Making It Up As We Go

You'd think, since I've made up like 12 different deities for one series that I'd have created some kind of holiday that I then had to write about and describe what happens and how it's celebrated, but somehow, I've managed to dodge that bullet thus far. Maybe having to save the galaxy leaves too little time for parties and big feast days.

As you can see, however, according to Perceval, every day is a holiday.

In the upcoming manuscript, I'll have an opportunity to handle holidays. The closest I've come is inventing languages and having to my people navigate some cultural differences.

What's interesting is that currently, we're in the process of reinventing holidays at home - and these are holidays we know. But because we're now a blended household since my folks moved in, we're having to find common ground and redefine what holidays mean to us now. Other than too many calories and increased stress. Not to mention cats climbing Christmas trees. I should totally invent a holiday. I realize I have a lot of material to pull from. But you know, when you're living in outer space and you aren't beholden to a solar cycle, how do you define a day? And then, what kinds of holidays would you observe? Maybe something closer to the modern Naval tradition of celebrating crossing the equator. Hmm. I think I perceive a novella brewing. See what you've done now?

Things We Make Up...Like Holidays

I’ve made up a lot of stuff in my day, my sister can attest to that. Gum that alters the composition of your saliva so when you spit on the sidewalk it changes colors, slobbering beasts that prowl the barnyards, fairies that would come and eat mud pies when you weren’t looking.

Every day really ought to be Book Day

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at the library. Like, a lot of time. The kind librarians gave me a volunteer "job" eventually when they realized I basically lived there. So I guess you could say every day for me was Book Day.

Which is probably why Book Day is, I think, the first made-up holiday I've ever devised. I'm working on a story right now -- kind of Mandalorianish in that it's a "lone wolf and cub," only with a cyborg Terminator-type dude thrown into the mix for fun -- where the hero is caregiver to a very special child, and once a month the near-future rogue librarians of Ferry County prepare a parcel of old-timey who-even-has-those-anymore paper books for kiddo to read and commit to memory. Kiddo looks forward to those books with every fiber of her eight-year-old self. Book Day is the best day.

The North Central Regional Library system in Washington State currently has a mail-order book delivery system in place, which is where the seed of this idea came from. I've just added some futuristic, post-apocalyptic tinsel to the festivity of it all.

This holiday season, may all your Book Days be merry and bright.

Any Holiday Is A Good Day To Celebrate

Are there invented Holy Days in my books? Not really. But I do have a bunch of dudes who like to party at the drop of a hat.

In my urban fantasy series The Immortal Spy, the Berserkers celebrate any and all holidays throughout the year, despite having met/battled/been screwed-over by the gods, angels, and Fates behind most Holy Days. The Berserkers are long-lived human men from a variety of cultures, some of whom still believe in the essence of the faiths they once held before becoming soldiers in the Mid World Army. They'll take any excuse to laud the pockets of hope and joy throughout the multiple Mid Worlds they're sworn to protect and defend. Holidays are a good time to remind themselves that no matter how war-weary they are, they're blessed to be part of a brotherhood who fiercely cares for the whole soldier: body, mind, heart, and soul. They're not frat boys who tear up the town and fail to grok the word "no," contrary to pop culture's view of them. They're grown-ass men who've been fighting the good fight for centuries. Holidays allow them to connect with the greater communities in which they're based, so they never lose sight of what they're fighting for. These big, brawny, battle-hardened dudes give back to their neighbors and the needy through hard labor, music, arts, etc. Of course, there's plenty of food, drink, war stories....and maybe the occasional wrestling match.

Jeffe's Made-Up Holiday

This week at the SFF Seven we ask "Have you ever invented a holiday for your books - or if not, what holiday would you give your characters?"

It happens I have invented a holiday - a midwinter one, even- and I wrote a novella around it for AMID THE WINTER SNOW. That anthology, a wonderful collection of midwinter holiday fantasy romance novellas, is sadly no longer available.

BUT, you can read my story, THE SNOWS OF WINDROVEN, in either digital or print formats. Despite the fierce cover, this is a story about second chances, and the renewal of hope that the midwinter holidays bring, drawing light out of darkness.

