Christmas (My Favorite Holiday)

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

My favorite holiday is Christmas, which goes from the day after Thanksgiving through January 1st. (The Episcopal Church says most of that is Advent, which Christmas lasting from Christmas Eve through January 6th, but I am using the secular definition of the season.)

Christmas lasts a whole season, with an aesthetic for everyone. My favorite is Victorian Christmas, with its velvet ribbons and candles. But there’s also Peanuts Christmas, Redneck Christmas, Mid Century Modern Christmas (think bubble lights and aluminum Christmas trees with rotating light wheels), Country Christmas, North Woods Christmas (moose) and many others. There’s an aesthetic for everyone, whether you want bright red and green, burgundy and gold, silver and blue, or muted red and green.

Christmas is full of nostalgia. I’m not a universal fan of nostalgia, knowing that a certain amount of it promotes regressive policies and repression. But the Christmas nostalgia seems harmless, as we all think about our childhoods when we weren’t so skeptical. For those of us who had bad Christmases, we can retreat into the Christmas we always wanted to have and make our own holiday. From there comes nostalgia.

Christmas lends itself well to romances. I write a Christmas romance every year at Christmas time. It’s part of my season. The one year I didn’t write one, I missed it terribly.

My Christmas is very secular, I realize, but these are the things I like about Christmas.

The Shaky Plot

I finally have the latest book laid out. Mostly. I hope. It looks a little slow and a little shaky right now, and I think it needs some thinking about. But here’s the latest on it.

The book is a comic look at influencers, especially tradwives and their idealized views of homemaking. Rod Lewis, PR worker at a health food conglomerate and his wife, Tisha, an influencer sponsored by the same company, discover Barn Swallows’ Dance, an ecocollective nestled among Illinois farmland. They think it would be an excellent space to film some guest spots. The residents think this would be good PR for the collective’s farm operations, as long as the cameras don’t capture the preternatural residents, the esoteric gifts among humans, or the flying cats.

Rod and Tisha bring in their film crews, the size of which alarm the residents. Tisha and Rod, on the other hand, are alarmed by how messy the farm chores really are. A flying cat is captured on film, dismissed as an optical illusion. The Lewises fall in love with the collective and try to move in there.

Meanwhile, the conglomerate sees the footage Rod and Tisha have filmed, and they charge Rod to approach them with a business proposition: to buy Barn Swallows’ Dance and make them a subsidiary of the conglomerate. This doesn’t go so well with the collective, being seen as a sellout. However, it is not completely without proponents, because the collective is at a financial difficulty that may put them in the red soon.

Barn Swallows’ Dance opts out of the buy-out, which makes the conglomerate turn to threats of regulatory harassment and lawsuits. Meanwhile, Rod and Trish are facing some blowback from the collective, which is trying to drive them out. The collective’s strategy: show them all the things they’ve been hiding from the duo. Make them think they’re crazy.

Tisha and Rod confront the collective to find out the truth about the strange things they have been seeing. They see why Barn Swallows’ Dance does not want to become a corporate extension and ask for membership there, and calling off the conglomerate.

I feel like there are holes in here and that this is a shaky plot. I’m hoping that writing this helps me to see the holes and to fill them.

My Most Disastrous Camping Trip

Daily writing prompt

Have you ever been camping?

View all responses

Years and years ago, I went camping at Illinois Yearly (Friends) Meeting in McNabb, IL. At Illinois Yearly Meeting House were primitive dorms and an even more primitive camping spot across the road. My friend Joan and I chose the campground, knowing we would have to walk across the road in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. We were okay with that. We put up the tent when there was just enough sunlight to light our way, and then we settled in for the night.

Photo by Pu00e9ter Ku00f6vesi on Pexels.com

I thought I had found the comfortable spot in the tent, only to realize that the air mattress settled on top of a tree root and was not quite as comfortable as I had hoped. Joan was likewise settled on top of a tree root, and there were no comfortable spots in the tent. That was okay; I still had the great outdoors to hang out in.

In the middle of the night, I woke up to rain. How cozy! I felt a bit less cozy and a bit more exposed when I heard lightning, but we were pretty protected under a tree. Had I been thinking better, I would not have felt cozier under a tree, but I was somewhat sleep deprived and not thinking clearly.

