Creating Sing We Now of Christmas During a Difficult Season

Sing We Now of Christmas reached its final production stage during one of the most difficult periods of my early writing life. I had been laid off from a job I loved, struggled to find new work, and then became sick enough that even ordinary creative tasks felt beyond me for several weeks.

Originally published September 17, 2012. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

Creating While Life Feels Uncertain

Creative advice often assumes that a writer’s main challenge is finding enough discipline. Sometimes the challenge is grief, illness, unemployment, financial pressure, exhaustion, or the loss of a routine that once made work possible.

During that season, I could not simply pretend that everything was fine and continue at my usual pace. I had to recover physically, face uncertainty honestly, and work in the smaller windows of energy available to me.

A Project Can Provide Structure

The anthology gave me a concrete set of next steps. Stories needed to be assembled. A proof copy needed review. Formatting and production decisions needed attention. Contributors needed communication. The work did not erase the larger problems, but it gave part of each day a direction.

There is a difference between using creativity to deny hardship and allowing meaningful work to help you move through it. The book did not solve unemployment or illness. It reminded me that I could still finish something valuable while those problems remained unresolved.

The First Proof Changes the Project

Ordering a proof copy is one of the moments when a digital project becomes physical. The book is no longer only files, email threads, and cover images. You can hold it, turn pages, notice margins, inspect headings, find unexpected blank pages, and see whether the design works at its actual size.

A proof is not a ceremonial copy. It is a working object. The right response is not merely, “I made a book.” It is, “Now what needs to be corrected before readers receive it?”

What I Checked in the Proof

• Story titles and author names
• Page order and chapter openings
• Headers, footers, and page numbers
• Unexpected spacing or line breaks
• Image quality and cover alignment
• Typographical errors introduced during layout
• Whether the book felt comfortable to hold and read

With a multi-author anthology, proofreading also means checking that every contributor is represented accurately and consistently. A mistake in someone else’s name or story is not a small detail to that person.

Coordinating Many Contributors

Anthology editing requires a kind of creative administration. The editor must protect the central vision while respecting the individual voice of each contributor. That means setting standards without flattening every story into the same style.

• Communicate deadlines clearly.
• Explain revisions rather than sending unexplained changes.
• Keep records of permissions and final approvals.
• Use a consistent style sheet for punctuation, capitalization, and formatting.
• Give contributors a chance to review important changes.
• Remember that everyone involved has a life beyond the project.

Christmas Stories and Hope

It felt appropriate to complete a Christmas anthology during a period when hope did not feel automatic. Christmas stories often begin in difficulty: a family far from home, a traveler in winter, a person who has lost something, a community divided, or a character who needs to relearn generosity.

Hope becomes more meaningful when it does not deny the darkness around it. The carols and stories in the anthology reminded me that hardship and joy can occupy the same season.

What That Season Taught Me

• Creative progress may need to become smaller during a crisis, but smaller is not the same as meaningless.
• A concrete next task can restore direction when the future feels uncertain.
• Finishing a project requires practical review, not only inspiration.
• Collaboration can keep a project moving when one person’s energy is limited.
• Hope is most convincing when it makes room for honest difficulty.

The Completed Book

Sing We Now of Christmas eventually became a twenty-five-story Advent anthology built around beloved carols and created to support the National Down Syndrome Society. Looking back, I remember both the finished book and the unsettled circumstances in which I reviewed that first proof.

The experience did not teach me that every hardship produces a book. It taught me that meaningful work can sometimes become one of the ways we keep moving until life opens again.

---

Read the full project history in Sing We Now of Christmas: A Charity Advent Anthology. This article is one of the supporting stories behind that fiction collection; the complete relationship among the anthologies, carol-history devotional, podcast, audiobooks, translations, and music is mapped at Christmas Books, Stories & Music.