The best holiday tradition you didn’t know about
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Welcome to The Writing Rundown, a weekly newsletter that offers advice, short essays, and reading suggestions to help driven writers (like you!) improve their writing craft. It's nice to see you here! If someone forwarded you this email because they love your writing, you can subscribe here. Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes “Thank God for books and music and things I can think about.” ― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon In Iceland, they celebrate the holidays with a tradition that any reader is going to immediately fall in love with. Jólabókaflóð literally translates as “the Christmas book flood” and has been celebrated with gusto since the 1940s. As a nation of readers (they read and publish more books per capita than any other country, with each adult reading at least 8 books annually) they easily fell into the tradition of giving books at Christmas. See Iceland was a dependent territory of Denmark from 1918-1944, despite being located northwest of the UK in the Arctic Circle. As World War II was still raging, they began to seek their independence, a stipulation of the 25-year Danish–Icelandic Act of Union. Not the best time to become a fully independent country, but countries on the European continent had enough to worry about, and Iceland was trying hard to stay neutral and hang out on their island in the North/Norwegian Sea. To do that, they imposed strict import restrictions and rations on goods coming into the country, so they weren’t beholden to any debts or obligations. But one thing they had an abundance of in Iceland? Paper. Hence why books became so popular! You know what they’re made of, right? In recent years they have truly dedicated themselves to the book flood that happens every fall (when a slew of new titles flood the marketplace), with the Icelandic Publishers Association actually sending a catalog of each year’s new titles to every single residence in the nation — at no charge. Then, at the holidays, you buy a new book (published that year) for someone you love. That’s right, they essentially Oprah the Christmas Eve experience with a “You get a book! And you get a book! And YOU get a book!” Some families will buy a new book for every person, others do a sort of Secret Book Santa where you choose a name from a bowl and buy just for them. Regardless, during Jólabókaflóð, everyone spends their Christmas Eve curled up with their brand new book and chocolate (both filled chocolate treats and hot chocolate; some will partake in jólabland (a fizzy mix of orange soda and malt) if they want a warm fuzzy buzz while escaping to new worlds and experiences. I’m not saying that everyone on the planet should partake in Jólabókaflóð, but I am saying: “Why on earth do we all not buy each other books then bask in the silent companionship of others nose-deep in reading bliss, while gorging ourselves on chocolate and orange deliciousness?!” What You Missed on Craft Your Content …Our articles have the same mission we do — to help you to make your own words even better!
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Weekly Writing Tip …A quick chance to learn from the masters. “I felt after I finished Slaughterhouse-Five that I didn’t have to write at all anymore if I didn’t want to. It was the end of some sort of career. I don’t know why, exactly. I suppose that flowers, when they’re through blooming, have some sort of awareness of some purpose having been served. Flowers didn’t ask to be flowers and I didn’t ask to be me. At the end of Slaughterhouse-Five…I had a shutting-off feeling…that I had done what I was supposed to do and everything was OK .” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut Untranslatable …Exquisite words from other languages. Poronkusema [po-RON-ku-sey-ma] (n.) – From the Finnish language, poronkusema is a now-obsolete (but really, it was used!) unit of measurement that equals “the furthest distance a reindeer can travel before it has to pee.” In case you are curious, the distance is approximately 4.7 miles or 7.5 km. Sorta synonyms: rest stop (that’s about as close as we are gonna get!) This Week’s Writing Resource …Why not use the tools at your disposal? PepTalkHer App — If you have been looking back at the past 12 months in year-end reflection, trying to figure out what the heck you did with your time, this is a perfect solution for 2024. You just enter your accomplishments into the app, as you accomplish them, and then you can peep back at any point to be reminded of how fantastic you really are! For the Upcoming Week …Because we all need a good chuckle to start things off right! Sometimes you have to rethink the plot or your characters… ‘Til next time! ~ Elisa |