Writing takes time, you guys. It takes a lot of time. And for a long time, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough of it. That’s why I made my word of the year for 2017 Create.

I created a lot! I worked hard to create a life that let me, well, create, as much as possible. It bore dividends that I’m still feeling this year. My goal is to publish 6 books in 2018, but the only reason I’m able to do that is the hard work I put in in 2017. I honestly probably won’t be able to publish as many in 2019, for instance. That’s because I’m focusing on learning this year, and going deeper into what I’m writing.

But you’re here to find more time to write, right? Okay, we can do that. Here are five things I did all last year to write more.

Figure out your priorities, and make them known.

I tell you all the time that writing is the third highest priority in my life. My family and my own self-care are the only two things that I will put above that.

I know that writing comes before almost all else, and so does everyone around me. I don’t have people in my life who expect me to drop everything and hang out with them. I don’t have people in my life who get offended when I tell them lovingly, respectfully, that I’m writing and don’t want to cancel that time. Even my kids respect writing time, though it took a good long while to make that happen.

I managed to make the people around me respect my writing time by respecting it myself. I don’t answer texts or messages when I’m writing. I write during the time that I say I’m going to write, so if someone should happen upon me they’ll find me working. I don’t do anything else while I’m writing, and so I show the people around me that this is serious. I teach them how to treat me.

Schedule everything

You can’t find time to write if you don’t know what you’re doing with your time, it’s just that easy. I buy an Erin Condron planner, but of course, you don’t need to invest that kind of money. Just keep track of things. Write down doctors’ appointments as soon as you schedule them. Put down your work schedule, and your spouses. Put down your kid’s school schedule. Put in every birthday of the year, so that you’re that guy who always remembers people’s birthdays.

Then take a good look at the time left over, and schedule some writing time every day. If you’re already writing every day, see where you can put in more time. Now that you’re no longer scrambling to get things done last minute, I imagine that you’ll find a lot more free time.

Cut out the crap

Have you ever tracked your time to see what you do in a day? It’s eye-opening, let me tell you. I had no idea how long I could scroll on Reddit.

While some ‘time wasting’ in a day is okay, even good, there are limits. So take a look at how long you’re spending watching tv, mindlessly consuming social media, or shopping for stuff you don’t need. Cut out as much of it as you can.

Do I cut out all of it? No, of course not. I watch tv with my kids and play on my computer or crochet every single night. I also like to check Reddit and Instagram a few times a day.

But I do those things at specific times that I’ve assigned to those activities. I’m not doing them mindlessly, or at times of my day when I might get something decent done. (I read Reddit during brain ‘down times’ like right when I get up or just before I go to bed when I’m fried for the night.)

So cut out the crap you do that I bet you don’t even want to do, and you’ll probably find all sorts of time to write.

Streamline the things you have to do

I would love to have a chef and housekeeper, but that’s never going to happen. So what I have instead is a super streamlined way of doing things that mean I spend as little time as possible keeping my house in order and keeping my family fed.

I won’t go into too much detail here because if I do I’ll just be repeating the entire Flylady baby steps and that’s a silly waste of time. Just check out the website, go through the baby steps, and see what a chance it makes in your life.

Get creative and be flexible

I’ve gotten quite flexible with places and times I can and do write. I used to ride public transportation a lot, and I’d write on the way to and from work. I write in doctor’s waiting rooms. I take occasional writing retreat days and go spend the day at the library or a coffee shop. I write while my kids watch stuff on Youtube that irritates me.

Basically, I’ve learned to get creative and flexible with when and where I write. It makes it a lot easier to reach my writing goals every day. Or, at least most days.

I want to take a minute, and just draw your attention to the title of this post. It doesn’t say 5 super easy and convenient ways to write more because that would be disingenuous. These are not easy things. If you do these five things then you will insist that people respect your goal to be a writer. More than that, you will insist that you respect your goal to be a writer.

But it’s how it’s going to happen.

As it is January, and I’m hopeful that all of us are going to reach our writing goals in 2018, I’m going to spend the rest of the month focusing on tips and tools to achieve different writing goals. Because we’re all at different places on the path of writing. Being a writer has a thousand different paths, we’re not all on the same one.

