The Amateur Writer at Christmas.

I have a new story forming in my head, but I have a problem with it. It features a water sprite who was the star of one of my earlier stories. On that occasion she got a bit miffed with the MC, but eventually forgave him and saved him from a serious watery predicament.

This time is different. This time she’s miffed enough to be homicidal, and the problem is this. She’s shown me the mysterious circumstances under which the first two men died, but she’s holding back on how the third one is going to cop it. I got impatient and decided to work it out for myself, but it was hopeless. You don’t get impatient with water sprites, you see; you wait until they’re ready to tell you. That’s how it works.

*  *  *

What a thing to be thinking of at Christmas. I remember my childhood, when my attention could be held for quite some time by the tableau my mother used to set out under the Christmas tree on a bed of cotton wool: a cottage, a Santa and sleigh, a few pine trees and a couple of reindeer. The first thing I wanted to do as soon as darkness fell was switch off the room lights and see the snowy tableau lit only by the lights on the Christmas tree. It’s my earliest recollection of seeing magic in the combination of light and form.

And then the water sprites came along. I grew out of God and Santa Claus, and into the denizens of alternate dimensions. That’s finding reality, that is. That’s growing up.