Finding the Magic of Christmas

By Keith Fisher

Christmas has always been a magical time. In this day of so much stifling affluence and abject poverty, it sometimes helps to remember Christmases from the past. Did you ever notice that Christmas was always happier and more magical in our childhood than it is today? Or was it?

One of my favorite Christmases was the year a group of us slept in sleeping bags around the Christmas tree on Christmas night. It was during a time before the ease of freeways, and rather than drive home on icy, two lane, roads, my family made a pilgrimage visit. We stayed over at one house or another and Christmas was at my house that year.

I received a cool penlight in my stocking that morning so I spent most of the night turning it off and on, driving everyone crazy. There were board games, great food, and family togetherness. There was also, the snore of my uncle and aunt the next morning as I sneaked past them to retrieve my clothes from my bedroom. "You just don’t go into the bedroom where a married couple are sleeping," mother said. "Especially if they are newlyweds." Now that I am older, I know she was right.

All in all, that Christmas went down as one of the best two-day events of my life.

Years later, when I was in high school, I tried to rekindle that magic by inviting my recently divorced aunt and her family to stay with us for Christmas. This was after Freeways and they only lived thirty miles away.

My mother was surprised they accepted my invitation, and she was nervous to have the houseguests she wasn’t expecting. I was somewhat disappointed—it wasn’t the same—the magic was different.

In my memory, the earlier Christmas was wonderful, magical, and memorable. I ask myself, why can’t Christmas be like that these days? When I talked to my parents about the holidays of my childhood, I discovered they remember things differently. I got a penlight in my stocking because it was cheap and my parents were struggling, and my mother was frazzled over the logistics of taking care of so many guests. My parents don’t talk about the magic I remember.

We often say Christmas is for the kids, and the magic is in the eyes of your children, and that is true, but what if you don’t have kids? As adults, are we doomed to a life of checkout counter battles, shoveling snow, and cursing our fellowman?

Then there was the year my daughter was born. She was two months old at Christmas time. We placed her in an oversized Christmas stocking and took pictures. We joked that Santa had brought her and she was our Christmas present that year.

The year, my wife had emergency surgery to save her life was a magical Christmas too. I spent money we didn’t have on a Christmas tree. She didn’t like it, but I did my best to make Christmas magical for us. I was just grateful she was still around.

You see it’s a matter of perspective. Children don’t obsess with worries like parents do. To a kid, there is magic in almost everything, especially Christmas. Like the year my daughter was born, we can draw magic from special events and circumstances, but I see adults who thoroughly enjoy Christmas. Between the giving, the singing, the good will to men, and worshipping HE, who gave us Christmas, they are convinced it’s the happiest time of the year.

So, I challenge all of us to find the magic. Have the time of your lives—cut loose, and succumb to the joy. It’s tapping you on the shoulder. Just turn around and take a look. If for no other reason, be glad you made it through another year. As for me, I’m trying to look at it through the eyes of the child I once was.

Good luck in your writing, and Merry Christmas.

Fighting the Urge

By Keith Fisher

I made procrastination into an art form this week. I’ve been writing the family newsletter and I got bogged down playing with PhotoShop. When I worked as a typesetter I could knock out a two-page newsletter in a few minutes, but trouble with Word, and Page-maker, added time to the project, all the while, I could see my edits slipping further and further from my grasp.

You may wonder why I’m telling you this . . . well, it’s Friday night, I don’t have my blog written, and that is my excuse.

Although I have been working on a blog this week and I hoped to be finished last Monday, but well, you know what happened. I’ll get back to it this week I promise. Then again, I noticed that Danyelle Ferguson tagged me for another game. Maybe I’d better do that instead.

I saw a sketch on The Carol Burnett Show once, where a writer was trying to plot a story. He kept typing and striking out what he wrote. In the mean time, the characters were behind him acting out what was on the page. It was hilarious—the characters had to stop what they were doing and switch. I don’t remember all the particulars, but the writer killed one of them, then changed his mind in favor of killing someone else. The actor fell dead only to stand up and push the other actor down.

The sketch ended when the writer finally got tired of it, took two aspirins, and walked away. The characters were left to deal with two large, white, tablets crashing down on top of them.

Sometimes things go that way, and there’s no harm in taking a chocolate break, but we need to remember to get back in the chair as soon as possible. It can be hard to continue a story after distractions take us away from it. We can’t give up and drop large, white, tablets on our characters.

Now that I’ve said it, I need to practice what I preach, instead of taking aspirins, I think I’ll toss the other stuff, and get back to my characters. They’ve been beckoning to me since I drifted off into regions far removed. Good luck in your writing, and let me know what it is, that steals time away from your work.

Reeling In the Years

By Keith Fisher

I know, I know, I'm late posting this. It's Sunday and in my haste to get it written I probably messed it up. please let me know where my errors are.

I have a birthday coming up and it is one of the big milestones. You could change the spelling and say it’s a millstone . . . hanging around my neck . . . as someone drops me into the water . . . from off the pier.

All joking aside, we all have moments when we pause to assess our lives and discover, with horror, that we aren’t even close to realizing our goals. We look back on all the mistakes we’ve made, the wrong turns we took, and the missed opportunities. So we ask ourselves if we have done everything we could do in order to make our dreams come true.

However, don’t feel sorry for me, or for your self. When I begin to feel like there isn’t enough life left to fulfill my dreams, I remember what it took to get where I am and all the wonderful blessings along the way. There's a great line in a John Lennon Song, he wrote, Life is what happens, when were making other plans.

So when you stumble and fall, when you get a rejection letter and you feel you cannot type another word, think of the successes you’ve had in your life. The first time your children cleaned their room, the day they came home with a good report card, and the way God has taken care of you, especially during those lean years.

Keep writing! Never give up your keyboard until the day someone pries your cold dead fingers from off the keys. Then, when our books get published and we see someone reading it in an airport or crowded checkout line, we can remember the journey. I just hope it happens before my next birthday. Like white lines on the freeway at seventy miles per hour, they’re passing by. To quote another seventies song, Are you reeling in the years? Stowing away the time?

Good luck in your writing and watch out for over-the-hill writers. It's hard to keep from racing after you reach the summit. Try and help them slow down a bit and remember, I won't be one of them . . . I refuse . . . I'm going turn around and go back . . .

The Wit & Wisdom of a Wonderful Character

By Keith Fisher

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you remembered to give thanks to God for all his tender mercies. Myself, I got some writing and editing done. For which, I am truly grateful.

Have you noticed, when writing a book, an opinionated author must try to keep his/her opinions to themselves? If not, the author could be guilty of the cardinal sin of losing point of view and we all know what can happen if we do that.

But have you also noticed, if we put those opinions in the mouth of a sympathetic character, it can be said, and sometimes accepted? This can, however, be a two-edge sword that could hurt us on the back swing. But, you say, it was the character that said it not the author right?

I realized the implications when I read something that Dumbledore said in book two of Harry Potter and I wanted to write it down. Do I give Albus Dumbledore credit or do I give credit to JK Rowling? The character isn’t real, right? Or is he?

Without getting into the whole Stranger than Fiction mania, Keep in mind that in the end, it was JK Rowling who said it. Therefore, if what was said was something embarrasing . . . ah, there’s the rub as Hamlet said in his/Shakespeare’s soliloquy.

What was the quote? Dumbledore/Rowling said, "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Also, I discovered a section of self-dialog that I wanted to show you. In the book, Seven Days for Ruby by the Yorgason Brothers Ruby is worried about her friend. She prays for him and makes a discovery,
"Dear God in heaven," she prayed in desperation, "I’ve got troubles, real troubles, and I don’t know where to turn. Johnny is innocent, I feel he is, I know he . . .
"Lord, is Johnny innocent?"

I absolutely love this passage. Not only does it show the way we sometimes go about our lives but it’s well written. Now there are flaws in the story, of course there are. None of us are perfect and neither is what we write, but we can try, submitting our best work and maybe someday one of our characters will be quoted, but be careful. Keep a muzzle on your character’s opinions. Like children, they could have a tendency to embarrass.

Good luck with your writing, keep trying—believe you can be published—you can touch lives.

Deck the Halls, Not the Shoppers

By Keith Fisher

I think it gets worse every year. This year, I noticed two radio stations started playing Christmas music on November first. Not that I hate Christmas music, but it gets a little old by December Twenty-fifth, especially if the radio station plays the same twelve songs day-in and day-out.