Today, I want to talk to the NaNoWriMo winners. First of all, you guys are rock stars. You wrote 50,000 in one freaking month! That’s amazing. You’ve taken a huge step towards the goal of writing a book.

Oh, that’s the scary part, isn’t it? You’re not at the finish line. You’re at a mile marker. An important one, that I don’t mean in any way to belittle. But you’re not done yet.

What follows is an updated, step by step guide to completely finishing your novel. The point here is to get your novel to the point that it’s ready to be sent to an agent or editor if you’re going the traditional route. Or, it’s ready to go to your editor if you’ll be self-publishing.

I do three drafts, generally. Some people do less, but I don’t feel like that gives the draft enough time and attention. Some people do more, but at some point, you need to accept the book for what it is and either roll with it or let it go.

Step one, finish your book.

I know that when I did Nano, 50,000 words weren’t enough for me to finish my book. I was still writing well into December and January. So if you haven’t written the end of your book yet, do that now.

Let it sit

I’m not the only one who advises letting your rough draft sit before you start editing. Stephen King advises it in On Writing. He suggests waiting at least 6 weeks, which I consider a good amount of time. I actually put each draft aside when I’m done, and work on something for the other series. As an example, when I finished the rough draft for Sandwashed, I wrote the rough draft for Station Central. When I finished that rough draft, I started on the second draft of Sandwashed. So the amount of time I let it sit was dependent on how long the next project took me.

Major Edits

Micro Edits

The first edit your novel should go through is a major edit. This means you’re doing what might be a major rewrite of your novel. You go through the rough draft, writing down every single thing wrong with your novel. This is where characters die. For instance, my characters from Broken Patterns used to have a grandmother. Used to.

Outlines change, characters names change. Your whole story might be completely different at the end of this draft. This is the draft that usually takes me the longest. Not only because it’s a major rewrite, but because it’s the first time my book has been typed.

Your book is probably in a lot better shape now than it was to start with. Now is the time go through and find the things you might have missed the first time around. This is the first draft that I print out, usually. It gives me a different perspective.

This is also the draft where I start really considering how I’ve said something, and why I’ve said it the way I have. I’ll often read the whole book out loud this time around. I’m listening for poor dialog and clunky sentences. Anything that sounds stupid in general.

Final Polish

This is my last chance to go through the book and do some housekeeping. Grammar, spelling, character descriptions. Everything gets cleaned up here. It’s my last chance to make the book as good as it can be.

And that’s it. At this point, I feel like the book is ready for other people to look at. This is when I bring in a few beta readers. Then, and only then, am I ready to send the book to my editor.

So what do you think? Are you ready to edit your book in 2018? Let us know in the comments below.

I have some exciting news! I have a new standalone science fiction story available, called AA.

Josey was new in town, working two jobs and reeling from her divorce. She needed a lot of things, but most of all she needed a meeting. She finds one in the basement of her local library. But the meeting that she finds isn’t the one that she’s expecting.

My wonderful publisher, Solstice, put this out as a standalone after its sucess in the anothology called Project 9.

To celebrate, I’ll be hosting a Facebook party on Friday, January 19th. Here’s a link, if you’d like to attend. There will be some other awesome science fiction authors there, hanging out and talking about their latest projects. I’ll keep you updated as names become available.

Hope to see you there.

While I am going to be throwing more real-life stuff at you this year, I will be trying to space it out a little more. Sorry for two angry political posts in one week, but I’m getting them out of my system. If it makes you better, this won’t be a very long post.

D’you, remember what happened in Vegas? Here’s a fun fact, as of December 20^th, there’d been 59,307 acts of gun violence in America.

I like guns. I was on the rifle team in high school. You know what I don’t like? Bump stocks, semi-automatics, automatics, gun show loopholes and gun stores that ignore standing gun laws to make a buck. I also don’t like innocent dead people who were just seeing a concert, going to a movie, going to school or walking down the street.

Hey, you know who might have forgotten about Vegas? Your local politicians and state officials. Maybe you should give them a call or write to them. Ask them what they’re doing about these attacks. If they tell you, or if you believe yourself that this is a mental health issue and not a gun control issue, then feel free to ask them what they’re doing about that instead. Here’s a link to find contact information for your local representative. Because it shouldn’t take a tragedy to remind us that something needs to be done about this.

