Advent ideas for writers (and readers)

I cannot wait to try some of these!

Photo by Jessica Mangano on Unsplash

Nowadays there are numerous advent calendars on the market for adults. There are ones for beauty lovers, gin lovers, plant lovers (I imagine, this one is unconfirmed) but how about writing lovers? What about us? What about us word devourers. Book lovers who can’t face creating their own book advent calendar (yes I know this is a whole thing) because that is a massive amount of effort and expense, even buying second hand (full credit if you are creating one of these BTW, so dreamy).

So, I’ve had a think and here are some alternative ideas for keeping December beautifully wordy:

• You could write a line a day throughout December. You’ll have seen the journals that do this for an entire year. Yep, I had one once that was filled out until about 23rd of Jan. But December might be more manageable? And a nice time of year to log your thoughts/meanderings too.

• Fancy a micro journaling prompt per day in December? Then you might want to become a paid subscriber of Journaling Wild for the month (shameless plug because it’s going to be awesome!)

  There will be 31 reminders to take note, 31 tiny doses of stillness, 31 tiny whisps of creativity. Nothing unwieldy, no pressure, just a daily read that will gently nudge you onto the page for five mins or so and remind you to come back to yourself. A delicious quote, a poem, a reminder that it’s ok to opt out of the chaos and retreat a little. Create yourself a journal that you’ll look back on with joy. You can read more about this at the bottom of this post.

• Make yourself an Advent Reading Calendar full of articles/essays that you’ve saved but haven’t had time to read. Or saved because you wanted to read them again, either on Substack or elsewhere.

  Write down 1-24 in a journal (notebook) and log down each piece you plan to read. Having them actually written out will add to that intentionality. That feeling of being gifted a daily time-out to read. Increase the feelings of gratitude that someone took the time to pen the words. And ticking them off each day will feel festive and lovely. You could even write a few lines next to each one, a sort of miniature review. Or share your list with others to get further inspiration. This is one I am definitely doing. What do you think

  Substack Writers
  ?

Curating my list as we speak with a lovely mixture of pieces!

• Any other stationery lovers out there? You could create your own advent calendar as a way of updating your pencil case without breaking the bank. A new pack of beautiful highlighters could cover five days. Is a pen a day really a treat? Yeah, I reckon. And there could be some joy, not only in treating yourself and acknowledging the importance of your ‘tools,’ but in practising patience and slowness during a month mainly spent ducking jobs for the to-do list. A new journal or diary for 2024 towards the end would be perfect.

• As I said, I find creating a book advent calendar, although marvellous, a bit daunting. But who says that this idea has to mean a book per day? A book a week counting up the four weeks would be lovely. Particularly if you did it on a certain day and treated yourself to a hot chocolate and a skim through/sniff of the pages (just me?)

• Want something more arty that you can follow along? Check out Anna Brones - 24 days of making, doing and being. “A seasonal creative retreat, a call to action each day to create a little joy”. There will be art, projects, thoughts, and I imagine, having read Anna’s newsletter for a while, some gorgeous writing.

• You could use the month to expand your usual reading material. If you are a regular on Substack then chances are you’ll have already done a fair bit of this. But saying that, it’s easy to have those favourite writers who are SO good there’s no time left for exploring. You could choose one thing to read each day that is completely different to anything you would normally read. Note down any reflections in a journal?

• If you are out of the habit of reading daily, rather than a new book each day, you could turn December into a personal reading challenge. Five minutes every day? A chapter a day? 5 pages a day? If you want to finish a specific book then just count up the pages you have left and figure out your plan.

• Learn a new word a day. Write it in your notebook. Make it a tender or poetic one. Or an extravagant one. Write what you love about it.

• I’m not necessarily advocating for using December as the time to improve your writing skills (I mean, it’s not the most spacious of months), but in choosing to do some writing that is playful and pressure-free (yep, hello Journaling Wild community), there will inevitably be benefits. Perhaps ideally we’d always be writing about topics that we care about but I’m sure that for lots of us, this isn’t always the case. Plus, there will be far more than one thing that gets us excited.

  So, how about choosing a topic that you don’t normally write about. That’s a bit niche. A bit random. Something you want to learn more about or something you could talk about all day. Something really personal, perhaps. Everything about a certain food? Er, yes please. Feminist icons, again, yes, nice. Your favourite ever book. The soundtrack of your life (see what I mean, not everything will be stuff you’d normally share). Then commit to writing for a certain amount of time, or length (one full A4 page?) a day on that subject. See what happens and where you end up. Diving deeper into one topic can be fascinating. Your topic choice itself might be worthy of note. Stay curious. Keep writing.

• And last but by no means least, so simple but so wonderfully powerful, you could do an Advent gratitude log. Allocate a few pages of your journal and spend a little time each day coming back to the things you want to recognise and be thankful for.

---

The Journaling Wild Advent Calendar

I say advent, this will be something to sustain you for the whole month. Including that pale, shifting in-between time after Christmas where we’ll use our writes to start reflecting a little.

A daily reminder that December is a whole month of seasonal treasures. A reminder that it is perfectly fine to opt out of the sugar-fuelled carnage when it all becomes too much. That December can involve a little playfulness for you too. Yep, here for that!

You don’t have to write every day, though you might benefit from the encouragement to. But the last thing we need is more pressure at this time of year, so you could also read along and do a couple of prompts when they resonate.

I hope that these will be emails you actually look forward to opening. Journaling is like my comfort blanket, it reminds me to tap into the creativity that feeds my soul, it helps me to notice more and look after myself and during a month when I get very ‘head-down’, I need this more than ever.

So, starting on 1st December you’ll receive an email a day. 31 micro journaling prompts (I’m talking 5-10 minutes max and zero journaling experience necessary), 31 nudges to scribble a little something down, sometimes I’ll share the odd poem that has brought me to tears, or a quote that feels like something to write on a post-it note and stick it to your own head, ha.

Paid subscribers, watch out for your first one winging it’s way over on Friday. If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, then now might be a beautiful moment to give it a try:

Tell me, do you know of any other creative ideas for advent? Please do share away in the comments.

Do you like the idea of having a daily focus for yourself during December or does it just feel like one more thing you have to-do???

Nelly xx