Holiday Hell and I am Going to Die of the Nostalgia Disease

I had such a terrible day yesterday, oh man oh man. My editor wants a new opening for the book, which is fine, so I started working on it yesterday. But it just wouldn’t come together and I refused to give up and I kept working on it and working on it, hour after hour after hour — and you have to realize we’re only talking a few paragraphs, not a whole new chapter — but I worked the whole damn day and night and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse and I couldn’t stop. I knew I would feel terrible unless I got it into shape. Finally I had to throw in the towel. I had to force myself to give up. You may have beat me now New Beginning, but I will be back. For those who decide to read the book when it comes out — know that I suffered for those measly opening paragraphs, whatever they turn out to be.

It’s just that they’re so important. Someone is going to pick up your book in a bookstore, take a look at the first few paragraphs and if you don’t somehow grab them immediately, you’re dead.

My plan is to have a better day today, except I have no hot water AGAIN, so we’re not off to a good start. Can’t shower. But The March of the Wooden Soldiers is on a 9, and while I don’t like that movie, except for the scene at the end when the wooden soldiers come to life, I will have it on for nostalgia’s sake. Which brings me to the title of today’s post. It comes from a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, I’m not sure which, although for the record, 100 Years of Solitude is my favorite book of all time. In whichever book it is, everyone in a town is infected with the “nostalgia disease” and will die if not cured. When I first read that I thought, ‘oh, that will be me.’ I do love to wallow in nostalgia,

Here are the words from Toyland from The March of the Wooden Soldiers. They are actually kinda depressing!

When you’ve grown up, my dears,
And are as old as I,
You’ll often ponder on the years
That roll so swiftly by, my dears,
That roll so swiftly by.

And all the many lands
You will have journeyed through
You’ll oft recall,
The best of all,
The land your childhood knew
Your childhood knew.

Toyland, toyland,
Little girl and boy land,
While you dwell within it,
You are ever happy then.
Childhood, joyland,
Mystic merry toyland,
Once you pass its borders,
You can ne’er return again.