Christine Amsden

Last night on the news they said that Wal-Mart has decided to go back to saying, “Merry Christmas” and that they are changing their “Holiday” displays back to “Christmas” displays. I have exactly one question about this:

Why is this news?

Seriously, was it a slow news day or something? If so, I can think of some better filler.

The last time I checked, this was a free country. People, and indeed stores, can offer any holiday greeting they choose. As long as it’s not, “Bah, humbug!” I’m likely to respond positively. Since Christmas is just one day and the holiday season lasts from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, I tend to offer people happy holidays, but that’s just because I’d like the entire season to be merry. It is, after all, a stressful time for many people. The suicide rate goes up around this time as many lonely people feel more isolatd than ever amidst the holiday cheer.

In fact, I think it is high time we stopped arguing semantics and started trying to offer people real holiday cheer — especially to those who need it most.

I don’t often talk about politics. I’m not sure why not, because I am passionate and opinionated, but also willing to listen to other ideas and to change my mind. It seems to me that you just don’t talk about that is the name of the game in this country, but what a dangerous game to play with the cornerstone of our freedom!

With elections coming up next week, my husband and I took a couple of hours last night to go over the list of candidates and look them up on the internet. The only people talking are the candidates themselves and a few biased news sources. No one talks about third party or independent options. Wait, did I say options?

A few days ago someone from the democratic party came by and gave my husband and I a choice of four issues. She asked which was the most important to us in the upcoming election. Three of them were education, the economy, and homeland security (I’m afraid I can’t remember the other one). My husband gave the following basic response: Homeland security, but not in the way they are going to think if you check that. I’m most concerned about the erosion of our rights in the name of security.  She agreed that they would believe he meant just the opposite if she checked that option so he shrugged and said, Fine, put me down for the economy.

But doesn’t that say something, that other people are narrowing down our choice of issues for us? It tells me that something is seriously wrong with the way we do politics in this country. Squashed in to our isolated holes, scared to talk to our neighbors for fear they may be child sexual predators, and unwilling to cause friction by talking about politics when we do poke out heads up for air, the only information that can trickle its way into our worlds is highly filtered, biased, and frankly incomplete.

And don’t even get me started on the obscurity of local elections. Who cares who is county commissioner or a local judge? Well, I care! These people set our local taxes, plan and pay for local civic projects, and hear important cases both civil and criminal. In many ways, they have more impact on my life than the silhouettes in Washington, D.C. ever could. Yet even the local newspapers spend scnat time on these races and these issues.

I say it’s time to create friction. I say it’s time to find out what our neighbors think about issues, even if we don’t agree with them. I think it’s time to take responsibility for our freedom to ensure that it remains intact for our children and grandchildren.

I think it’s time to talk politics.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Call me crazy, but that’s just the truth. I’ve never gone broke on Halloween, or sat in the car for hours on end as I made my way to Grandma’s house. I don’t have any obligations, religious or secular.

All I do is play make believe and eat candy. What a great day!

Of course, that’’s not always what Halloween was. The day has its roots in the strange and mysterious. It is sometimes considered the day when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest, and not all the spirits called forth have been friendly. Truthfully, though, the day has been celebrated in many different ways by a wide variety of religions and cultures. Moreso than any other holiday, it is difficult (if not impossible) to pin down a single origin for Halloween.

Starting in twentieth century America, though, it became a day to wear costumes and eat candy. As a writer, I have a real appreciation for make believe, which is probably why I have so much fun. Also, I really like capes. (Will they ever come back into mainstream fashion?)

Last night was my almost one-year-old son’s first Halloween. We dressed him up as a teddy bear and showed him off to all the neighbors, thus indoctrinating him in the modern version of Halloween. Then we came home and passed out candy (one for the kids, one for me, one for the kids, two for me).

All in all, it was a picture perfect Halloween. Alas, there were no spirits of the dead but then again, I didn’t really expect any in my 17-year-old house.

This article is my word of caution: take any writing advice, including mine, with a grain of salt. There are no rules; there are only actions and consequences. Educate yourself on the consequences so you know which actions are worth taking.

Like many of you, I have been writing since I was a child. I became serious about it when, in 2002, I got up the nerve to show my writing to someone else and get some feedback. I followed up that traumatic experience with “how to” books on writing and a trip to North Caroline, where Orson Scott Card gave me his take on writing. Through all that, and through practice, practice, practice, I’ve learned a lot of the ins and outs of writing. I understand how overusing the verb “to be” can make your writing flat and how adverbs tend to be heavy handed and uninspiring. I’ve learned that starting a story with a line of dialogue is not usually a good idea and that withholding information from the reader tends to be annoying rather than mysterious.

I’ve learned all that – but more important than the WHAT is the WHY. Whenever you learn a new “rule” or technique, don’t just do it blindly. Get to the bottom of it. What does it do for your story? How does it help it come alive? What happens if you don’t do it?

Any rule can be broken. Any rule. You can break rules of grammar in certain situations. In case you missed it, I just did. “Any rule” is not a complete sentence. By breaking that rule, I may have caused some people to question my knowledge of basic grammar. I may have ruined my credibility as a writer. Why did I take that risk? I took it because sometimes, a sentence fragment can be used as a way of emphasizing a point. In this case, when I said, “Any rule can be broken,” I meant, “Any rule.”

You can be sure that when you choose an action, you will turn off a certain group of readers with that choice. Typically, if you want to sell your fiction, you are looking to eliminate as few readers as possible while still turning out a story you can take pride in.

A word of caution: In case you missed it, this article is not a permission slip to forget the rules. In fact, I am telling you just the opposite. To properly break the rules, you need to know them inside and out.

As I continue my series of articles on tips for writers, I will do my best to talk about consequences and the WHY of it instead of just the WHAT.