Good Grief! Today is What???

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

This year the Christmas elves have morphed into malign gremlins, entangling me in strings of tinsel and lights and sending me crashing flat on my face. I try not to post just one essay to both my first Wednesday blogs, preferring to do two different posts on two different subjects, but this time I really have no choice. You see, I forgot. It is now almost half an hour after they should have gone up online, and I am sitting desperately writing in a dark cold office while every other creature in the house is contentedly sleeping, including The Husband.

I do have good excuses/reasons – many of them. Christmas shopping. Out of town family come to visit. Self-indulgently, parties. A couple of meetings that could not be missed. Two hard deadlines breathing fire down my neck – one to finish a book, the other to finish edits. A chronic physical health problem flaring up, as usual at the most inconvenient time. And, perhaps the most annoying of all, this is our seventh week of having no internet at home, meaning that I will be breakfasting at my favorite internet café as soon as it opens in order to get this posted. I really don’t know whether to go ‘sigh’ or ‘grrrr.’ Or both.

As I have said before, do not marry an overly-analytical man. It does get ugly.

So now what shall I say to redeem myself? Nothing, because the forgetting of such a long-standing and treasured responsibility is unacceptable. Hand to heart, I promise to be better.

With any luck at all, all our Christmas shopping will be done this week. Except for my own present, I do all the shopping for the family, but I have been known to have to buy my own occasionally. In both The Husband’s and my families we only give token gifts as we are all blessed with what we really need, but the list is long and it is hard to find even tokens that are not outrageously expensive. As I lurch from store to store, happily shrinking list and traumatized credit card in hand, it is a painful mental gymnastic to think of something appropriate to give each individual. I predict that the gift-card people will be getting most if not all of our business this year.

So, dear reader, the hour is wee, the office is cold, and I am tired. Again, I beg your pardon for such culpable behavior, do promise to be better, and wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas!

(And if you see a couple of elves with sinister expressions carrying ropes of tinsel and lights, please don’t tell them that you’ve seen me!)

Viewpoint, Tinsel and Magic

by Janis Patterson

I am ambivalent about the holidays.

I still have enough of the child in me to be in joyous awe of Thanksgiving, with its focus on thanking God for what made this country great as well as (let’s face it) for the unrestrained gluttony. My family is full of excellent cooks who, for this one day a year, throw their usually healthful menus to the winds and provide a sumptuous feast. Some of the more fanciful and calorie-laden recipes are only brought out on Thanksgiving … and occasionally on Christmas, but not always. We all eat all day and no one says a thing except, “More, please.” We all believe that one day of gourmandry is nothing to worry about, at least, not if you have a ready supply of Tums and Pepto Bismol handy.

The fortnight before Christmas is the same emotional rush – the decorations, the carols, the lights, the mysterious and alluring packages that one by one appear under the tree as if really brought by elves… It is the stuff of magic, and if you are not touched by it I pity you.

On the other hand, I am adult, and I know the work and expenditure and planning and sometimes sacrifice that must be done to create the magic of both holidays – the hard, grunt work that makes them happen. Grunt work it might be, but isn’t all magic supported by grunt work? It’s the quintessential symbiotic relationship… for adults, at least.

Which is a lot like writing. (Stay with me here – I do have a point.) As adults we can see both sides of the holidays – the magic and the hard work. As writers, we have to see and make believable both sides of our characters, bad and good. We have to see all of their motivations, even – especially! – if they conflict with other characters. Such a skill is a necessity, unless we are content to write flat cardboard people with no depth, no reality – creatures who are nothing more than verbal paper dolls. Real people and real characters are multi-dimensional, with sometimes contradictory beliefs and actions both towards others and within their own psyches. As writers we have to see and respond to both.

In other words, we have to create both meat and tinsel in our books. Yes, it’s hard work, but when it’s done right there is magic – and that magic is what we all want.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, and wish you a Merry Christmas or whatever holiday you observe. Now I must run – Christmas is coming more quickly than we can believe, and I’m running low on tinsel!