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#Post#: 16165--------------------------------------------------
Author's Forward - A Word About 'It Happened One Christmas'
By: Jack Date: December 1, 2019, 7:02 am
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I wanted to say a few things about this serial at the start.
First of all, I'm no longer calling it the Advent Calendar. The
original idea of the advent calendar was for many different
artists to write short stories set around the holiday season.
Kat ran things at first, but he has to back out after a couple
of years. I tried to continue the same idea, but it became
harder and harder to come up with that many ideas for different
stories.
I was considering giving up the concept all together, when it
hit me that maybe we could use those 25 days to tell one story,
which led to Wil and I writing A New Family. The year after
that, several of us did a group of stories centered around
families in one neighborhood. Even then, organizing several
different authors to work in a shared universe like that proved
difficult, so the past couple of years, I wrote my own stories,
sometimes punctuated by other authors telling their own stories.
While I like to think both The Christmas Pageant and A Club Red
Christmas stand on their own and have their own tones, there
were some thematic similarities (which is to be expected from
holiday stories centered around spanko kids).
This year, I wanted to do something different.
It Happened One Christmas has changed a lot from how I first
envisioned it, but it's very different from the past couple of
years as well. It's a darker story, but one that takes
inspiration from some classic Christmas stories.
If it does seem a bit heavy, especially at first, I hope you'll
stick with it.
Thanks to all for reading,
Jack
#Post#: 16167--------------------------------------------------
Re: Author's Forward - A Word About 'It Happened One Christmas'
By: Zyngaru Date: December 1, 2019, 8:18 am
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[quote author=Jack link=topic=1593.msg16165#msg16165
date=1575205358]
It Happened One Christmas has changed a lot from how I first
envisioned it, but it's very different from the past couple of
years as well. It's a darker story, but one that takes
inspiration from some classic Christmas stories.
If it does seem a bit heavy, especially at first, I hope you'll
stick with it.
Thanks to all for reading,
Jack
[/quote]
I like heavy. Dark is good also. Sometimes Christmas stories
tend to be too sweet. I love how you started this story.
Straight to the paddling.
There are just a couple things you might wish to edit, if you
can that is. There is the dreaded "****" at the beginning of
one of the paragraphs.
"The paddle **** down a third time, again, slightly lower, but
still overlapping." I inserted the word, "came," but I don't
see how the censor wouldn't allow that word. Of course so many
other words could have been meant. "flashed," "dropped," and
etc. But nothing that I would have censored came to mind.
And then there is the "et"? It is in a line about 1/4 of the
way down.
"Bailey stared at his et, but there was nothing he could say."
I tried to think of what he was staring at, but couldn't come up
with anything.
Not criticisms, just two things I saw as I was reading.
I loved the first chapter and can't wait for the next one.
Thank you so much for writing this. When you had said you
weren't doing the Christmas Advent stories anymore, I was
disappointed, because I do look forward to reading your stories.
You have brightened my Holiday season, by doing this.
#Post#: 16170--------------------------------------------------
Re: Author's Forward - A Word About 'It Happened One Christmas'
By: Adric Date: December 1, 2019, 1:19 pm
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[quote author=Zyngaru link=topic=1593.msg16167#msg16167
date=1575209919]
And then there is the "et"? It is in a line about 1/4 of the
way down.
"Bailey stared at his et, but there was nothing he could say."
I tried to think of what he was staring at, but couldn't come up
with anything.[/quote]
I think Bailey's "et" was his "feet".
[quote author=Zyngaru link=topic=1593.msg16167#msg16167
date=1575209919]
There is the dreaded "****" at the beginning of one of the
paragraphs.
"The paddle **** down a third time, again, slightly lower, but
still overlapping." I inserted the word, "came," but I don't
see how the censor wouldn't allow that word. Of course so many
other words could have been meant. "flashed," "dropped," and
etc. But nothing that I would have censored came to
mind.[/quote]
How about
"c‍‍r‍a‍c‍k‍e‍d"?
(Cr‍a‍c‍k‍e‍d is one of the words
that gets replaced with ****. Go figure.) ???
#Post#: 16354--------------------------------------------------
Re: Author's Forward - A Word About 'It Happened One Christmas'
By: Jack Date: December 11, 2019, 5:06 pm
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I just wanted to say that chapter 12 is going to be posting
late. My mom had some storm damage to her house, and I've had
to spend a lot of time with the insurance adjuster and
contractor this week. The nice thing is, since we're having to
get this stuff done, I'm getting her to do some other repairs
that have been needing to be done for a while, but that she
didn't want to disturb her household to do.
I should have a lot of free time tomorrow (especially since
Zeke, Jeremy, and Chance are through with their finals now), so
I hope to get caught back up soon.
Thanks for your patience.
For reference, this series is only scheduled for 24 chapters
right now, so there was a bit of leeway in it anyway.
#Post#: 16371--------------------------------------------------
Re: Author's Forward - A Word About 'It Happened One Christmas'
By: David M. Katz Date: December 12, 2019, 3:29 pm
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[quote author=Jack link=topic=1593.msg16354#msg16354
date=1576105589]
I just wanted to say that chapter 12 is going to be posting
late.
[/quote]
:P ;D So . . . you're just going to leave the boys standing on
a bridge and freezing?
========
This is so far an EXCELLENT series despite my agitation at how
Bailey is being treated. Definitely shows a lot of thought and
hard work.
#Post#: 16372--------------------------------------------------
Re: Author's Forward - A Word About 'It Happened One Christmas'
By: Jack Date: December 12, 2019, 4:50 pm
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[quote author=David M. Katz link=topic=1593.msg16371#msg16371
date=1576186184]
Definitely shows a lot of thought and hard work.
[/quote]
Thanks, while I delayed the actual writing too long, I've been
working on this since last December with input and feedback from
several people, especially Wil and Adric.
#Post#: 16410--------------------------------------------------
Re: Author's Forward - A Word About 'It Happened One Christmas'
By: Jack Date: December 15, 2019, 4:18 pm
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I want to apologize for missing another chapter last night.
While I have been very busy with the Christmas stuff, that's not
what happened this time.
The simple truth is that I've had a rough outline planned for
this series for a while now. However, when I came to chapter
14, it just didn't work for me. I tried to write it a couple of
times, but just couldn't get past it. I finally thought about
Bailey's character and about this chapter, and I came up with
another approach. Chapter 14 will appear tonight, and I hope
Chapter 15 will be on time tomorrow. I hope the change works
well for everyone (and we can talk about what the change
actually was after the series if finished - if anyone is
interested).
#Post#: 16415--------------------------------------------------
Re: Author's Forward - A Word About 'It Happened One Christmas'
By: db105 Date: December 15, 2019, 6:52 pm
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Yes, I'm certainly curious at what change you made and why your
original plan didn't work well. Thanks for writing.
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