Muse and Mischief

I’ve been seriously writing for the better part of 25 years. First was comics, then screenplays, prose, and now a combination of the three. Throughout that entire time I have always wanted to write a Christmas story. Gave it a few attempts over the years, but nothing really felt right. I think I didn’t know what I was trying to capture, or at least I couldn’t get a handle on it. 

Honestly, I think I just wasn’t at the skill level I needed to be to evoke the emotional reaction I wanted to from readers. I know I wanted the reader to walk away from the piece with a sense of peace and hope. A lot of what I wrote tried to capture that, but it always fell flat. 

What I didn’t realize back then that I know now is that a lot of times, that uplifting feeling I wanted, needed to be balanced with some harshness. Looking back to last week’s post, my number one Christmas movie is It’s a Wonderful Life. I think the emotional payoff we get at the end of the movie is only impactful because of all the hell George Bailey went through the entire movie. 

I saw a move in 2004 called Noel that was directed by Chaz Palminteri. It didn’t do well commercially, but it really spoke to me in the sense that it showed the blend of emotions on Christmas that I think was more realistic than anything I had seen before. Maybe that was why it didn’t hit commercially. 

But that was the type of emotional journey I wanted to capture. I just didn’t have the spark of a story yet. Then last year, the election, my general malaise of being an adult orphan at the holidays, and other life events happening gave me what I needed. 

It all coalesced into a character, my female lead in my novella When the Candles Burn. I infused a lot of the emotions I was feeling about what was happening in the real world for trans women and my fears about living my life as me. 

What came from that was the inherent plot line of a story that I would obsess over with draft after draft after draft for about eight months. It wasn’t a full-length novel, but for what I wanted to do it didn’t need to be. 

My final draft that went to print was under 30 thousand words, but it packed an emotional punch that still brings me to tears after countless readings. I designed the cover, did the layout, and executed a very, very amateur marketing plan. 

One of my first readers after publishing described it as “beautiful, and heart wrenching and magical all at the same time…” Which honestly, is the best I could have hoped for. 

I’m happy with what I created, and I think this book will be something I read every year around Christmas. 

Have you picked up a copy? If you have, what did you think? I would love to hear your thoughts.