Brown River Queen cover art

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Christmas Songs for Writers

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If you're like me (and for all our sakes, let's hope you're not) you tend to replace the lyrics of songs you hear once too often with fresh new words, usually while you grit your teeth.
Face it, the one class of song you'll hear repeated endlessly for the next few weeks is that of the Christmas song. 
Here are the words I hear, when the inevitable tunes sound out. Enjoy....

IT CRASHED UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR

It crashed upon a midnight clear,
my brand new Toshiba hard drive,
it took with it a manuscript,
not a single  sentence survived.
A backup failure, a bad CD, a corrupted Word file in my cloud,
30 novel pages just disappeared,
scared the dogs with cussing so loud.

WE THREE THEMES

We three threads of story arc are
screwing up Chapter Seven and that scene in the bar.
Plot holes we widen, contradictions create,
Oh, why did he take us this far?

GOD REST YE MINOR CHARACTERS

God rest ye minor characters,
whose names we can't recall,
You bring us drinks and sell us things,
advance plots in matters small.
In Chapter Four you said 'hello,'
while passing in the street,
In Chapter Six you lay quite dead
knocked down in quick defeat.
But be at peace, dear what's-your-name
You did not die in vain,
I'll be right back to end this verse,
as soon as I recall your name.

OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS

Over the river and through the woods,
this chapter knows not where to go.
My protag ignores the way my outline did say
While my word count continues to grow.
Over the river and through the woods,
Oh, this whole book doth blow.
Editors shriek and beta readers look bleak
As over the same ground we go.