~Here We Go!

24 Days Before Christmas is a book that I began to write in November of last year. It was inspired by a conversation I had on Thanksgiving Day with my sister Bethany and some good friends of mine who had read some of my previous writings.

In bed that night, while I was writing down a few notes from the comments my sister and my friends had made about my weaker points in writing, I was hit with the inspiration to write this story and try some of the things their comments suggested. I was already itching to write something with Christmas anyway and none of my other books were focusing on it. So I began… and then our family moved to a new house and I got sidetracked. Now, with the Christmas season only a month and a half away, I think I’m ready to try again and I thought I would share a few of the things I am trying to incorporate and especially work on in this story.

First of all, and rather irrelevant to “improvements”, but still challenging, my sister was begging for a mystery – a murder mystery in fact. She thought I could write one, I disagreed – and now I’m trying to prove myself wrong. One of the main plots of 24 Days Before Christmas is a mystery.

Secondly, I had begun to avoid descriptions of places and things to some extent. One of my friends encouraged me to “paint a picture” with my words. Somehow that really stuck with me and I’m really trying to do that in this book.

Thirdly… being lighthearted. I tend to write on the darker side. At least in more recent works. Not depressing or anything (well I hope!), but not really lighthearted either. Somehow in this book, I have to make the joy of celebrating Christ’s birth and the excitement of the holiday season, blend with a murder mystery. Not in a bad way at all and my idea seems like a perfect blending, but it’s still only in my head, not on paper. We’ll see how it turns out.

There were a few other things, which I won’t mention now. I’m doing a bit of rewriting on what I had already written and then… off I go! I’ll leave those of you who haven’t read it, with the beginning of the first chapter:

“The clouds hung heavily over Evergreen, nearly burying the tiny town under their oppressive folds. The barren trees lining the streets, groaned and trembled under their heavy burdens of white, as snow mercilessly continued to add to their great weight. Snowplows had cleared the asphalt-covered streets, but even they couldn’t prevent new snow from taking the place of the old or ice from creating danger zones nearly invisible to even the most cautious drivers.

The sidewalks looked like melted Rocky Road ice cream – a curious mixture of snow, mud and ice, so often trampled, melted and refrozen as to make each element inseparable from the others.

Icicles dangled precariously from slanted roofs, mingling with brightly colored lights and Christmas decorations. The decorations gave a sense of holiday cheer to the atmosphere despite the filthy pathways and rundown buildings.”

To the KING be all the glory!

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