I hope you all stay safe.

I wanted to talk today about something that I’m working on in 2018. I’m trying to be a better ally

If you want to be a better ally, then the first step is to understand your privileges. I’m a straight, Christian woman who is physically and (mostly) mentally healthy. I’m capable of learning and able to work.

One privilege that I have that doesn’t get talked about much is my gender. I’m a woman, and that means that I’m treated differently than a man.

In order to be a better ally, I want to talk about female privilege today.

There’s no denying that being a woman is easy. I’m in tech support, and there are some people who make my job harder because I’m a woman. I do, sometimes, have to spend some time convincing people I know what I’m talking about before they’ll let me help them. And that freaking sucks. I despise that every time a company wants to make something more appealing to women or girls, they make it pink.

But I don’t really want to start off a post talking about abuses against men talking about how much it sucks to be a woman. Because we all know that it’s hard to be a woman. We get it. We, as women are being told every day how men are out to get us. Women, think about this. We’re taught to carry our keys between our fingers so we can defend ourselves. We carry pepper spray (in pink containers). We’re taught to always be on our guard, and not go walking at night because men will hurt us given half a chance.

But will they? Actually, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, men are overall more likely to be victims of violent crimes. Here’s a link. So why are we teaching our daughters that they’re in more danger than our sons? At very least, shouldn’t we be teaching our sons to protect themselves just the same?

We don’t really want to talk about violence against men, though. We want to talk about violence against women. We want to protect women and teach them to support each other. We tell men over and over that hitting women is bad, as though they need to be told that. But we don’t really have that same sort of response to violence against men. Think about how many jokes there are about men being hit in the gentiles. We’ve all seen it, the classic eye crossing pained face. It’s hilarious, right? Is it that hilarious if a woman was to be kicked in the gentiles? Hell, it doesn’t even seem to matter when the man in question is in real danger. Lorena Bobbett was a huge running joke after cutting off her husband’s gentiles. Tiger Wood’s wife was nearly a hero when she tried to beat him with a golf club. And to anyone who’s going to tell me that those men cheated, I don’t give a damn. Would you applaud a man who cut off his wife’s breast or tried to smash her head in with a golf club? What if she cheated on him? Is it better now?

Now, I want to talk about something that’s plagued me for a good part of my life. Choosing to be a working mom hasn’t always been easy. There’s a lot of guilt that goes along with it. Mostly inflicted by other women. But there’s a large part of our society that applauds me for being a working mamma. Look at me, going to work to bring home the bacon for my family. I’m not letting some man have financial power over me.

Instead, I’m letting some man have domestic power over me. My husband’s the homemaker in our family. He’s responsible for homeschooling our girls, making dinner, keeping us to our budget, taking the kids to doctors appointments, performing upkeep on our house and doing most of our major shopping. While I do a good amount of the everyday housework, he does the major things. Like shampooing the carpet in our whole house, bless him.

Now let me tell you how many times my husband has had to call me from the doctor’s office so that I could tell the doctor that he had my authorization to see my kid. Let me tell you how many times the schools have asked to talk to me, and didn’t seem to believe my husband when he said that he would be the one handling these things. Oh, or the apartment that we didn’t get to rent because the elderly couple renting it didn’t like that my husband didn’t work. Or the people who ask him what he does, then ask him why he doesn’t work.

Now, full disclosure, my husband does have health concerns. But that’s not why he’s the homemaker. He’s the homemaker because he’s better at it, and I’m better at making money. I started working young and built a portfolio of experience. He became a daddy and that became his focus. We’re both well suited to what we do. And we should both get the same respect as any other breadwinner or homemaker.

Now, on to something more serious. Women’s lives are more valued than men. And let me prove it to you. Women are not permitted to be GI soldiers because America can’t handle seeing women come home in body bags. Women are given preferential treatment in emergency situations. Not pregnant women, just women. Cancers that impact women are given more grant money and attention. We know October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. I’ve personally known two women with breast cancer. One made it and one didn’t, so don’t think this isn’t serious to me. But testicular cancer is also horrible. My husband’s grandfather died of it.

