Category Archives: Inspiration

The Best Holiday in Fiction

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So, about Christmas… I could wax poetic for today’s post, enumerate in detail all of the reasons why I love the holiday. I’m guessing you’ve heard them before: family, presents, twinkling lights, gingerbread cookies, etc.

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Instead, I want to talk about why I love to read about Christmas in fiction. Christmas scenes are one of my favorite things to read in a novel. (When appropriate to the setting, of course!)

Why? There are lots of reasons, but here are a few key ones:

  1. Setting – Let’s be honest, I’m all about a pretty set piece. So the chance to read about characters interacting amid a backdrop of falling snow and evergreen boughs and flickering candlelight is always welcome. I like beautiful settings, and the aesthetics surrounding Christmas are gorgeous, sometimes even breathtaking. This point leads nicely into…
  2. Victoriana – I’m obsessed with the nineteenth century, and many of the tropes we associate with Christmas come from that time period. So it’s no surprise that my love for the Victorians extends to the yuletide season. I still watch some film version of The Christmas Carol every year, even if it’s just the Mickey Mouse one. I would venture to say that it’s my favorite story by Dickens. Classic Victoriana with a dash of gothic flair? Yes, please!
  3. Sentiment – Christmas is indeed pretty. It’s also a perfect catalyst for all kinds of emotion, in stories and life. Family members are crammed into close quarters. The year is ending, making the time ripe for personal reflection… Not to mention all the drama of gift-getting and gift-receiving! Any time when people are likely to make wishes and confess secrets and interact with their fellow human beings with heightened emotion of any kind makes for great story fodder. Which, of course, I love to read.

These are just a few of the things that bolster my obsession with Christmas in novels. To conclude, then, here are a handful of my favorite stories with pivotal Christmas scenes or settings. (I just finished the last one, Clockwork Princess, a week ago. It has an adorable Christmas scene, along with plenty of Victorian goodness, buckets of angst, and quite possibly my favorite love triangle ever—and I say that as someone who is generally weary of love triangles in YA.)

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

“A Christmas Carroll” by Leanna Renee Hieber

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

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Merry Christmas, everyone! And Happy New Year.

 

So, About Owls.

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I have a slight obsession with owls. I collect all kinds of stuff with owls on them: jewelry, mugs, plush toys, you name it. I started the collection about five years ago. Now, owls litter my bedroom. Each holiday, I can count on receiving a few presents that are in some way owl-related. I once arrived in L.A. for an SCBWI conference wearing an owl print dress, toting an owl purse, and decked out in various pieces of owl jewelry—only to meet up with my critique partner in our shared hotel room and say, before anything else, “Yeah, the owl thing’s kind of gotten out of control.”

Owls!

Some random pieces in my collection. (Sadly, these are not the only owl plush toys I own.)

Owls resonate with me for a lot of reasons. In Western culture, they have a connection to the Greek goddess Athena—and to wisdom and scholarly pursuits in general. In folklore, they have darker associations, with vampires and witches and a shape-shifting creature called a strix (which features in my latest manuscript). Plus, Harry Potter is cool. And stuff.

Honestly, though, the main reason for my obsession is personal. In January 2009, I went through something of a creative crisis. (That might be an understatement.) I had just completed my first full-length original novel, seven years in the making. A week later, I learned it was pretty much unsalable—not because it needed editing, but because someone else had just published a novel with the exact same premise (and the same major plot twist). I didn’t want to change the story entirely, so I shelved it instead. At the time, I didn’t have any more ideas. I seriously considered giving up.

Then inspiration hit, and I was writing again. (Note to writers: It’s devastating to have to shelve a novel that you love. But it also frees up your brain to think of new, better ideas.) I was up late, night after night, drafting a new manuscript that excited me. And on many of those nights, I heard an owl hoot outside my window. As time went on, I came to think of him as my late-night companion. I felt a kinship with this fellow “night owl” who sat in a tree and talked to himself for hours, alone in the darkness. (Pretty much how it feels to draft a novel.)

