How to write in the winter

Hello Writer-buddy

Well.

What a ride.

What a rush.

What a year.

What an absolutely weird and baffling time to be a human.

Let alone being a human trying to write stories about the nature of being a human.

The thing with being a writer is that we tend to think about a lot of stuff a lot of the time.

Not just think about stuff. But overthink about stuff. That’s how we end up with all the amazing insights we need to write the awesome stories that are in our brains.

When there’s so much weird-and-baffling-ness to overthink, it’s easy to get overloaded.

And the problem with overthinking everything is that it’s exhausting.

Are you exhausted? I’m exhausted. We are all on our frikken knees, frankly. 

Yesterday was the winter solstice. The shortest, darkest day of the year when the sun seems like it’s never going to rise again. It’s not a time to rush around preparing the last–minute Christmas faffery. It’s a time to sit in front of the fire, wrapped in blankets, eating snacks, reading books, and telling stories with your friends and family. Not just because that’s a nice thing to do but because that’s what we’ve evolved to do through winter for MILLENNIA. You can’t argue with millennia. They’ve been around a lot longer than you.

It’s a time to rest and to hibernate. To regroup. 

It’s okay if you can’t do everything over the next two weeks.

It’s okay if you don’t have time to write.

It’s okay if Hunukkah wasn’t perfect, or Christmas isn’t perfect, or anything, for that matter. Literally nothing needs to be perfect. All things can just be a glorious mess. 

It’s okay if you didn’t meet whatever completely unrealistic goals you set yourself in January.

Winter is a time of sleep, of death, because how can we awake again in spring, refreshed and playful and full of new life, if we don’t first close our eyes, calm our minds, and chill tf out, even if it’s just for a day or two.

Go put a blanket over your head.

Light the log burner.

Tea thyself.

Make a fort out of pigs in blankets and eat your way out.

Watch Die Hard (The ultimate Christmas movie, don’t @ us).

Listen to Bublé on repeat forever.

Sip a sneaky sherry tipple.

Maybe scrawl something in your notebook if you fancy.

But give your pained brain a rest.

Everything will be okay in the end (although yes we have to do the whole revolution-dismantling-the-patriarchal-capitalist-hegemony bit to do but that’s not a problem over the Christmas holidays—we don’t have to worry about that again until 2024).

(Don’t) go write.

Sarah and Team WHQ

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