Favorite Holiday: an Open Book Blog Hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Which is your favorite holiday and why?

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I find this one difficult to answer. There are a LOT of holidays that have brought me joy, but most of them are also a ton of work and sometimes that doesn't balance out. Some of my best family times AREN'T on holidays at all, and I think that's because there's less pressure or expectations on the day and I can relax. 

So, some thoughts on several holidays: 

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: Usually falling in September or October of the Christian calendar, this is basically Jewish New Year, a time for reflection and appreciation, celebration and atonement. I'm not a very religious Jew and I've never really had a religious community in my life, but I've developed my own quiet practice and often get to share a festive meal with family and friends. It's tricky to make space for around a public school schedule, but we try and it's getting easier now that I no longer teach. 

 

I'm pretty famous for my challah.

 

Halloween: I've got a serious spooky streak and I enjoy the aesthetics of Halloween a great deal. Decorating, making treats, etc. It's different now that my kids are grown and no longer trick or treat, but I'm enjoying the new traditions we're developing of hosting parties and watching spooky films together, too. 

Thanksgiving: I used to really resent this one. It didn't feel like a holiday to me, but more like a challenge or hurdle to overcome. A big festive meal of this sort is exhausting. It was especially bad when I was teaching because I really needed the time off just for recuperation. But then my husband and I came up with a system in which we order some of our dishes pre-made and make others ourselves. I'm looking forward to it this year because my 18-year-old is hosting a friends-giving and we'll have a houseful of young people. 

Chanukah/Hannukah (pick your favorite spelling): Since we're a two-religion family, some years ago we decided that our Chanukah observation would be simpler and involve fewer gifts since it's often so close or intertwining with Christmas. We plan a family activity together for each of the eight nights, and make sure we get some of the traditional foods and a chance to play dreidel together at least once. Some of my happiest family memories come from one of the nights of Chanukah. 

Christmas: I find Christmas overwhelming. It's huge. It's loud. It's flashy. My husband's family is Catholic. Luckily, we live at some distance and don't go up to be a part of the whole shebang every year. The gift-a-palooza is always fun and a couple of quiet days setting up and enjoying our new toys and items can be really nice. And it does have some lovely music. It's usually the longest stretch of days off in a row that I get every year, too, which can be lovely if it's not too full of travel and hoopla. 

How about you? Which holidays bring you light and joy? I'd love to hear about it in the comments 

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What I thought a writing life was, an IWSG post

 

 

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the November 5 posting of the IWSG are Jennifer Lane, Jenni Enzor, Renee Scattergood, Rebecca Douglass, Lynn Bradshaw, and Melissa Maygrove!

November 5 question - When you began writing, what did you imagine your life as a writer would be like? Were you right, or has this experience presented you with some surprises along the way?

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 I "began" writing several different times in my life. 

The first time, I was a child, so I had no idea how money and life in general really worked. I imagined that I'd have a tower room to write in, a horse to ride in the forest, and I could simply dream away every day making up stories. 

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Somewhere along the way, I realized that the likelihood of my ever having the money to afford that life, as a writer or anything else, was low. 

I began again as a college student, when I was around twenty. This version continued into my early thirties. Although I taught for a living, I aspired to be poet. Not just to write poems, but for writing poems to be my vocation. 

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I understood it wouldn't make me famous and that I'd need to do something else to make a living by then, but I wanted to write poetry that changed and moved people, poems that got quoted and that I was invited to read at big public events. 

It's hard to pin down why--becoming a mother? different kinds of inspiration? the lure of other artforms?--but I moved away from poetry in my mid thirties, at least with the kind of intensity I brought to it when I was younger. I still write poetry, but it's gotten to be a more private art form for me these days, something I do for myself and not something I write to share. 

The third time I began was in my later thirties. I joined a novel-writing critique group to light a fire under my creativity and help pull myself out of a pretty deep post-partum depression spiral. I had never really considered writing a novel before, and most of those early efforts were pretty terrible, but I kept going. I think part of me thought I could still be Jo March all these years later. 

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When I finished my first novel (unpublished, and probably never will be--it was the book I wrote to learn how to write a book), I started to imagine what that kind of writing life would be like. I imagined that having a book accepted for publication would be life-changing and allow me to stop my other money-making pursuits. After all, movies and TV certainly present it that way. 

Now I am really am a novelist, with five of them published, and three more in process for next year. It's up and down so far as what it earns me. I'll have a stellar month with lots of sales and new acceptances, followed by a month or two or three with no flow. 

Though the income and reception may not be steady, I am. I write every day, and I'm always working on something new as soon I've finished a project. At this stage, the writing life I imagine and am building toward is the one that comes with being retired and not being tied to the time and mental space the day job takes up now. I've got a writing life that can easily fill full-time hours…but not the income to allow me to give it full time hours. 

All the same, I never seriously consider giving it up, even when the going gets rough. I can't imagine NOT having a book I'm working on. That would be like not reading, not eating, not breathing, it's so ingrained into my life. My tower room may never become a reality, but I can write one for my characters and it feels almost the same. 

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PS--unrelated to today's prompt. I've built a new author website through BookBub. You can check it out at http://dangerouswhenbored.com  But it's not going to work for blogging, unless they make some updates, because their blog pages don't include comment functionality. Blogger, where I've been since 2009, is no longer well supported. I'd love suggestions about what to use! Feel free to comment here to to contact me another way (email: samantha at samanthabryant dot com, samanthabwriter on most social media) to give me your suggestions or feedback on my new website!

New author home

I've got a new author website: 

http://dangerouswhenbored.com

For now, I'll still be BLOGGING here (since my new platform doesn't support comments properly yet), but all the other stuff (info about my books, events, etc.) will be on the new site. Come check it out!