When we woke up the next morning, I realized my air mattress was floating. The whole tent had taken on about an inch or two of water. So had our sleeping bags, our spare clothes, and the rest of the contents of our tent. We had to take everything and hang it in the tree to dry. Luckily I had some clothes that had stayed dry so I had something to wear that day. Everything else was in the tree to dry.

We spent the next two nights in the dorm, having ended our grand camping experiment.

A Morning Person

Daily writing prompt

When do you feel most productive?

View all responses

I feel most productive in the mornings, starting at about 7 AM and going until 2 PM. After breakfast and coffee, because I get up at 5 AM to capture this productive time.

I get a lot done in the morning. At work, I get lectures written and assignments graded in the morning when I get here at 7:30 AM. Today I’m getting my blog written because I didn’t write it the day before. That’s how productive I am in the morning — I almost get ahead of myself.

I’m not as productive in the afternoon, but often work to keep from getting bored. By 4:30 PM, though, I’m ready for a rest. Dinner, then vegetative time. Then bed by 8. I have a boring night life, but it works for me because it keeps me productive in the morning.

Off to go work now.

Talking About Writing with My Husband

Daily writing prompt

What topics do you like to discuss?

View all responses

I talk to my husband about my writing. I see him as a co-conspirator to writing the novels I write. When I can’t come up with an idea for a new novel, I bounce ideas off of him. I don’t usually like his ideas, because he’s big on history and I don’t think in terms of history. But the conversation knocks my own ideas loose, and then I have an idea for a new novel. We came up with the latest idea, a comedy about what happens when a tradwife influencer and her corporate shill husband come across the ecocollective Barn Swallows Dance, where the unexplainable is waiting to be revealed, much to the discomfort of its residents.

He asks questions that make me consider plot. Sometimes his suggestions are silly — “You could have the Nephilim cats do a fly-by or something.” Actually, that’s a plot point I am considering in the latest novel. This novel is a comedy, and Richard is very good at silly details. On the other hand, much of the time he understands my characters enough that he anticipates what they will do. “Would Luke do this?” is a common question of his, and oh, yes, Luke would do that.

We’ve tried to co-write a book, but we don’t succeed with that. He has written in my universe, and I even used one of his main characters as a main character in a later book. But we never get past the idea stage when we write together. I think it’s because I have control issues in my own universe, which is understandable.

We’ll probably discuss the book on the way down to Weston, where we will be taking a short writing retreat. And it will be better for having been discussed.

Taking a Risk

Daily writing prompt

When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out?

View all responses

The last time I took a risk was when I republished Reclaiming the Balance. I had taken it off of sales because of some editing I had done, and I was satisfied with the edit. I deliberated republishing it because it was different than other books I have published. First of all, the villains in the story included well-meaning but complacent residents of my utopia, Barn Swallows’ Dance. Second, though, was that my male protagonist was non-binary — and, in fact, was born intersex.

Writing a love story with a person who is literally androgynous is not a typical action, but Amarel was one of the characters that arrived in my mind. I wanted to tell their story, and I wanted to tell it sensitively. I had a sensitivity reader whose child was transgender read the novel. Still, I felt it was risky to publish something that went against the status quo.

When I was younger, I would not have hesitated. Strangely, I have become more risk averse as I’ve gotten older. It might be because of the medication that keeps me from being manic (with the wild abandon that causes), it might be because the Internet is full of doxxing and bullying, or it might be because I understand consequences better. On the other hand, I have the assurance that I have survived everything so far, which should be a moderating influence.

What has happened? Not much, as I don’t have much readership for my novels. It has been a non-starter. I have not been called a bleeding-heart liberal (which I am), a weirdo (which I am), or a commie pervert (which I am not). Maybe I need to take more risks, because I don’t like being this risk-averse. Hopefully, my send-up of tradwives and influencers will be a bit of a risk.

The Risk of Moving Away

Daily writing prompt

Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

View all responses

I moved out to Missouri because of a guy, and I ended up breaking up with him after three years. I don’t regret this a bit.

Moving here, at first, was difficult because the town I ended up in was rural, very rural. It did not have the upstate New York ambience with its cafes, restaurants, and quirky people. It did not have the beauty of the hills of Oneonta. But I was here because of a relationship I thought had promise.