As another example, men don’t have the same protections as women. Male domestic violence victims can’t go to a shelter in the way women can. Male rape victims are treated as a joke. Even when a male student is abused by a female teacher, it’s laughed off. I think we all know what happens to a male teacher who abuses a female student. He gets nailed to the wall, and he damn well should. But so should a female teacher who abuses a male student.

Men also don’t have the same rights to their children as women. In fact, women, for the most part, get to choose how involved a father is going to be in the lives of their children.

Setting the discussion of abortion aside, because I could go on for a long time about the complexity of that situation, let’s take a look at parenthood. A woman can decide to defer her parental rights in most states. She can say that she’s brought this child into the world, and now she’d like to have someone else care for them.

I’m not hating on women who give their children up for adoption. Part of being a parent is giving your child the best chance to have a good life. To decide that your child’s life would be better without you is a heartbreaking, loving, selfless decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly or judged by anyone. It’s also one that men don’t have the option for.

On the flip side, a man has limited ability to fight for their parental rights if the mother of their child decides that they don’t want them to be a part of their lives. Courts favor the mother in almost every custody case unless something pretty bad is going on.

Finally, women are more trusted than men. Recently, we’ve seen many heartbreaking examples of this. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Hundreds of allegations have come forward about respected men in the entertainment industry. Some politicians have been accused as well. While no actual legal action has been taken against these men, many have lost their jobs without any actual investigations.

I’m not saying that they’re all innocent, or that they’re all guilty. I’m saying that maybe before someone loses everything they’ve ever worked for, maybe there should be some sort of proof. Maybe there should be an investigation. Because if a person, man or woman, really did abuse or harass another person, man or woman, they should be held accountable by the law. Just like when someone commits any other sort of crime. And yes, I realize that it can be hard to prove abuse. But we can’t have our society’s default be she said it, so he did it. Now he has to lose everything and apologize. Because really, anyone can say anything. I could say that Hank Azaria molested me. I’ve never actually met him, but are you really accusing me of lying? Why would I lie about something like that? It’s not like he’s a well known and respected actor and I’m a barely known writer still trying to make a name for myself. (No disrespect meant, Mr. Azaria. You’re a wonderful actor who’s given me hours of happiness with The Simpsons, Bird Cage, and Ray Donovan. Keep doing what you’re doing, Man.)

If you don’t agree with me, please share what you think. I’m open-minded, so please give me facts to prove that I’m wrong. We’re never going to get better if we can’t have discussions and disagreements.

But to my fellow women, I’m asking you to check your privilege and take the challenge to be a better ally. We’re upset because we’re not respected and we should be. But they’re upset because they’re literally dying and losing their children.

Want to know something scary? You all know I love a good horror story, but this one is really bad.

It’s January 5^th, and some people have already given up on their resolutions.

And you know who they are! The friend who threw away their cigarette packs on New Year’s Eve went out and shamefully bought a new pack on January 3^rd. The cousin who swore off sugar is sneaking leftover Christmas cookies right now. The college buddy who swore they were done drinking picked up a six-pack.

And the person who said they were going to write a book in 2018 is already finding excuses why they ‘can’t’ write today. Or yesterday. Or the day before that. The rest of this week doesn’t look good, either.

Now, I know you guys hear this every year. And there are lots of posts floating around right now to help you not fall into that trap. I’ll be spending a lot of time this year trying to help you reach your writing goals just on PBW. But I wanted to start out the year by giving you some tools against the mid-January slump. We’re going to try together to make 2018 be a great year.

Consider why you want to do this thing

Look, I’m fully aware that I’m going to get some hate for this. But I’ve got to be honest anyway. If you started out the year saying that you’re going to cut out sugar, fat, gluten, caffeine, whatever it is you’ve decided is unhealthy this year, I think you’re probably going to fail. And honestly, I kind of think you should.

I say this for two reasons. The first reason is that it’s too dramatic of a change in your lifestyle. To swear off something like sugar or caffeine is going to mean not only a serious change in your everyday life but for the people around you as well. It’s basically saying, “Please don’t include me in any of your food-related plans. Because not only will I make it harder for everyone, I’ll make everyone feel bad about it along the way.”

But if you really want to do it, then don’t worry about that. You do you, for real. If you really think that cutting out something that’s considered unhealthy from your diet, then go for it.

