Category: Christmas

December 19, 2019

A Heartwarming Holiday Tale of…

Y’know, I just realized something. This might be the last post of the year if I don’t do some off-day stuff. I may have to reschedule some things…

That said… less than a week till Christmas. Writing’s probably (understandably) one of the last things on your mind. Or maybe it’s right there, teasing you with cool new ideas. Perhaps even holiday-themed ideas.

Writing stories that revolve around Christmas—or any holiday—is tempting. It’s very relatable. A lot of the groundwork is already done for us as far as setting goes. Heck, depending on my characters, a lot of backstory may already be done. A Christmas story can be kinda freeing and give us an instant theme to go with. Or go against. Everything becomes more shocking and dynamic when set against a bunch of innocent carolers trying to sing “Joy to the World.” Except maybe another group of carolers.

Plus, let’s just be honest. Christmas stories are lucrative. Forget superheroes, there’s a fair argument to be made that Christmas stories are one of the best-selling genres out there, especially if you write screenplays. Seriously. Think of all those cable and streaming channels that are just brimming with original movies about dogs and holiday romances. I was in a holiday-themed anthology a couple years back, and I know there’ve been several more since then.

Forgive me for sounding all capitalist, but… there’s a lot of money to be made off Christmas.

Now, that said…

If I’m thinking about a clever idea for a holiday story I do need to be a little careful. The ugly truth is, it’s all been done before. All of it. No matter how clever or original I think my take is, there’s a good chance someone’s done it before. Because, as I mentioned above, this is a huge market and lots of folks have written lots of stories.

Look at it this way. Think of all the different versions of A Christmas Carol you’ve ever seen or heard of. There’ve been books, plays, movies, and animated specials. We’ve all seen it done dozens and dozens of times, set in the past, present, and future. There’ve been versions of it that leaned toward drama, toward comedy, horror, sci-fi, you name it. I’d guess at least thirty or forty television shows have done takes of it, too. Heck, just in the past couple years they’ve done it on Ducktales, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, and Family Guy.

How about Santa? There’s Santa Claus origin stories. Evil Santa stories. Cool Santa. Robot Santa. Son of Santa. Daughter of Santa. Brother of Santa. New Santa. Heck, at this point I’ve seen multiple stories where Santa’s an action star defending his workshop from invaders. Like, it’s pretty much a solid subgenre at this point.

I mean, at this point even Krampus is pretty commonplace. He shows up in a bunch of books. Just typing the name into IMDb gives me over a dozen movies where he’s specifically mentioned in the title, and I could probably come up with just as many where he isn’t. There’ve probably been another dozen or so supernatural-themed shows where he’s appeared in as well (he had an appearance on Grimm that I really liked).

All done many times. In many ways. I’m not saying these stories can’t be done again, but this is one of those areas where I really need to be aware how often this relatively small pool of material’s been mined for ideas.

Except… weird as it sounds, there is kind of a niche where people love getting the same thing again and again. If you scroll through some of those big holiday movie listings at Netflix, Vudu, Tubi, or whatever platform you like to use, you’ll see the same themes showing up again and again in hundreds of movies. Literally, hundreds. Holiday romance. Small towns. Loveable pets. Holiday romance in small towns. Loveable pets saving the holidays in small towns. Seriously, you’re chuckling but you probably know a dozen stories like this, right? I think there’s a whole holiday romance subgenre.

My point being, if I want to appeal to that market, it’s very important that I don’t do anything too new or radical. This audience is looking for a sort of comfort food. They want to know that he ends up with her, she ends up with him, and that the dog lives and saves Christmas. Breaking these traditions might arguably make a more interesting story, yeah, but that’s not what these are about. He ends up with her. She ends up with him. The dog saves Christmas. Done.

So think about stories this holiday season. Do I want them as a general background? Do I want to put a clever spin on something old? Do I want to lean into one of those niches? Whichever one I’m thinking about… I should put in a little extra thought. Just to be safe.

Next time, performance reviews.

