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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Dreaming of a coronavirus Christmas?

6/12/2020

10 Comments

 


Ho Ho Ho, bah humbug! This blogger who feels a misfit each December, finds herself, in topsy-turvy 2020, miraculously on track. Or is she? (Am I?) If everyone’s having an alternative Christmas, am I once again out on a limb? If I always opt for a minimalist Christmas, then my festivities will be (unlike most people’s) little different this year to last.


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Those facing a Christmas curtailed by the pandemic, might find solace, or a target for your frustration, in my posts from previous years. These include a plea from 2016 for my antipathy to the season not to be pathologised; a motivational message for the fainthearted from 2018; and last year’s tongue-in-cheek personality quiz.

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My newsletter, sent to subscribers last Friday, hosts the opening of Harry Potter’s Little Women and the Coronavirus Carol, this year’s publishing sensation that never was. Plus choral singing, and the alternative Christmas from my novel, Underneath. Click on the image to check it out.

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Flash fiction challenge is back with a callout for stories featuring family traditions (Christmas and beans optional). I’ve based my on a deleted scene from my forthcoming novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, which was partly inspired by a Christmas in my late teens/early twenties when my sister’s flatmate spent the holiday in our house, but outside our rituals.
As can happen with buses, once I’d found my 99-word story, another trundled along behind it, begging to be told. My second flash fiction piece focuses on another point-of-view character in Matilda Windsor. In contrast to Janice’s family-plus-one Christmas, an absence overshadows Henry’s Yuletide tradition.
The Christmas visitor
 
She hung her stocking for Santa above the fireplace. She helped Gran lay the Jesus figurine in the cardboard-box crib. She joined us singing “Good King Wenceslas” at the piano. She gobbled up Dad’s stewed sprouts. So why did she refuse to play Cluedo, preferring to sit with a book? She wasn’t averse to whodunnits. She’d plucked Evelyn Hardcastle from the guest-room shelf.

But she taught me the meaning of Christmas. Whether Christian or secular, it’s not about believing in myths. It’s a time to renounce our own ego. When we merge with the group, reunite with our tribe.
 
Henry’s traditional Christmas
 
Some years he’d treat Christmas as an ordinary day, turn off the television and eat beans on toast for lunch. Some years he’d put up a tree, wrap presents and roast a chicken, set an extra place at the table for Tilly, and another for his dad. Yet however he began the day, tradition claimed the final hour: leaving him seated by the fire, with enough whisky to engender a headache but not enough to assuage his grief. Or his shame in spending the day in frenzied anticipation of the greatest gift imaginable: his sister’s knock upon the door.
 
Whatever kind of Christmas you’re planning, I hope it’s as enjoyable as it can be in the circumstances. Stay well and stay safe!
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
10 Comments
Norah Colvin
7/12/2020 10:31:38 am

Thank you for your wishes, Anne. I wish you the enjoyment you usually get from your traditions at this time of year. Hopefully more enjoyment than the characters in your flash. I don't like the sound of Henry's headache, but the lesson from the visitor sounds good.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
9/12/2020 05:28:17 pm

Thanks, Norah, I'm sure I will. Wishing you all the best for yours.

Reply
Colleen Chesebro link
8/12/2020 02:09:08 am

Anne, I'm not big on Christmas either. It's all so commercialized to me. I do celebrate Yule, which seems more my tradition these days. <3

Reply
Anne Goodwin
9/12/2020 05:30:52 pm

Thanks, Colleen. I hope you'll enjoy Yule as much as ever this year ;-)

Reply
D. Avery link
8/12/2020 02:43:02 am

I tend towards humbug. Having no children we have always been able to skip Christmas if we wish and avoid the chaos of extended family. So this year won't be too hard for me personally, I've trained for it. I suspect it'll be rough on my folks.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
9/12/2020 05:33:48 pm

If you mean doing your own thing and avoiding social gatherings, large or small, I guess I've trained for it too.

Reply
Charli Mills
10/12/2020 05:59:13 am

Holidays tend to be a rough time of year for veteran families and I think a lot of pressure comes from expectations of what defines "normal." I feel like this year can break those chains, but I do worry about it also creating isolation among vulnerable groups. We are cozy in a warm home and I'm grateful.

I remember that scene from your MS. Henry wants so bad the gift he isn't prepared to have. Thanks for the bus of flash, Anne!

Reply
Anne Goodwin
12/12/2020 07:32:34 am

Seeing fewer people this year = less pressure to pretend to fit the Christmas norms. I do hope it's more liberating for those of us who don't fit, but yeah there could be more loneliness for those cut off.

Glad you remembered Henry's Christmas. I'm so busy right now, afraid I'll flunk the challenge, and then I produce two!

Reply
Liz Hartmann
10/12/2020 03:37:45 pm

I like the idea of reading as the Christmas tradition, very much.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
12/12/2020 07:33:57 am

And when that becomes our Christmas tradition we can have Christmas every day of the year. Enjoy yours!

Reply

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    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

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    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

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    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
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    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

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