The thing is, I don’t know that you really think that. I think that we’re all told that certain things are unhealthy for us. And I think that in the new year there’s a lot of pressure to make society approved healthy changes in your life. So maybe some of us say we’re going to do something that we don’t really see a benefit in. Maybe we say we’ll go to the gym, or stop drinking soda. Or go back to school. But do we really want to do these things?

I’ll tell you right now, I have no intention of changing my diet in 2018. I listen to my body and don’t overindulge, but I do enjoy some sweets and fast food. I do want to do yoga more often, and start working on toning my arms. But I want to do those things for me. I want to do more yoga because I’ve been having some serious back problems that I want to be proactive about. I want to tone my arms because I don’t want to be one of those old lady’s with wings. So please consider why you’re making these goals for yourself. Because if they’re not for you, they’re not going to happen.

Control what you can control

Last year I made a whole list of goals, and I accomplished all but two. I didn’t save money, and I didn’t break even for my writing. I lost more money promoting and producing my books then I made.

The first goal was a good goal, and I should have reached it.

The second goal was a bad goal, and do you know why? Because it wasn’t in my control.

Yes, I control a lot of the factors around selling my books. I control how many books come out. I control how much I market and promote. I control how much I spend on my writing.

But I can’t control how many people will actually buy. All I can do is keep on writing and sharing. So, no more sales goals, because I can’t control them. Instead, I have goals concerning how often I’ll promote and produce. The rest of it is totally out of my hands. And I’ve got to learn to be okay with that.

The good news, though, is that the vast majority of our lives are totally under our control. We decide how to spend our time. We decide how to eat. We decide how to react to our situation in life. We decide where we live. All of this is totally, absolutely in our control. So if your goal hinges on the actions of another, take it off your list. Replace it with something that’s entirely in your control.

Don’t give up if you slip for a day

I recently went through the FlyLady’s baby steps, in an effort to dramatically change the condition of my home. I learned a ton from the experience, and can’t recommend the steps enough for everyone.

One of the best lessons I learned, though, was to not give up if I slipped for a day. And I do slip, a lot. But I no longer let one slip lead to another. So if I miss my morning routine, I don’t decide to just skip my afternoon routine. If I don’t feel up to doing a whole home blessing hour, then I tell myself I’ll do one thing, then see how I feel. (Spoiler, that usually encourages me to go on to the next item. Then the next, then the next.)

So if you didn’t write yesterday, don’t let that stop you from writing today. If you can’t write for your whole time, write as much as you can. If you swore you’d quit smoking, but you slipped up and bought a pack, throw it away. You have another day, another hour even. Don’t get hung up on the fact that you slipped. Just make better decisions going forward.

It’s never going to happen if you don’t make it happen.

And this is really what it comes down to. You have to take the steps to make your goals happen. If you want to write a book, you need to do it.

Let me give you an example. My biggest goal in 2018 is to do a Pittsburgh book signing tour. It’s a huge, daunting, terrifying goal. I have to call people I’ve never talked to and pitch my book to them. I have to invest a ton of money in ordering books (and maybe some merch). I have to dress up and act like a famous writer, probably for multiple days in a row.

This is going to take money, planning, and courage. But mostly planning. So I’m working on it now. I’m making a list of bookstores and coffee shops. I’m saving up money to order copies. I’m scheduling time off from my day job. I’m making this happen.

So how about you? What’s your plan to accomplish all of your goals in 2018?

Happy 2018! I hope no one’s too hung over this morning. I spent last night partying in Pittsburgh with my kids and wonderful husband. So no hangover here, but I am sleepy.

I want to talk about some things that happened in 2017 (and how we can all take steps to be better allies), but I’m not going to do that today. Because it’s the first day of the new year, and today I want to focus on just one thing

How are we going to become better people in 2018, and how we’re going to improve the world just a little bit.

To that end, I want to share with you my word of the year, and what my overall goals for the next twelve months are. I do this every year for two reasons. One, publicly announcing my goals keeps me accountable and two, I hope to inspire you to reach as far as you can towards the person you want to be in 2018. I’d love it if all of you reading this would tell us in the comments section, or jump over to our Facebook page and sound off there, what your word for the year and goals for the year are.

My word for 2018 is learn.

