A Contradiction of Thought

By Robin Weaver

 I love that RTG has a monthly theme. Having a single topic provides just the right amount of inspiration to fire up my disjointed brain. If you’ve read any of my blogs, you know the theme and the resulting post are typically miles apart. But doing the twist makes writing fun.

I try to take the expected and do something completely different. For the November theme, “Abundance,” I wrote about having too many Christmas decorations. And being unable to stop making more. That same thought-contradiction led to the development of the Christmas Tree Wars. I mean, the holidays are about peace on earth, right? So naturally I needed to start a fight.

I didn’t plan to write a novel about a Christmas competition, but one year, a friend vowed to “one up” my holiday tree. At the time, she was helping me with my Phantom of the Opera decorations. We were creating a couple dozen music notes from dough and glitter (there might have been some Baileys involved), when she declared she was doing her own theme.

And she did. The birds!

Her tree was actually quite fowl.  STOP! I’m joking. Her creation was truly beautiful, and I probably spent more time looking for bird ornaments than she did. I’d love to tell you the planning/decorating turned into a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie (or Stephen King for those of you who don’t remember Al—wait, even Stevie is old now. What I meant is Squid Games—yeah, that’s it). Anyway, any of the three would have been more interesting, but we had a lot of fun.

My friend’s faux posturing—“My tree is gonna kick your tree’s butt.”—inspired the Christmas Tree Wars. The novella details a Christmas Tree competition, which brings in tourism, and is a big deal in the small town. Like any Hallmark Movie, eh…I mean character-driven story, our heroine doesn’t want to enter. A little goading by the town socialite (aka busty bully), a big bet, and an even bigger entry fee paid by friends who can’t really afford the gesture, and Suzette has no choice but to come out swinging (swinging tinsel on tree branches, but still…).

As the story developed, I fell in love with the imagined town, Merryvale, so had to set another story there. Likewise, the busty bully needed to redeem herself, thus Full Contact Decorating came to life. The third novella, the Gingerbread Skirmish, was actually planned. Everyone knows you must have three books in a series. 😊

I had a lot of fun with these novellas, especially writing the chapter headings. I added a twist on Christmas Songs to describe the chapters. Some examples include: What Childishness Is This, 12 Days of Lying, and, Chestnuts Roasted. I was advised NOT to do that—that it would be cheesy, but hey, no one paid me to NOT have headings. So, my book, my chapter subtitles.  And what’s wrong with cheesy, anyway?

Have a ho-ho, very happy holiday, Everyone.

And please check out the Christmas Tree Wars, written under my pen name Genia Avers.

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