Until then… I wish you all a peaceful Solstice, happy Hanukkah, merry Christmas, joyous Kwanzaa, gleeful Boxing Day, and a glorious Ascension of Tzeentch.

Now go write.

November 29, 2019

Black Friday VII—Elf on the Shelf in the Hood

So, hey, now I’d like to alter the mood a little. Let’s talk about this whole Black Friday thing and the holidays and being poor for a couple of minutes.

Because being poor at the holidays absolutely, completely sucks.

Being poor’s just a constant feeling of tension. Of being painfully aware of what you don’thave and what you can’t do. And for the past ten or fifteen years, a lot of folks have made it painfully clear that they judge you because of that. They find you lacking as a person because of your poverty.

And it’s even worse at the holidays. So much of the holidays is about giving, and when you’re poor you just… you’ve got nothing to give. It doesn’t matter how much you care about that person, it doesn’t matter how much you want to. It doesn’t matter because you’ve got nothing.

And again… you can feel people judging you over it. At every office party or gathering of friends or family dinner. You get judged for being trapped and powerless. Hell, you end up judging yourself, and it just becomes this endless cycle of guilt and resentment and desperation.

It sucks.

And, yeah, as some of you know, I’m speaking from experience. I’d saved a little money before I became a full-time writer, but two or three random-but-normal problems—car repairs, a sick cat, a pay cut at the magazine I wrote for—and wham I was poor. I mean… nothing. Cards maxed out. Stretching every paycheck until it was tissue thin. The phone got shut off. My partner and I didn’t turn the heat on for three winters in a row. We stole toilet paper from the library. Pretty much everything we ate came from the 99 Cent Store. Frikkin’ Shane Black offered to sit down and talk with me over coffee for an article I was working on. And I had to turn him down ‘cause I couldn’t afford the gas to get me across the city to where he was. Hell, I didn’t have enough money to buy a coffee.

Look, some folks just love to snort and blabber about “entitlements” and “nanny states,” but the simple truth is that the vast majority of poor people don’t abuse the system. They’re way too busy just trying to survive with their health and maybe just a shred of dignity. And I say that as someone who spent three years constantly on the edge of panic and feeling sick with despair.

And holy hell I hope that none of you reading this are there right now, feeling helpless and sick with despair. Because like I said before, it seriouslysucks to be in that position.

But if this is where you are right now—if you’re in that same crappy place I had to be in for three Christmases in a row—maybe I can help.

If you can’t afford gifts for your friends or family, get in touch with me at my old business email–PeterClines101@yahoo.com. I’ve got about two dozen books here, I think, that I’ll autograph to whoever you want and mail out to you. Or to someone else, if you need it shipped. I can even gift wrap if you need it (seriously, I am a fantastic gift wrapper). Most of these are paperbacks of Paradox Bound, but there’s six or seven other things in here, too. Think I might still have two or three of those big audiobook CD sets, too. If audiobooks work better for your special someone, just say so. You can request a specific book but I can’t promise anything.

Past that, though… I’ll send them out for as long as the books last. If you need some help this season, just ask

Again, this is only for those of you who need some help getting gifts for others. The people who are pulling unemployment, cutting back on everything, and feeling like trapped because they can’t afford gifts for family or friends. It’s not so you can recommend someone who might like a free book. You could do that for them, too—go get them a book. They’ll love you for it.

Speaking of which—look, whenever I do this folks offer to chip in and help out. Like I just said, you don’t need me to do that. You can go be fantastic people all on your own. Seriously, I’m willing to bet cash money there’s a toy bank or a food bank or some kind of program within ten or fifteen miles of you right now. You could help out with that.

Also, I’m also doing this on the honor system, so if you’re just trying to save yourself some money or score an autographed book… well, I can’t stop you. But let’s be clear—if you do, you suck. You’re a deplorable person who’s taking a moment of peace and relief away from someone who really needs it this holiday season. Don’t act surprised when karma kicks you hard in the ass over New Year’s.

Anyway, Happy Holidays. Let me know if I can help out

Christmas holidays