Most of us have probably watched a holiday special of one kind or another. When I was a kid, that holiday special was always “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I still watch “Charlie Brown Christmas” every year, even now.

There are lots of other holiday specials out there too. “Star Wars Christmas” comes to mind as a particularly… well let’s just say memorable to be charitable. The Muppets have a couple and pretty much every cartoon out there has at least one. I even saw “Ice Age Christmas” in the stores the other day.

Yes, I bought it and it is pretty funny.

All these specials got me thinking about why their creators did them in the first place. Is it to revisit long-overdone themes? Is it to grab their share of the holiday viewing market? Or is it to get the chance to run their characters through yet another scenario to see how they act and react?

My ever (often/sometimes/seldom?) curious mind took me down the path of seeing how characters would handle the holiday setting. How would some of my characters handle a holiday like Christmas, for example? Would they greet it with joy and happiness or sadness and sorrow? Would they represent the best virtues of humanity or the worst sins?

How would I handle tropes that are familiar to us, but totally foreign to whatever place and time my characters actually represent?

I know, for example, that my character “Mik Murdoch” would approach Christmas with excitement and joy. He would do his very best to ensure that all of his friends and family had the best Christmas ever. He wouldn’t let anything get in the way. He is a pre-teen boy and a wannabe superhero. Picturing his reaction was easy.

But what about my apprentice wizard, Charlie, from my short story “Apprentice”? Does the concept of Christmas exist? Perhaps it does in another form such as Winter Solstice? How would it be celebrated? Would he celebrate or hide? Would he be happy or sad?

It can be both a fun and interesting exercise. Put your characters through their paces and see what comes out. The exercise is great for generating story ideas. I know I now have some ideas for a story featuring the characters from “GalaxyBillies”. I haven’t spent any time with them lately and it might be fun to write a holiday-themed story with them.

What do you think? Holiday stories with known characters to see what comes out or just a means to capitalize on another holiday?

Tags: apprentice, charlie brown, charlie brown christmas, christmas, Galaxybillies, holiday, ice age, mik murdoch, muppets, star wars

All I can say is “Whoops!”

With everything that’s been going on I almost forgot my weekly post.

“What’s been going on?” you ask.

Well, for one, I’m going on two weeks of vacation starting Saturday. That in itself isn’t what is distracting me. It’s all the OTHER things I’m trying to get out of the way before I go.

For example, I had Episode 8 of ‘Get Published’ to finish and get into the feed. Then I had a promo to write, record and mix. AND the podcast was nominated for a Parsec Award which means I needed to mix a 10-minute sample episode for the judges. And I’ve still got to record Episode 9 (I’m not expecting to have good Internet Connectivity while I’m gone). That’s not even taking into account the regular stuff I need to do around the house, the time spent with my family and so on.

All I can say is busy, busy, busy.

I guess that can serve as this week’s lesson: whatever you have on the go, don’t lose sight of the important stuff. For me, this blog is important. Granted, my family still ranks higher, but I made the commitment long ago to have a new post out every Wednesday and it is important to me that I do so.

So, my apologies for getting this out late and when it did get out, not having a lot of interest to talk about. I’ll try to do better next week. You know, when I’m on holidays .

Personal Update

As mentioned above, I posted Episode 8 of ‘Get Published’. I encourage you to listen as I was lucky enough to interview Phil Rossi. He’s an interesting (and talented) guy.

I also created a promo for the show. I had a lot of fun writing and recording the episode and I would love to hear what you think about it. Please don’t hesitate to have a listen and send your comments my way.

I finished my sample episode and sent it off to the Parsec Submissions committee. Now I sit back and wait. While I am very honored to have been nominated, my competitive streak tells me that darn it, I want to win! We’ll see how it goes.

I’m (hopefully) a couple weeks away from finding out if the publisher has accepted my YA Novel submission. Fortunately, holidays will keep me distracted while decisions are made.

The biggest news I have is concerning Episode 9 of ‘Get Published’. I’m creating a “special” episode to air while I am gone (July 5th). It will feature my first ever recorded fiction, in this case, as short story I wrote a few years ago prior to my first novel. It was created as a study of the world I was creating. Nervous to put it out doesn’t even begin to cover it, but I’m also looking forward to sharing it.

Please, please, please (yes, I am begging) have a listen when it drops and let me know what you think. Negative feedback I can handle. No feedback is harder.

Tags: blog, fiction, holiday, irreverent muse, Michell Plested, short story