I know the holidays haven’t really started yet, but I got irritated at the store the other day. The source of my displeasure, although mild, will only get worse by the time New Years rolls around.
It’s always a surprise when the season that should promote goodwill turns normally kind people into ruthless, ungrateful, and selfish children. The long faces and angry looks are enough to turn anyone’s heart away from the spirit of giving.

While shopping, I noticed no matter how hard I tried to be courteous, I was met by people who acted like they were somehow entitled, perhaps by theological decree, to be first in line and they somehow deserved the right-of-away more than I did.

I was taught to say pardon me when I cross someone’s path, and to recognize the kindness of others who let me pass first. On another occasion, I was in Deseret Book trying to see the bottom shelf without bending over and a man stepped in front of me to look at the racks I was searching. I didn’t count minutes, but he stood there for a long time. If you know me, you can imagine some of the things that crossed my mind.

Maybe I’m just oversensitive, but judging by last Christmas, I know it can only get worse.

Perhaps this year, we could all pray for strength to look past the rudeness and try to see what God sees in the man who steals our parking place, or the harried woman that butts in line at the grocery store. I know God loves them as much as me and I can use all the help I can get to remember that.

Now for a note about writing—awhile ago, C.L. beck challenged Darvell and me to provide a list of top ten kissable women characters. I’ve thought about it and I think I'll pass. Keep in mind that married men, if they know what’s good for them, will avoid thinking about other women.

Because I want to remain married, I decided to not take the challenge, but I want to point out how real some characters seem to be. An author who came to know them on an intimate basis has painstakingly developed those characters we remember best.

My advice to all of us would be to take the time to develop your characters. If you can put your character into a completely different type of story and the character is still real, you know you have succeeded.

Good luck with your writing, and good luck with your shopping. I hope to see you sane on January second.

Ouch, The Pain of Writing

By Keith Fisher

For those of us who look forward to weekends, Friday is the day of days, the light at the end of the tunnel. This week, however, it sneaked up on me before I knew it was coming and I was blogless.

To make matters worse, I inflamed my Sciatic Nerve (not sure of the spelling), and had to spend the day lying on my back reading. It’s painful to sit at my desk to write.

This is my longwinded way of apologizing for the condition of my (ouch) writing. And the (ouch) tardiness.

I want to share a condensed quote with you, however, it’s by David G. Woolley, and it hangs on the wall in front of my desk,

"Writing fiction is storytelling, but we must be more than storytellers. Ours is an art of communicating emotions, creating suspense. Describing the grit and grime and smell of a place. If we do it well, we transport the reader to a place just beyond eternity without leaving the Lazy-Boy. It sure ain’t easy—but it is doable."

Good luck with your writing.

It’s Not Fiction That’s Strange

By Keith Fisher

I was attending a writer’s conference once when I heard someone make an observation. In essence, she said that it was good to be around people who understood a statement about trying to get her characters to behave.

We writers are a weird lot—we spend our days, and late nights, listening to our creations. Then we sentence them to death, or worse, without any regret. We tell ourselves it’s all for the good of the book.

I know, I know, you’ve all seen it before, but recently, I finished watching Stranger Than Fiction. I hated the build up, but I loved the ending. Like most of you, I knew what the story was about before it started. Overall, the parts about the writer were very gratifying, but I have some questions for you:

Did you cry when the author couldn’t bring herself to kill Harold? How many of you could identify with her, to the point of feeling anxiety? Wasn’t it nice to know there are others like you?

I don’t want to spoil the movie, but when you see it, ask yourself, how real are the characters you create? If you saw them in a crowded airport, would you know them? If a character walked into your writing place, would you need to be introduced to them?

If you answer these questions the way I did, then you’re a writer. If you sometimes need to stop the car and get out because you recognize a scene from your story, then you are a writer. If you schedule vacations around research, then you are a writer. If you watch the spectators instead of the football game, then you are a writer. If you stand at the edge of a high place, trying to imagine what it would be like to fall off, then you are a writer.

There are many examples of this kind of behavior—perhaps you could name many more, but now that we established that you are a writer, start working on it. Be warned, however, people will think you’re odd when you try to explain the concept of a character who won’t behave or leave you alone. Then you will know that it’s not the fiction that’s strange—it’s the authors, but take heart, you’re not alone.