After I have you all (probably) bored you to death with such interesting stories about my RL here are finally again some reviews of Christmas stories.

First of all there is Fitzwilliam Ebenezer Darcy by pianobarb (the great author of “White Lies and other Half Truths – review coming soon ). It’s Charles Dickens meets Jane Austen – Darcy never proposed to Elizabeth a second time and on Christmas Eve he is visited by three spirits which make him realize the error of his ways and encourage him to try again with the love of his life.
Perfect little story (six chapters all in all, I think) and great characterization of both Darcy and the ghosts (I especially liked the Ghost of Christmas Present) and there are some very heart wrenching scenes, which Darcy can observe while he is travelling with the ghosts and which fit into canon perfectly.
You can find Fitzwilliam Ebenezer Darcy on DWG and AHA, but as the version at AHA ist rated for mature audienced you can be sure that the end will be a bit more explicit there

This story automaticly leads me to another take on Charles Dickens meets Jane Austen which is called Darcy’s Christmas Carol and (as far as I know) only available at Bits of Ivory (BOI – link to the story here) and it’s one of my alltime favorite – I reread it every year around Christmas time Perfect story (same storyline as Fitzwilliam Ebenezer Darcy but at the same time completely different) and a real joy to read.

Another really charming Christmas story is The Twelve Days of Persuasion (was posted today at DWG by Kathy). It’s a modern take of Persuasion (who would’ve guessed with such a title ). After her former fiancé Frederick Wentworth moved in next door Anne suddenly receives mysterious gifts form an unknown admirer – who will it be? As I already said – a charming little tale with a unique twist at the end. Perfect romantic Christmas story, a satisfying read which leaves you with a pleasant feeling in your stomach.

Those are the three of my recommendations this year and there is always the annual Christmas poem by LizM. Hopefully she will post again one this year on DWG.

Until then: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

EDIT: The Christmas poem has been postet now on DWG – charming little poem about Emma – I do have a problem with summarizing poems – so just go ahead and read it

AND: Another really cute Christmas story has been posted on DWG now, it is called Tears on Christmas Eve and it is an outtake from P&P where Charles Bingley rides to Longbourn on Christmas Eve to see Jane one last time (as Darcy persuaded him that she doesn’t care for him) and has the chance to observe his “angel” on Christmas Eve – really cute and heartwrenching at the same time!

Mine attacked me on Friday, December the 12th of 2008 at about 2 pm from behind and made me do the stupidest thing imaginable. I do have this story and it has come to haunt me. Last year I wrote a story called “Never say never again” (Sag niemals nie – in German) and when it was finished in July 2007 I had already made my mind up about a sequel called “The spy who loved me” (Der Spion, der mich liebte) and I was very positive about it (after all I had already written eight chapters which were presumably one third of the whole story) and so I announced it to my readers and I even posted some sort of teaser.

That was before my muse refused to cooperate. After a more or less serious case of writer’s block, in which my muse apparently had some fun without me and went on vacation, she only to came home with loads of new story ideas but refused to give me any ideas about “The spy who loved me”. After a few atempts and a few one-liners I decided to postpone writing on this particular story and to focus and my other stories (of which there are plenty *rolls eyes*) and my pretty hectic RL.
Until last Friday when my “The spy who loved me”-muse suddenly reappeared and had the funniest thought ever – overthrow all your old ideas and start completely new with the story, I could completely throw away the eight chapters I had already written.

Well, I was happy she was willing to cooperate again so I obeyed her every wish and I wrote two chapters in a rush but then she demanded something I was not willing to give. She wanted me to kill the Colonel, Colonel Fitzwilliam that is. (I won’t go into detail about the story’s plot, I’ll just say that the titles aren’t borrowed from the James-Bond-series without reason, it’s all about the spying business and intelligence services and so on…).

The first draft which I wrote in some sort of haze looked like this.

When he got into his car and looked at his two cousins one last time Elizabeth asked herself whether his seemingly constant frown would ever disappear from his handsome face. She couldn’t know that she would never see him alive again.

But I wasn’t ready for this so I refused to follow her every whim and after much arguing we came up with the following compromise:

When he got into his car and looked at his two cousins one last time Elizabeth asked herself whether his seemingly constant frown would ever disappear from his handsome face. She couldn’t know that his secret identity would be uncovered the same day and he would vanish into thin air without anyone knowing where he could possibly be. Five days after his disappearance his superiors would have him declared dead.

So long story short – what’s the meaning of my little rambling here? The muse is a bitch, seriously, she really is. I haven’t heard of an author who hasn’t complained about his/her muse at least once. She makes you do the strangest things with your characters, things you never intended, she suddenly leaves you, when you are in the middle of your story and disappears without further notice, she reappears with seemingly overflowing creativity when your RL is already hectic and you virtually don’t have time to write (I could tell you another story of my muse when she made me write three chapters of a new story the day before my math A-levels…) only to vanish again when things slow down and you were normally able to write the whole day long.

And the most annoying thing: There’s nothing you can do about it, she has her own mind or as some authors simply say: OBEY THE MUSE! You can try to lure her into some dark corner where you can beat her unconscious so that she won’t be able to disappear again or you can try to tie her up, you can try to bribe her with chocolate and sweets or you can try to do everything to make her feel cozy and comfortable but in the end she has her own mind and there’s nothing you can do against it.

Just be happy when she’s with you. I know most of the time we complain and rant about her but and wish that we had never met her, but let’s face the truth: What would all the authors be without her?

Oh, and did I mention that my muse was especially bloodthirsty and mean this weekend – others were not as lucky as the Colonel and could not cheat death – but that’s another story.