I hadn't really set out to create a midwinter holiday, necessarily, but when I wrote my original Twelve Kingdoms trilogy, I created a mythology with three goddesses. And where you have goddesses, you have followers - and feast days! In this world, Moranu is the goddess of night, of the moon, of shadows, magic, and changeability. So, of course, her feast day occurs at the winter solstice.

Here's a bit from THE SNOWS OF WINDROVEN describing the holiday.

***

Just before the clock struck midnight, Ami and I threw our dark secrets into the fire. She’d never done that part of the tradition, but enthusiastically embraced it. She and I spent the last dark hours of that year writing down all the things we wanted to leave behind. Holding hands, we burned them, consigning them to ash.

Then we collected the sleepy twins and took our votives to the big landing, where everyone had assembled. Graves and Skunk were there, and many other people I’d never seen before. All in their best finery. Even the lowest servants joined us, dousing the last of the castle lights as they did, standing on the ascending stairways if they couldn’t crowd onto the landing. At the chime, we blew out the last of our candles, standing together in the dark. Beyond the great glass windows, the sparkling dark night resolved.

The second chime rang, and people began to relight their candles. I lit Stella’s, her luminous eyes catlike and solemn, while Ami lit Astar’s. Outside the windows, torches lit at the castle walls, then ran in a rapidly expanding circuit around all the turrets, then pouring down the winding road down the peak. Ami laughed with pure joy and the kids squealed, nearly forgetting their own candles.

“I so hoped the wind would stop long enough for this,” Ami told me. “I really wanted to see it. For all of us.”

“I understand why,” I told her, cupping her cheek. In the brilliance of the moment, I didn’t care who watched us. I kissed her, something rekindling inside me also, the light spreading throughout.

My Thanks to You!

Our topic this week was to thank the person or persons we're most grateful for, in connection with being an author.

I'm always thankful for the readers and this year I want to say a special thanks to everyone who bought the USA Today Best Selling Pets In Space 4 anthology during our first month, which is the donation period to our charity Hero Dogs, Inc. Due to your generosity, we'll be making our biggest annual donation to them yet, for a total just slightly over $10K spread over the four years we've been doing this scifi romance anthology.

We initially selected them because their work involves animals and veterans in need, two causes my co-founder Pauline B. Jones and I care deeply about, and which are important to our participating authors as well. We've even had a military veteran author or two and all of us involved have some connection to the military, in terms of family members who served or who are serving. Hero Dogs provides trained service animals to veterans and first responders in their general geographic area.

One of our authors, Laurie Green, is involved in raising and training racehorses and this year she pledged a certain percentage of one horse's winnings to also go to the charity, above and beyond the book royalties. Well, he began winning his races shortly after the book was released and Laurie is going to be able to make a nice 'extra' donation on her own as a result.

Pets In Space 4 will be available for purchase though December 31, 2020, although the time for royalty donations is over. (We designate the first month, up through the USA Veterans' Day because the bulk of our sales occur in that time frame.) I won't do buy links here since this is strictly a THANK YOU post but the book is up on all the major ebook seller platforms.

Gratitude

 I am grateful for the fact that you're all either still in a turkey coma, out shopping, or spending time with your families and therefore haven't noticed that I'm super tardy with my post today.

I'm grateful for second chances, whether real or perceived. There's nothing quite as energizing as feeling like there's still a chance for you and for a story you love.

I'm grateful for my editors, every last one. Every single editor has brought specific skills to the table and each one of those, no matter how hard it's sometimes been to hear that my story children might need braces to straighten those teeth, has made me a better, more skillful writer. Or possibly, it's exacerbated my worst tendencies to over think everything. Thin line.

I'm grateful for my critique partners and beta readers. Every single person who helps me get a story out of my head and on to paper challenges me to get better at what I do. I'm also eternally grateful to these people for not giving up on me even when I'd all but given up on myself.

Finally, I am grateful for this blog. It's kept me writing through just about everything. Memory glitches notwithstanding. It's forced me to keep thinking forward even while I bled envy all over the pages wishing some of the book covers on the bar had my name on them. They do now. See the second chances entry above.

I hope every single one of you has plenty of reasons for gratitude and may you have peaceful and bright holidays!

Being Thankful

Find one thing to be thankful for each day, 

even if the skies are grey,

and you’ll find a moment of happiness,

to chase your blues away.

And for all of our dear US readers, 

Happy Thanksgiving!