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So -- it's the new year.
Jan. 1st, 2009 06:56 pmLast night, just as it was about to turn midnight, I pulled up my computer clock, to recalibrate the time, while the countdown was being shouted out of my TV.
But instead of fiddling with anything (Since it was only a few seconds off, I didn't think it was worth it), I just watched the clock tick up to midnight, and everything on the calender change -- Automatically. It was more exciting than watching a car's odometer turn over from 9,999 to 10,000!
Since it's the new year, I've started working on the novel I plan to write: just starting to write down my first ideas, like putting the central premise and synopsis into words, and listing the pros and cons using different characters as the View-Point Characters.
I went with the Christmas-themed one. Because it's the story idea that makes me happiest. Maybe it's because I was born in the first half of January, so I was old enough (just shy of a year) to carry my own vague memories of my very first Christmas in my very own head all through my life, with very little help from the grown-ups around me. So it's a holiday that feels more like "mine" than the Fourth of July, or Thanksgiving, or Easter, or Halloween, because by the time I was old enough to remember those holidays, I was also old enough to start being aware of how Other People expect the holidays to go.
Anyway, as I was thinking about the synopsis, I realized that this would probably be yet another "Christmas itself is under threat! If we don't do something, Christmas won't happen this year -- at all!"
And I also realized that this is basically the trope for almost all Christmas-type stories (in no particular order):
So -- am I tempted to pick something else for my plot, for the sake of being clever and original? No Wai!
I believe, in my little Paganish heart, that this has to be the trope for all Christmas stories. Because, you see, "Christmas" is really about the Winter Solstice, and if the Winter Solstice fails to come, even for just one year, the days will keep getting shorter and shorter and shorter, until the sun never rises again, and time itself stops running.* And if time stops running, than all of life stops flowing.
So the risk of losing "Christmas" is the most existential conflict of all (I'm convinced this is true even for the people who don't pay any conscious attention to the changing seasons -- it's wired into our autonomic nervous systems, and the way our brains respond to changing amounts of light).
The reason we celebrate this time of year at all, I think, is because of the fear that, maybe, this year will be different from last year, and Christmas/the Solstice won't come. So we tell ourselves stories about that fear, every year, and we're all happy and relieved when it does come, after all. It's not just that we're all superstitious fools at heart, but that the part of the brain that responds to light in the first place will never be completely convinced that the logical part of the brain knows anything at all. So our Christmas stories are how those two parts of our brains to talk to each other...
*For those folks in the Antipodes, the days will get longer and longer until the sun never leaves the zenith, and time will still stop forever, and all of life will fry, so it's six of one, half dozen of the other.
But instead of fiddling with anything (Since it was only a few seconds off, I didn't think it was worth it), I just watched the clock tick up to midnight, and everything on the calender change -- Automatically. It was more exciting than watching a car's odometer turn over from 9,999 to 10,000!
Since it's the new year, I've started working on the novel I plan to write: just starting to write down my first ideas, like putting the central premise and synopsis into words, and listing the pros and cons using different characters as the View-Point Characters.
I went with the Christmas-themed one. Because it's the story idea that makes me happiest. Maybe it's because I was born in the first half of January, so I was old enough (just shy of a year) to carry my own vague memories of my very first Christmas in my very own head all through my life, with very little help from the grown-ups around me. So it's a holiday that feels more like "mine" than the Fourth of July, or Thanksgiving, or Easter, or Halloween, because by the time I was old enough to remember those holidays, I was also old enough to start being aware of how Other People expect the holidays to go.
Anyway, as I was thinking about the synopsis, I realized that this would probably be yet another "Christmas itself is under threat! If we don't do something, Christmas won't happen this year -- at all!"
And I also realized that this is basically the trope for almost all Christmas-type stories (in no particular order):
- Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Book one of The Chronicals of Narnia)-- the wicked Snow Queen makes it winter all the time, but never, ever Christmas.
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas (at least, that's the motivation of Mr. Grinch, even if he does not succeed).
- Miracle on 34th Street
- Elf
- Hogfather
- Another stop-action animation one of the style and era of "Rudolph" that I can't remember the name of, but it was about Christmas in Southtown, and no one had the Christmas spirit, because it never snowed there... There was a character in that who wanted to make it hot everywhere, all the time. I'd be happy if that story were never made up, but it's an example of the trope, anyway.
- & cetera.
So -- am I tempted to pick something else for my plot, for the sake of being clever and original? No Wai!
I believe, in my little Paganish heart, that this has to be the trope for all Christmas stories. Because, you see, "Christmas" is really about the Winter Solstice, and if the Winter Solstice fails to come, even for just one year, the days will keep getting shorter and shorter and shorter, until the sun never rises again, and time itself stops running.* And if time stops running, than all of life stops flowing.
So the risk of losing "Christmas" is the most existential conflict of all (I'm convinced this is true even for the people who don't pay any conscious attention to the changing seasons -- it's wired into our autonomic nervous systems, and the way our brains respond to changing amounts of light).
The reason we celebrate this time of year at all, I think, is because of the fear that, maybe, this year will be different from last year, and Christmas/the Solstice won't come. So we tell ourselves stories about that fear, every year, and we're all happy and relieved when it does come, after all. It's not just that we're all superstitious fools at heart, but that the part of the brain that responds to light in the first place will never be completely convinced that the logical part of the brain knows anything at all. So our Christmas stories are how those two parts of our brains to talk to each other...
*For those folks in the Antipodes, the days will get longer and longer until the sun never leaves the zenith, and time will still stop forever, and all of life will fry, so it's six of one, half dozen of the other.