I heard this owl many times over the next few years. I learned he was a great horned owl, based on the cadence and tenor of his hooting. My sister even caught a glimpse of him flying over our backyard once.

This summer, I moved to a new house. I was sad to leave my owl friend behind, the companion who had stayed up with me during so many late-night writing sessions. Then a week after we moved in, my family mentioned they had seen an owl perched on the gate of our new house. And a month ago, I heard it for the first time: the hoot of a great horned owl outside my bedroom.

I guess you could say I think of owls as kindred spirits. I collect owl stuff as a tribute to my late-night buddy—and as a reminder to keep creating. Because even when the world is dark, and you’re alone, you can still work to achieve your goals, and do something that really matters to you.

And maybe you’ll find some friends in the process, feathered or otherwise.

Do You Hear the People Sing?

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Warning: This is a blog post about Les Misérables. I can’t seem to write about Les Mis without rivers of praise gushing forth from my keyboard, so… Well, all I can say is that I tried to reign myself in.

Les Misérables Program

My program from the production!

Two weeks ago, I had the chance to see the restaged version of Les Misérables. It is, without reservation, my favorite musical. It’s one of my favorite novels as well—if not the favorite, which is a risky thing to say as an English Lit major. (Pick my favorite book, you say? That’s impossible! There are far too many books in the world, too many stories to love.)

Still, despite all the competition, Les Misérables stands out to me. I first fell in love with it during my junior year of high school. The novel is sweeping, sentimental, and unabashedly spiritual in scope. The characters are so iconic they seem like something out of legend or myth, rather than part of a book penned only two hundred years ago. The redemptive quest of Jean Valjean, the convict who spends nineteen years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, is the kind of epic narrative that is impossible to forget.

Victor Hugo is a role model for me, both as a writer and as a human being. His writing practically bleeds compassion, which I admire even more than his keen grasp of human psychology or his eloquent turn of phrase. During my senior year of high school, I chose the following quote of his to inscribe under my photo in the yearbook: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

Needless to say, his work has a great deal of personal resonance for me. So as I sat in the theater two weeks ago, watching a gorgeous dramatization of one of my favorite stories, I remembered how much I loved it, and why. I also realized something new, something that surprised me. In many ways, Les Misérables is the standard against which I measure myself as a writer.

I will never write a novel as classic and beloved as Les Mis, of course. I’m no Victor Hugo, no literary genius or visionary. But I will say that when I set out to create a story, I am most satisfied when I attempt to include the following elements:

-A large cast of characters, each one as layered and sympathetic as possible

-A setting in which time and place connect closely with the plot

-A plot concerned with large-scale events and themes (Hugo writes about love, politics, poverty, war, and the salvation of the soul, just to name a few!)

-A story in which profound tragedy occurs, including but not limited to death

And…

-A story in which every event, character, and place could symbolize something deeper than the literal narrative—a story, in other words, which deals with archetypes and our cultural/mythological heritage as human beings

More than any other work of literature, Les Misérables taught me to value these qualities in storytelling. Honestly, any novel that aims for less tends to seem a little insignificant by comparison. I mean, if your characters aren’t dying bravely for a lost cause on top of a barricade of broken furniture, well then, what’s all the fuss about?

In all seriousness, though, Les Misérables taught me to think on a larger-than-life scale when I write. After all, what’s the point if I don’t push myself to convey the most important and interesting ideas I can? When I look at the list in this post, I realize just how far my own stories fall short of this goal. Not every novel can be a literary epic, and truthfully, not every novel should be. But Victor Hugo’s masterpiece motivates me to always aim higher. As the saying goes, even if we miss the moon, we may very well land among the stars.

On that note, I would like to conclude by embedding the trailer for the movie version of the Les Misérables musical, which comes out in December. Not because it relates to my post in any meaningful way, but just because I’m near-delirious with excitement (and this trailer gives me chills, every time!):