By Courtney Pierce
Romance is supposed to fill the air during the holidays. Senses come alive with the sweet and savory scents of cooking and candles. Warm flames in the fireplace dance to the accompaniment of floating snowflakes outside. Family and friends gather to reflect on the year’s accomplishments and challenges, for which we offer tight hugs of congratulations or sympathy. For a writer, all of these sacred rituals frame an inspiring story of holiday romance.
What a difference this 2020 holiday season will be from 2019. How in the heck does one cancel Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hannukah? State governors are like mean 'ole Grinches from Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Last year I was hopeful and believed right was right, no matter what stood in the way. I had a clear set of convictions and personal goals: my writing, my health, my marriage, and to raise a teenager with a solid set of principles. We worked and frequented our favorite restaurants. My stepdaughter went to school every day. I tucked the holiday grocery list in my purse, ran errands, and ticked off the completion of home projects.
And get this . . . my uncovered face connected with the expressions of fellow residents I didn’t know. As an American, freedom of thought was a given, a right never to be questioned. Livelihoods couldn’t be cancelled over a Tweet.
I took this rock-solid normalcy for granted.
As writers, we use the issues of the day—both personal and environmental—as emotional guides to create our stories. To make the words connect, we incorporate the relevant and current. Historical novels must adhere to the details of their time period, too. While Fantasy and Magical Realism novels enjoy more flexibility, there are still rules about what magic can and can't do. I imagine there will be a resurgence of books with themes similar to The Hunger Games in the coming months. Can one of them be turned into a holiday book about the sheer will to secretly decorate a Christmas tree? I may have to write it.
One of my favorite themes is for my character to do the wrong thing to fight for what's right.
So how are writers to deal with
our sudden loss of personal freedoms in their stories, especially romance ones? The current social
obstacles get in the way when describing the build-up to a long-awaited kiss. Slipping
off a face mask doesn’t match the impact of peeling off a blouse. An intimate
candlelit dinner for two in a quiet restaurant isn't allowed, so the
evening is reduced to a grab-and-go meal picked up at the curb? I just can't bypass the appetizer flirt and go straight to the doggie bag. Is a budding couple supposed to sit in the car and drip sauce on their lap? Rub
hand sanitizer on their hands before they reach across the console? 
Cartoon: Cayman Compass
Oh, the ridiculousness of it all. A skip over the juicy parts isn't acceptable. We writers have to make some serious choices about our novels-in-progress.
Before the pandemic, I struggled to ratchet up the conflict in my current draft of Big Sky Talk. The story needed deeper emotion and gut-wrenching introspection. Over the past ten months, I got that inspiration in spades, so much so that I became a bit psychologically paralyzed. Dealing with masks, social distancing, and lockdowns became irrelevant noise that would only distract readers from the story. Also, once the CoVid-19 vaccine is in wide distribution, any social restrictions written into the prose would make the book dated. Unless the genre is a thriller about a pandemic, books that include physical restrictions will end up in the bargain bin. A blip. A flash of time that we all want to forget, never mind read about.
The choice became clear.
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| Cover Art: Rosalind McFarland |
The psychological impact of behavioral restriction has been both challenging and inspiring. After I took all of my personal frustrations out on my character, I didn’t feel victimized anymore. But through the process, Aubrey became my friend and counselor. As she grew and stepped into the light, so did I.
Little Cindy Lou Who was so right about it being impossible for the Grinch to steal her Christmas. Holiday light continues to flicker deep within us. It can’t be bought, boxed, or bowed.
When Aubrey Cenderon moves to Montana after the death of her father, the peace and quiet of Big Sky Country becomes complicated with a knock on the door from the sheriff. An injured grizzly bear is on the loose and it must be eliminated before it kills again. The sheriff's insistence that she buy a gun for protection will present Aubrey with some serious soul-searching, because the grizzly-on-the-run is hunting her too . . . for a different reason.
4 comments:
Great points, Courtney. And celebrating our holidays by inventing new traditions is a good thing. I'm loving the commercials that show people sharing holiday events over Zoom, Skype or ? It's a time to be creative and find ways to encourage our holiday lights to glow.
Great blogpost! I agree that references to COVID should be left out of books. As a reader, that would be depressing. And once the vaccine is widely used , having references would certainly date the book.
Big Sky Talk sounds more and more interesting each time you blog about it, Courtney. Do you have a release date yet?
I agree that references to COVID should not be in a novel. Definitely dated and I don't think people want to read about it anyway. However, the emotional masking and fears are real and should always be in a novel where two people are coming together and deciding if they can trust each other--whether that is professional trust, friendship, or love.
Though we are restricted from many traditions of getting together it doesn't mean we can't still celebrate. I remember times of illness--measles or chickenpox as a child and in many ways our house was considered quarantined on the block. If this happened around the holidays we had to stay home. It's true it didn't last for 7 or 8 months, but history shows us that so many people have had these horrific times in war torn countries, refugees in camps not knowing where much of their family was located.
I choose to count my blessings instead of quarrel about what I can't do. I'm well. My extended family, including elders, so far are well. Just because we can't eat together doesn't mean we can't celebrate. We can call on the phone. We can Zoom. We can share recipes and maybe even try something new because it's just the two of us.
I know you are a glass-half-full person, Courtney. Because of that I always look forward to your books. I know your characters will endure hardship, but I also know they will come out better for it in the end.
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