I have reached the Irascible Season.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy the holidays—I do. The problem is that Thanksgiving arrives right in the middle of a very busy time of the semester (my day job is university professor). And this year Hanukkah came early too. So there’s all the prep for that, and people at work are stressed and hitting deadlines, which is way fun for everyone. This is the time of year when students realize their procrastination was a bad idea or that they’ve overcommitted themselves, and they’re clawing desperately at solutions. It’s the time of year when faculty have piles and piles of things to grade and stores of patience have been depleted. Our staff are overworked too, and the administrators are likely overdue for a vacation.
My email inbox overflows with tasks I need to do and fires I need to put out (I’m department chair). Mentally, I am on board a ship in the Caribbean, drinking fruity cocktails and working on my next book. Physically, I’m at home, reminding students for the umpteenth time about how to properly cite sources in a research paper and moderating their disputes with their instructors.
My family members long ago learned to give me a wide berth this time of year. In fact, both of my kids are students—one is an undergraduate and the other a graduate student—so they’re enjoying their own Irascible Seasons as well.
The bad news is that I have less time to write during this season than usual. The good news, however, is that when I do manage to delve into my fictional worlds, the process is therapeutic. I can momentarily forget about my worldly stressors while I put my poor characters through their own conflicts. I can also displace my frustrations—it’s not unusual for Bad Things to happen to characters who share a name or trait with someone who’s causing me grief. Writing isn’t easy, but it does make me feel better. I hope it serves the same purpose for some of my readers too.
I have other coping mechanisms. This morning I took a nice long walk in the lifting fog with a friend and her cute dog. This evening I plan to curl up on the couch with the cat and some chocolate and watch a sappy Christmas movie. If I’m lucky, I have some upcoming trips to look forward to. But stories—reading them or writing them—are always going to be one of my best ways to keep from blowing my top.
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Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.
After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her family and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.
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