Sign Me Up

Ten Holidays Writers Would Like to Celebrate

Butt in Chair Week (January 2-9): To help all writers get a decent start on all those writing resolutions they made on January 1st which they will either ignore, forget about or declare impossible by January 10th.

Hatchet Job Recovery Day (Anytime): Must be celebrated with the writer's favorite consolation activity, food or beverage as well as a very large box of tissues.

Income Tax Weepfest (April 16th): Save some of those tissues for this 24-hour period of hysterics over all those lost receipts, being unable to claim Hagan-Daaz as a deduction, having to pay twice the FICA for being self-employed, etc.

Leave Me Alone I'm Writing! Month (November 1-30th): Because calling it National Novel Writing Month has not discouraged non-writers from interrupting us while we're creating our next work of breathtaking genius, maybe this will.

Love Scene Composition Day (February 15th): Got to do something with all that personal intensive research we did on February 14th, yes?

Not Going to Nationals Compassion Weekend (July): For our writer friends who are members of RWA but are unable to afford the thousands of dollars it costs to attend their National Conference, which we all know is a huge waste of time and will do nothing for their careers but can't convince them of the same.

Promo No-No Day (Anytime): A full day and night during which the writer does not have to advertise, hand out gratis copies, hold a giveaway, promote or even mention the latest release. Not even during a casual conversation on Twitter that offers the sparkling opportunity to regale all fifteen of one's followers with purchase-enticing snippets.

Snickerfest (April 1st): The day we all get together and laugh over the latest piece of idiocy perpetuated by a colleague whose advances have outgrown their common sense. This year I vote we guffaw over any writer who claims their characters are making them write their books badly. Because, you know, characters do that so frequently.

Writer Love Day (Anytime): A day when everyone just shows us some love instead of the usual barrage of crap. Wouldn't that be nice?

Writer Prezzie E-card Month (December): For thirty-one days every member of families and friend circles will resist the urge to buy us fuzzy socks, cologne that smells like rotting mangos and the obligatory [Insert Writer Pun] T-shirt and instead present us with electronic gift cards from whatever bookseller we are currently not boycotting due to shady business practices, the ever-looming possibility of bankruptcy, or who refuse to remove that two-star review with all the damn spoilers on our last novel even when we can prove it was that envious ass ex-critique partner who wrote it.