One reason is because I'm still thinking about the possibility of writing a follow-up to it. I have a lot of ideas for where it could go, though I haven't had the proverbial lightbulb switch on with that YES moment. But knowing the way I work, it won't fully reveal itself to me until I actually begin writing it, so I'm trying not to dwell on that "lost" feeling. Getting stuck there is how I end up going back into creative hibernation for another several years, and let's be real, at this stage of my life, I don't have that kind of time to waste, LOL.
Another reason is because I'm in revision-mode on my novella, A Maladaptive Christmas Interlude. I'm on chapter 5, so halfway through (10 chapters, about 24K words total) and man I love it so much. It's SO canon, and I want to put it out in an official manner. It'll likely be a holday freebie or something that I give to anyone who wants it, but I may even add it to KDP as well.
I never really said much about it back when I was writing it last December. And I don't want to give away any spoilers, but the thing I probably love the most about it is the way it went all "Creepy Christmas" on me, because I LOVE a Hallowe'en/Christmas mashup (Nightmare Before Christmas, I'm pointing my gnarly witch finger in your direction!).
Not just the whole seasonal mashup idea though. The idea of Christmas actually being PART of spooky season itself. Ghastly, scary Christmas folk tales abound from so many parts of the world, and it's an aspect of the season that fascinates me to no end. I don't claim to be an expert on the subject and I don't want to write an essay about it, but I just love the way all the different Christian/Yule/Winter Solstice festival stories and even commercial traditions are woven together into what we celebrate as Christmas today (in North America at least).
I mean think about it... Dickens' A Christmas Carol is really all of these things in one perfect package. Commercialism, the spirit of good will towards others, friggin' ghosts, punishment for being naughty vs. reward for being good... it's all there, perfectly weaving all those themes together, and I think it's crazy how much we take that for granted, the way Dickens did that for us. Krampus is another one (there are many versions of this, but my favorite is the 2015 movie with Toni Collette and Adam Scott).
And then there are the Mummers, the creepiest holiday tradition ever from Maritime Canada (my husband is a Newfoundlander, and I did not know about this until we met!) where people would dress up in rags and sheets and old clothes and go door to door singing and entertaining whomever might be willing to let them into their homes to guess their identity and receive drinks and snacks or a meal in return for their efforts. It's literally trick or treating at Christmas time, I mean how cool is that?
(It's not really a thing anymore because of crime, so in St. John's anyway it's been replaced with a Mummers' Festival which runs from the last week of November to the second week of December, ending with the Mummers' Parade).
What's funny is that I've had a number of cross-seasonal stories in my mind for quite some time, but never really focused on trying to write one, until I wrote A Maladaptive Christmas Interlude last year, which happened very organically without me even really trying to make it a creepy Christmas story, it just kind of went there on its own!
Anyway, my point is that I maintain that Christmas is part of spooky season, not something that comes after it, and while most people don't think of it that way, I will always tip my hat and raise my glass to those types of crossover stories.
So yeah, because I've been thinking about Maladaptive again and considering what possibilities lie ahead for it, I've been thinking about an aspect of the story that I cut out before I published it - and that has to do with tracking the passage of time and seasons in the book. It was only until the final publishing revision that I decided to take that out.
For many versions of the manuscript, the time of year was something I had baked into it. Originally, the story began in September (Cara and Griffin's first visit to LA). And as the story unfolded, the seasons were part of the scenic backdrop. The fall color change of the leaves during the road trip was a visual symbol of the changes to their lives, with Cara remarking on the wistfulness of leaving that behind.
The mountain cottage retreat originally happened in November, with Cara learning that loons do in fact fly south for the winter just like other Canadian birds, and their haunting calls from the lake is a source of homesickness for her. That detail remains, but I removed the specific mention of the month, so the time of year is hinted at vaguely, rather than stated out right.
Now, with summer currently ending and autumn about to drop, those of us who relish this time of year are getting all fired up for it, and its infusing just about everything with, for lack of a better term, pumpkin spice. (For the record, I am neither for nor against pumpkin spice. It has its place. I do not want everything to smell or taste like pumpkin pie, but I do enjoy a slice at Thanksgiving. If you're someone who loves pumpkin spice everything, I'm happy for you, sincerely).
The fall frenzy, of course, includes books. There is a serious market for cozy autumn and spooky season stories. I don't know why I would be surprised by that. But it got me wondering if I had made a mistake by removing the tracking of seasons and passage of time in Maladaptive.
The way it was initially part of the story was an organic thing, not a conscious choice. I am someone who marks the passing of time and seasons, that's just what I do. And autumn just happens to be my favorite season, so it was a natural thing to make that part of the story.
But it became sort of a distraction I think, and a little bit cumbersome. The story unfolds over more than a year, not quite a year and a half. I didn't want to lock it down to that. The way Cara thinks and tells the story means that things may get convoluted and conflated, and forcing her to always put everything into the context of a season or time of year became too rigid and bogged down in that detail. And it's not really the main point of the story anyway, it's just... nice.
And so, in service of the story, I removed all references to specific seasons, months, and timeframes, unless there was a specific reason to keep it in. It's not a calendar, it's Cara's memory. And her memory still includes the sensory details, like when it's hot out, or when the night has a chill in the air, or when it's freezing, or raining, or whatever. But what Cara and Griffin did for holidays or on their birthdays, that's not central to the story she's telling.
I think it was the right thing to do. I felt lighter after doing that, and I think the story is better because of it. And A Maladaptive Christmas Interlude exists. It tells the seasonal part of their story that was bogging the main novel down, so really, I only just kind of moved it to an adjacent story that is part of the overall canon.
But you know, now the cozy autumn season is falling upon us, and I guess there is a part of me that wants everyone to know that Maladaptive is, at its heart, a cozy autumn story, complete with scenic road trips, a proverbial cornucopia of gatherings and conversations around fire pits, roughing it in the wilderness, and a rustic cabin in the woods. My only regret is that I didn't specifically name a pumpkin spice flavored jellybean in a certain package of candy... but I think we can safely assume there was one in there ;)
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