Holiday Advice for Writing Mom's

With Christmas around the corner, and the new year right after, if you have kids, this is like the ultimate crunch time. I find holidays are more stressful than normal days, by a lot. Especially if you have a child with a birthday in the same month like I do. The pressure that the holidays put on people gets heavier and heavier the closer it comes. Anxiety and depression often hit the hardest during the holidays.

Writing during this time can get challenging, but it is often rewarding. A good way to keep yourself motivated through the holidays is to set reachable goals for your projects. Once you reach a goal, you get to reward yourself. However, you must hold yourself to your goals, and create your own deadlines. As a freelance writer, it is especially important to do this.

I have no deadlines, and no editors demanding I get stuff done. It is especially challenging for me to get my writing done because I have four children. Two of them attend online school and require tutoring with math and English, and the younger two are two and four years old. They have more energy, and demand more attention than the older children.

Patience and routine are my best friends. Once you get a routine down, you can schedule yourself time to write, and keep to it every day. Routine is important because you know what is supposed to be happening at all times of the day, and if you are anything like me you set alarms on your phone to make sure you get everything done in time.

Setting a time for writing every day and keeping to it will help you get through any rough patch you come across. Just get it out on paper, or a computer, and worry about how it sounds or looks later. Once you get past the first stage, it will get easier. Trust me, I used to write maybe one page, or several pages, and then put it down because I did not know where I was going with it next, or I could not follow through and keep writing.

Therefore, I started doing research on how to organize a story. I created outlines; I know the word outline makes people shudder with unease, but it has saved me more times than I can count. Having a visual aid really goes a long way to show you where you started, and where you are going from there. I am not saying you must write everything out, down to the finest detail.

If you dislike planning it out all the way, all you really need is a beginning, middle, a rising action, and the resolution, and the end. Other than that, you can just wing it with what else you want to happen in the story. I always carry an idea journal, which I use to write random ideas and thoughts. It helps when I find a lag in the story or feel like I need to add something more. Trust me, it comes in handy!

In closing, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season. Find pleasure in the small things, enjoy life. Because in this tumultuous year we have had, we need all the joy we find in the