iPhone trying to update to the newest OS. You’re stuck. Paused. Caught. Could you technically do other things in this time? Sure. Will you? Probably not. Your brain is frozen in preparation mode. It is languishing in the time-before-the-time. It is the rise up the rollercoaster. You’re buckled in until the drop.

The week before Christmas is exactly that, writ large.

At least, for me.

It’s this weird interstice, this liminal calendar hole, like a temporal trench at the bottom of the ocean into which all things eventually fall.

What I’m trying to say is, I’ve been attempting productivity during this time and it… isn’t happening. It’s not a total waste. I’m not doing nothing. I’m just not doing much of anything. Every effort is an appetizer, not a meal, you know what I’m saying? It happened this year where I had a moment of panic and frustration at myself, YOU STUPID FOOL WHY ARE YOU NOT WRITING THOUSANDS OF WORDS, where I wanted to throw snowballs at my brain like it was an indolent sled dog licking his butthole instead of mushing us across the great ice shelf of the imagination, but then, aaaah ha ha, then I wised the fuck up and I remembered:

This happens to me every year.

Every year!

EVERY. FUCKING. YEAR.

This is just that time. It is, as noted, an interstitial time. It is a period of rest and reflection. I don’t force it to be that. It just is that, at least for me.

Here’s the thing: recognizing that quickly, that this is just Part of My Shit, was very helpful, and honestly, pretty useful in not making me hate myself for this week (and, let’s be honest, next week, too). The last two weeks in December are slow like honey. Cold honey, at that. And then, in January, I tend to pick back up and start churning out stuff, and January through March actually tends to be a fairly good time for writing for me.

The trick is, I saved myself the frustration only because I’ve attempted to take the time and the effort it takes to Know Myself. Which sounds higher-and-mightier-and-self-helpier than I mean it to — there’s no great trick to it, I don’t think, other than, it’s important to live your life and be mindful of patterns. You can then see those patterns and decide if they need to be re-examined and tweaked or if they’re just part of who you are. This is, admittedly, easier said than done — it can be hard to see if something you’re experiencing over and over again with yourself is a bad habit in need of breaking or just one necessary thread in the tapestry of you (okay that was very overwrought and purple prosey, I am sorry, trying to delete), but I dunno. I think you figure that out too by being mindful and living your life in a way where you are careful and thoughtful and most of all forgiving with your own silly ass. Be accepting of yourself, in other words, and your limitations, and your patterns. I think over time you start to see when things need to change and when you just need to realize you (and we all) are a set of imperfections. We’re all hot messes, and sometimes those messes can be cleaned up, and sometimes they’re just part of the colorful chaos of our lives. Long as we’re not hurting ourselves, our prospects, or most of all, anyone else? Then maybe we are who we are and we have to be good with that.

And I think as writers this is really essential too — and I know I’ve talked about this before! — to know who you are as a writer. To know that you get really self-doubty at the 33% and 66% mark of writing. To know what burning out looks like and how to cool it down before you get cooked to cinders. To know when to push, when to back off, and when/how to refill your batteries. (I talk a lot about this in Gentle Writing Advice, by the way, which attempts to unpack a lot of stuff about bullshit writing rules, about burnout and self-care, about how to be productive without punishing yourself.)

I think knowing yourself as a writer ultimately means writing a lot and being mindful of not just the writing but all the extra stuff around the writing — time, place, people, needs, patterns, and so forth.

ANYWAY, whatever, what I’m trying to say is, this time of the year is a slow, goofy, hazy and lazy time of year for me, whether I want it to or not, and I know that trying to force it to be anything other than that is a good way to just hate myself while still accomplishing less than I want. And I know this because I know myself as a writer, and therefore, I’m writing this blog post instead of writing a story today, because hey, fuck it.

Your mileage, of course, may vary.

I’ll pop back in next week to talk about 2023 and what’s coming up for 2024 — I know a lot of people have done those posts already but it always feels weirdly too early if I do them before Christmas, so I’m just going to throw it together sometime next week. In the meantime, to all who celebrate, have a lovely holiday, whatever holiday you care to enjoy. If you want to get me, or any writer, a present, send us a photo of your pet stapled to a bag of money — erm, you should staple the photo to the bag, not show me a photo OF a pet that you’ve stapled to the bag? Shit. Don’t mess that part up, please. Also, you should ensure the bag is one of those cartoony Monopoly-type bags, the kind with the big obvious dollar sign — $ — on the fabric. Stuff it with cash, give us a pet photo, and we will be happy. I mean, fine, failing that, you can always buy our books and leave us a nice review somewhere.

ANYWAY MERRY HAPPY TO YOU, FELLOW APPLE-EATERS