Holidays are dangerous. This one's thrown me right off my game and has further tempted me with idleness. Even now my bed calls out to me and it's the middle of the day. A Saturday, sure, and I'm acutely aware that no one else in the world is working right now except for me. I can see them all dancing out there through the window, all the blasted little Who's down in the Whoville, chanting and waving their infuriating song of joy: "Dah who door ray!"
I try not to take any time off at all. I try to work seven days out of the week. In case some one lost count, that's every day. Its sounds a little insane, but I don't work the full hours a normal work-monkey would. I only work the ones that I like and leave the rest for scraps. Take into consideration how a normal work week would look if you divided the typical hours into a seven day period. Its drastic.
Say, obviously, you work a 40 hour work week. That's typically 8 hours a day. If you're working a seven day week, you only need to work about six hours a day to account for the same total hours. Actually, a little less than six hours per day, but for the record, let's stick to six. It sounds more robust. Six hours is about the maximum tolerable limit of writing that I can do in a day, unless I'm divinely inspired, in which case I can write for just about the entire day. This sort of cosmic event happens once, maybe twice per year. Its not something to really factor into the equation.
What anyone else is capable, I can't really say. I don't particularly care nor do I have any desire to know either. My competitive spirit just might come out and I'd break my rhythm trying to prove I can work more than Mr. X, or Ms. Y. Then, if I couldn't, my literal side just might interpret that as a failure of character. After all, in the absence of any concretely deducible method of comparison between artists, the mind often grasps the material, no matter how absurd the comparisons. A painter might say 'I go through this much paint in a week.' A jeweler might quantify in terms of ounces--who knows. Its entirely arbitrary, but tempting just the same, to compare yourself to those sorts of hard data. Just remember the absurdity of it and carry on in the assurance that you will never be as prolific as some. Entertainment, after all, the raison d'etre, is not measured by volume. Admittedly though, you are often paid that way.
Christmas is one of the few federal holiday's I'll accept as an excuse to break from routine. I really have no choice in the matter anyway. Family demands, you know the drill. I wouldn't trade the time I get to spend with them for any amount of work ethic--even though work ethic is possibly my greatest weakness. So I don't hold it against any one to lay the pen down for a few days in the holiday season. Its only natural.
The danger is in letting it go on and on. Don't, for instance, get caught in the trap of thinking like any other working individual. You don't get an extended period off. If the New Year rolls around and you're still guzzling eggnog then there's something wrong--and in multiple areas of your life, I'm guessing. When Christmas goes then BAM!--you're back to work. Hit the ground running before that tree even comes down. Don't worry you'll find the time to take the decorations down, and if not they'll eventually fall off on their own.
So . . . are you writing? No? Well get your butt back to work, solider.
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