The Prompt: T’was right before Christmas and all through the house–what? Is it crazy? Quiet? Are you jolly? Mildly irritated? Fully pissed off?
In this Big Holiday Season–what has gone according to plans? What has gone awry? What are you vowing “never again?” And what are you thinking, “maybe next year….”
One would think, seeing as I create these prompts and then promise to fulfill them myself, that I would at least have some idea of what I’m going to say beforehand. One would think…and one would be wrong. I could say something that resonates with pedagogical wisdom about how the surprise of not know what you’re going to write is part of the prompt. Maybe. Or maybe I thought I had something to say and then, faced with the blank screen, find I don’t.
The fact is that for me, this Big Holiday Season is–well, I don’t know what to say it is. It’s neither naughty nor nice. Mostly I’m pretty cheerful pottering around my house doing all the stuff I do for the holidays. But somehow, for some reason, I’m not feeling connected to any of it.
Oh look, there are all the stocking gifts I started buying for Wendy, Shell and Jimmie just over a year ago. Every time I’d go somewhere, I’d look for the cute, small stuff that is the hallmark of the stockings we give each other on Christmas Day. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I was done and then some. Is that why I don’t feel in touch with the holidays this year? Because I was too well-prepared?
When I was in my twenties and used to come back from England to spend the holidays with my family in Los Angeles, I would do all my Christmas shopping on December 24th. Maybe it was the fever of trying to get everything done that energized my holiday spirit….
Maybe…oh hell, whatever is affecting me is also affecting my writing. Count the number of vague and abstract words I’m using, always a telltale sign of a lack of emotional connection with what I’m writing.
I feel–pleasant. Is that so bad? For a writer, yes. Here’s one of those things that I know for sure about writing: whatever you’re feeling becomes part and parcel of your work, for good or ill. High drama well communicated makes for prose that the reader connects with. Pleasant writing, no matter how well-formed, makes it much harder for the reader to hear the person that’s on the other side of the page talking to them.
In my experience–that is, at least for me–pleasant writing is a consequence of being out of touch with one’s self at the moment. I’m hiding or I’m obfuscating or–as is the case today–I just don’t know what the fuck I’m feeling. Whatever–the White Christmas Snowglobe pictured above is an apt illustration for this perfectly pleasant but somewhat murky post about the Holidays.
Jane Gassner
