Wednesday, March 4, 2020

It's March and the Insecure Writer's Support Group has a great question about family holidays and traditions.

I'm participating in the Insecure Writer's Support Group today. If you too are interested, then please go HERE to sign up. I've been in it almost since the beginning, and I remember that it was started by science fiction author, Alex Cavanaugh

Sometimes I write a blog post that has to do with writing, and at other times I just answer the question (which is what I'm doing this month :)).

March 4 question - Other than the obvious holiday traditions, have you ever included any personal or family traditions/customs in your stories?

This sounds like a fun activity, but I honestly have never incorporated any of these, not that we really had any in my small family anyway. The reverse to this (though) is that I've incorporated made-up holidays and traditions from fictional books I've read into my Dungeons & Dragons games that I play with some gamers usually on Saturday nights (provided everyone can get together...these days it cancels quite often). I know that's not the same thing, but there've been some really fun holiday ideas in some of the fiction I've read. However, I haven't incorporated any of those into my actual stories because I don't want to steal from another writer, legalities not withstanding. And that pretty much sums up my answer to this question. Now I'm off to read your answers.

6 comments:

  1. That's a weird question. I can't think of any non-obvious traditions or customs let alone where I might have used them. Questions like that are when I'm glad I don't do that thing because it's be a pretty short entry. lol

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  2. What are some of the holidays you make up?
    Several have struggled with this question today. I couldn't think of anything either.

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    1. In our D&D game, we borrowed the holiday of Erastide from David Eddings rather than use "Christmas" because it was Dungeons & Dragons and we didn't want to use "Christmas" because there is no Christ on Cybrael (my friend Jake's world). But we'd never use it in a story, because David Eddings and the Belgariad all have copyrights, etc. It's fun to use around the table though (among friends).

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  3. That's a really great idea. Have you ever tried to incorporate some of those holidays into your actual life? That could be fun.

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  4. That's a cool idea to incorporate things you've read into your games!

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  5. I've never incorporated holidays, but I've started writing a novel that's in journal format and freely mixes reality from my life and my family's with a kind of sci fi/fantasy twist. So who knows what'll show up in my story?

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