It didn’t. After three years of stagnation, I broke up with the man, and I was stranded in middle of nowhere Missouri. I made the most of it, got tenure, and was well-established in the town by then. After my childhood in a small, violent town, I could live just about anywhere, and so I stayed in Missouri. I bought a tiny house and established myself.

Maryville was not a great place to find a husband. Most professors are already married, or else there is a reason why they are not. Then I met my now-husband over Match.com. That’s the beauty of a small town — the Internet still reaches there. It was a long-distance relationship for a while, but only 2 1/2 hours away. We dated long-distance for a while until he finally moved down here. And then we got married in our small town.

Meanwhile, we’ve had several cafes over the years, and this has helped make Maryville hospitable. Cafe culture livens up a town and feels like community. We also occasionally go to the big city — Kansas City or Omaha or Des Moines — for a weekend writing and eating good ethnic food.

If I hadn’t moved here, I would never have met my husband, because Des Moines is far from Oneonta, NY. I probably wouldn’t have met anyone to be with, because Oneonta had the same problems as Maryville for dating. I probably couldn’t have afforded a house (much less the bigger house Richard and I moved into). I don’t regret a thing.

This Semester Has Gone So Fast

After this week, I only have one week of classes and one week of finals left, and then it’s summer break. This semester has gone so fast!

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

I think spring semester always goes fast. Maybe it’s the sunny weather promising that summer isn’t far away. Maybe it’s the activities that wrap up the school year, like my annual review, which went well. Maybe it’s just that time flies when you’re older.

Summer is a different feel for sure. I don’t teach any regular classes, just the internship, which is something I can schedule around other things if I have to. I travel around a bit to visit interns, but those trips get me into towns that have good ethnic food, so I can’t complain.

I get a lot of free time. A lot. So I can get rested up, write, come up with new ideas.

I’m looking forward to the summer.

On the Highway as a Passenger

Daily writing prompt

What makes you nervous?

View all responses

Riding in a car on a major highway makes me nervous. I have a sense of all the things that can go wrong while driving, and they easily come to mind while I am a passenger on major highways. When I’m driving, I don’t think of them as much because I have to concentrate on driving. But as a passenger, I think about merging into someone, going off the road, hitting the guardrail, causing a three-car pileup, and other gruesome scenarios at 70 miles per hour.

When I was a relatively new driver (at the age of 32), I once put my car in a ditch going 75 on I-70, crossing two lanes of traffic to do so. I have PTSD over that 30 years later, knowing how close I was to causing accidents in the lanes I crossed. I don’t know how I managed to blindly miss other cars while I overcorrected across the interstate. I don’t feel lucky; I feel guilty, as if I actually got into that wreck and did serious damage to people.

I feel guilty about the times I was a passenger of an impaired driver. I didn’t think about it at the time it was happening even though the driver was smoking pot and drinking a bit. I should never have taken the risk; I was unmedicated back then, so I blithely took risks because my mind said everything would be fine.

I think the nervousness comes from the guilt. Like I was lucky and my luck is about to change. Like I’ve racked up bad karma from my carelessness and it will catch up with me. This is why I get nervous when riding in a car on the highway.

After a Demanding Day

Daily writing prompt

How do you unwind after a demanding day?

View all responses

How do I relax after a demanding day?

How do I relax after a demanding day? Often, I just surf social media. My favorite is Quora — I like learning about new and esoteric things, so Quora fits my needs. It can be relaxing or challenging depending on the content. If it’s too demanding, I skip the commentary on questions. Especially the ones about American politics, because those often devolve into tu quoque (“Your mom”) arguments.

Sometimes I read comfort novels. Comfort novels are those I revisit now and again for a familiar read. I am currently rereading some JD Robb novels. Despite the murders, these are prime comfort novels to me, and a fast read.

Sometimes I just lie down and vegetate. Sometimes it just feels good to close my eyes and lay there. No demands, no brain drain. If I fall asleep, I guess I needed it.

Streaming videos is something I seldom, if ever, do. I just don’t have the attention span for watching something. For some reason, it takes a lot of brain energy for me to watch programs. It’s easier with subtitles, which makes me think it’s a hearing thing.

Today is going to be a challenging day, so I will have at least one of these strategies to get me relaxed in the evening.