Winter: The Official Writing Season

When the air dips into sub-zero temperatures, there’s only one sure way to save those fingertips from frostbite and your head from brain freeze and that is WRITING THE NEXT GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL.

So what are you waiting for? Go lock yourself in a room and get to writing! Success may be just days, months, okay, years away.

So fire up the computer and let the words flow. Don’t let anything stop you from pounding away on your masterpiece.

But first:

• Chop a bit of wood and get a nice roaring fire going so that when you come out of your writing room, exhausted and depleted, you’ll be greeted by a warm fiery breath.

• Once the logs are crackling nicely in your fireplace, please take a second to make yourself a cup of homemade hot chocolate. Don’t waste your time on bland hot chocolate mix, but treat yourself to real chocolaty goodness. Don’t have the cocoa on hand? Best run to the store and stock up. Again, you want everything just right when you step into your writing retreat.

• With that steaming cup of cocoa in hand you might be tempted to take it with you to your office. But please, I beg you, take a moment to sit by a window and watch the soft white flakes float effortlessly down. Let you mind wander. Relax. If needed, doze a little. Again, you want to be fresh and ready for the writing storm that is about to commence.

• When you take your empty cup to the kitchen and are confronted with the mountainous stack of dishes you’ve been ignoring for the past twelve hours, don’t fret. Even though your mind is overflowing with the tenderest text ever imagined, you know deep in your heart of hearts you will not be able to concentrate on plot and character and narrative when you’ve got lasagna petrifying on your dinnerware. Go ahead and knock the dishes out. You’ll feel much better.

• Now that the dishes are washed, and the refrigerator cleaned out (because really, how long has that science experiment been going on), everything has been taken care of to really allow your mind to settle into the most poetic prose the world has yet to see. Or will be, once you call your insurance agent and inquire into possible rates for the two seater convertible you expect to purchase once your book is a mega bestseller.

• Finally, in your author’s chamber, you settle in for a long winter’s day of writing, luxuriating in the knowledge that it is just you and your characters. Thrilling a little with the expectation of all the unknowns you are about to unveil to yourself and the world in general, after you check Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, the weather forecast, and find a dessert recipe that calls for cocoa.

• With all this settled and done, the curser placed at the beginning of the first word of the day, your eye catches on the clock and you curse desperately.

Time to pick the kids up from school.