TROPES, CLICHÉS, AND STEREOTYPES, OH MY! A CHRISTMAS STORY UNDER THE LOOKING GLASS. By Guest Blogger Charles “Chuckie” Farkus

Be careful kid, "You'll shoot your eye out!"

What a great opportunity this is for me to set the record straight. When I heard that the Sand in Our Shorts blog had a holiday opening designed to give its regular contributors a chance to enjoy the holiday with family and friends, I jumped at the opportunity. Do you know what it’s like to be the younger sibling of a famous movie villain, like Scut Farkus in A Christmas Story? Well, I do. And I have tales to tell.

Seems that everyone remembers my evil big brother. Yeah. Green eyes, yellow teeth, coonskin cap. That’s who I’m talking about. (He grew up to be a police officer, you know.) But then there’s me, baby brother Charles “Chuckie” Farkus. We also lived on Cleveland Street, two houses down from Ralphie and Randy Parker, next door to the Bumpasses. I was best friends with Randy. I looked like a tick and couldn’t put my arms down on the way to school, either. But do you hear about me and my challenges? No.

And what a rotten movie it is, filled with tropes, clichés, and stereotypes. You know, things like “You’re gonna shoot your eye out,” the Italian word Fra-gee-lay, sticking your tongue to a frozen flagpole, and my favorite, Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Oh, please! The writers ought to be ashamed.

So tell me, what’s your favorite or, better yet, least favorite, thing about A Christmas Story? And don’t worry if you haven’t seen it. You can check your channel guide for where to find the next marathon, 24-hours-a-day, “wash-Ralphie’s-mouth-out-with-soap” barf-o-rama.   

Oh, by the way, there’s a sequel—A Christmas Story Christmas. I’m not in that one, either. I can hardly wait to watch it—NOT. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just sit her enjoying a piping hot cup of Ovaltine, as I check the blog every few minutes for your comments.   

IF MYSTERY WRITERS WROTE CHRISTMAS SONGS by Yvonne Saxon

If you let a mystery writer loose with the lyrics of a Christmas song, you might end up singing something like this:

On the first day of Christmas, my mystery gave to me, crime scene tape strung on my Christmas tree.

On the second day of Christmas, my mystery gave to me, two inheritance fights, and some crime scene tape strung on my Christmas tree.

On the third day of Christmas, my mystery gave to me, three funny sidekicks, two money fights, and that yellow tape up on my Christmas tree.

A WRITER'S CHRISTMAS PARTY by Maria Hudgins

Our local Sisters in Crime group—we call it Mystery by the Sea because we live in coastal Virginia—met for lunch at Carrabba’s for a pre-holiday party. 

What, you ask, do writers talk about when they are just having fun? I made mental notes as I ate my lasagna. We talked about new babies, new contracts, and fresh writing opportunities. Who wants a roommate for Malice Domestic, who did NaNoWriMo this year, who is letting their hair go natural? Do you have a picture of your new dog/cat? We spent a long time on the crucial topic of Best First Sentence. Believe it or not, there was some support for “It was a dark and stormy night.” We came to no consensus of course but had a lot of laughs.

One thing we did NOT talk about was money. We all know we’re in the wrong profession for getting rich and that’s okay. I’m convinced that the few writers
who do get rich, do so almost by accident. It’s occasionally a side benefit but not a goal. We write because we are writers.

This group has been together for about twenty years, and a few original members are still with us. Most, however, are new blood. We celebrate as each newbie gets that first story published. There is no jealousy among us because we are not competing. We may all become wildly successful. Or not.

We exchanged ideas and recommendations for online resources that offer the kinds of help we need. One of our members is venturing into the world of script writing and she recommended an online program that I may check out myself. A few new books are generating talk in the mystery genre, and we mentioned some without, of course, giving away any endings.

 

We all agreed that the pandemic has had a bad effect on each of us even though most of us work best alone. Other people are where ideas come from. Without human contact we are like tailors without cloth. We need that human contact. As I listened to my fellow writers, I felt like l was rejoining the human race.  

We were a bit loud at times. Fortunately, we met at 11:30 before the lunch crowd hit so we had the place pretty much to ourselves for a while. The manager came over and talked to us, but he didn’t mention the noise. He was just being friendly. I have no idea how our server made sense of our orders. We asked her irrelevant questions, changed our minds (I’ll have what she’s having), and ordered more than we could eat, prompting us to call for a veritable snowstorm of white Styrofoam boxes.

If you are looking to join the writing community yourself, I suggest you shop around in your own community. You’ll probably be surprised that there are people like you close by. And check out online groups, too. You are not alone.

 

QUOTH THE RAVEN “NEVERMORE.” OR DID HE? By Michael D. Rigg

"Once upon a midnight, dreary...."

Okay, you got me. Edgar Allan Poe’s fantastical Raven really said “Nevermore,” at least in the famous poem. Of course, the Raven and the nearly-napping-guy were figments of Poe’s fertile mind. He created them. So, if Poe quoted the Raven, the Raven must have said it.

But can we make the same assertion about actual historical figures? Did various people utter the pithy, wisdom-laden sayings attributed to them? Quoth the Raven, “Maybe, or maybe not.”

In grade school, many of us learned of George Washington’s commitment to honesty. When confronted by his father about chopping down a cherry tree, six-year-old George confessed his horrific, axe-wielding deed and declared, “I cannot tell a lie.”

SURRENDER, DOROTHY by Guest Blogger Judy Fowler

Intimidating words. Plucky Dorothy Gale—the protagonist in Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz—isn’t scared off for long. Eventually, she’ll confront her fear of witches because she wants to go home.      

In parts of my life, I’m like Dorothy. When my own “Over the Rainbow” dreams of singing on Broadway and writing books met with setbacks, I threw my support behind my husband’s acting career. All I asked for—if he made it—was a house in Beverly Hills where I could write. This never materialized. I went back to school and bought myself a house in Virginia Beach.

I could have done that earlier, but—like Dorothy—I had to learn it for myself.

STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY, PART 2 by Adele Gardner (writing mysteries as Max Jason Peterson)

Rocco writes a story.

In Part 1, I outlined the reasons why we need to keep trying rather than getting discouraged by rejections. In essence, each rejection brings you one step closer to the goal of getting published. Your mission is to find that one editor who loves your piece. Feel free to tinker with your work as you go along, but don’t feel obliged to rewrite or scrap it based on the comments of someone who is not offering to buy it (if the editor is seriously interested & wants some rewrites in order to accept it, that’s another story).

TALK TURKEY TO ME! By Jayne Ormerod

There comes a time when a woman must start hosting her own Thanksgiving celebrations. For me that day came at the tender age of 22, when I married a Naval officer and moved 2,500 miles away from family. Had I any inkling that I would have to prepare Thanksgiving feasts entirely on my own, my childhood holidays would have been better spent hanging out in the kitchen learning the tricks of preparing a flawless holiday mean instead of curling up in an over-sized armchair with my nose buried in the latest Nancy Drew mystery. As a result, I’ve had to learn a lot of Turkey Day lessons the hard way.

In the spirit of the season, today I’m offering a Top Five List of Things I Wish My Mother Had Taught Me about Preparing (and Enjoying) a Thanksgiving Feast: