For the last several years, it’s been a holiday tradition for us to watch the wonderful adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather, one of our most favorite holiday films. It’s full of great acting, silly banter (“I think my name is Bilious…I’m…the oh god of hangovers”) and brilliant writing. And Sir Terry makes a cameo appearance too!
I hadn’t always been a fan of Pratchett, though I had read a few of his novels in the 90s. I was more of an absurdist in the Douglas Adams vein anyway. It wasn’t until we started watching this one that I finally got his style and been a fan ever since. We’ve watched this one so often that it rivals the number of times I’ve watched certain movies for film class back in college, to the point that I’ve started analyzing it as a writer. I can see how it was written and how it was made, and how each storyline weaves and intertwines with the others, and how each one plays an important role in the main plot.
There’s also the lighthearted Hallmark holiday romcoms that A likes to watch around this time as well. And to be fair, I’ve been wanting to watch my favorite wasn’t-released-for-Christmas-but-is-sort-of-a-holiday-film While You Were Sleeping for a while now. Those kinds of films might be silly fluff, but the good ones are always well-written, often quirky and have a heart of gold. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Over the last few years, I’ve kind of picked up on that. Remember, I got serious in my writing in the 90s and 00s, which means I was informed by over-the-top bombast of Armageddon and Independence Day, deep metaphysical weirdness like Dark City and The Matrix, along with all those random anime films and manga tankobons I devoured during the Belfry Years. This is precisely why my last several novel releases were much lighter one-offs: I had to learn how to dial it back. Lighthearted isn’t always a bad thing.
Which is why, at the end of the year, I like to take in some of that lighter fluff, just as a reminder that I’m allowed to write that kind of stuff too. Hell, I even have that romcom idea still simmering on the backburner somewhere!
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