I want to learn to be a better ally. I want to learn new and better ways to keep my home in order so I can write more. I want to learn a new language, or at least start learning a new language. I’m aware that’s a several-year-long commitment. I want to learn new and better ways to reach new readers. I want to learn about the new technological advancements mankind is creating. I want to understand better what’s going on in the world, and how I can help.

Mostly, though, I want to learn my craft better. I’m going to be seeking out some writing classes to strengthen my skills and get feedback from my peers.

Of course, I also have a long list of concrete goals and plans for the year. Here’s a list of what I’m going to strive to accomplish. It’s a mix of personal and professional, but so is my life. That’s how it should be.

• Finally, save up my $1,000 emergency fund.

• Get my drivers license. (No I don’t have it yet. Neither does Tina Fey, and she seems to be doing just fine, thanks.)

• Buy a car.

• Upgrade some of my tech, like my tablet and maybe my laptop.

• Publish a total of six books this year, unless something out of my control happens.

• Get my books into the two local bookstores that don’t currently carry them.

• Go to Kennywood with my family three times.

• Camp more. We got this great tent last year and only got to use it once.

• Get some merchandise for Station 86. I have some ideas for t-shirts.

• Have my short stories featured in at least four publications or anthologies. This would double the anthologies I was included in 2017. (Oh, did you not know I did that? Here’s a link to Project 9, and to my stand-alone short, Man In The Woods.)

• Go through some serious house upgrades. I don’t love where I live, but I’m probably stuck here for a while. So I need to make the best of it.

• Finally, I’m going to schedule a book signing tour of Pittsburgh. That one’s the most daunting, but the thing that I want most to do.

So now it’s your turn. What’s your word for 2018, and what do you plan to accomplish?

Every year, my last blog post is a review of the most popular blog posts of the last 12 months. I’m not the only blogger who does this, to be sure. I love reading everyone else’s roundups, though, so I hope you enjoy reading mine.

I also love checking out what you, my beloved readers, enjoyed most this year. It helps me figure out what you appreciate and what you want to see more of.

So let’s jump right in and see what the ten most popular posts of 2017 were, according to all of you.

My Freeform Outline

I wrote two rough drafts in 2017, and I took a new approach then I have in the past. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to see happen in the story, and I had some plot points to guide me. But as I wrote, I just let the story go where it wanted to go. It worked really well. I hope that my freeform outline experiment helped you, too.

Facebook For Writers

While social media has changed a lot over the last year, Facebook is still a useful platform for writers to stay in contact with their readers and fellow authors.

Write a Ghazal poem

This is an old post, from when I still did writing prompt Saturday. I feel like I should do more about unique forms of poetry in 2018.

Living My Best Live

I’m trying to live my best life every single day. How about you? Hopefully, this post encouraged some of you to do just that.

What Scares People

I feel like I want to write a horror novel. I’ve done fantasy, done sci-fi, done horror collections. Maybe not in 2018, maybe not until Station 86 is done, but at some point, I want to write a true horror novel. Until I do that, I want to help you all do it.

What I’ll Leave Behind

We lost a lot of amazing, wonderful people this year. We had so many tragedies, so many horrors. I really understand that at no point is tomorrow promised to any of us. Coming home at the end of the day isn’t promised. So think about what you’ll be leaving behind.

Second-Hand Stores, a Personal Essay

I was so touched and surprised that a personal essay made it not only to the top ten but so high on the list! I definitely think I need to do more personal essays in 2018

An Open Letter To The Teacher Who Changed My Life

I really hope that this post was so popular because you all have your own teacher that changed your life. If so, please tell your story about them and share a link below.

Writing Dark Poetry

I hope that some of you found dark poetry therapeutic.

How I Messed Up My Book Launch

It’s incredibly humbling that this is the most popular post of the year. I mean, it’s literally a post about my worst mess up of the year. I actually pulled Starting Chains and decided to seek traditional publication for it. I want to make sure that what I’m putting out is the best possible product. And what I had out there in Starting Chains wasn’t. It’s too good of a story to sell short.

So those were the best posts of 2017. Now, I want to ask you something.

What would you like to see more of here on PBW in 2018? I have some plans, including talking more about world events and my personal life. I want to write more about poetry and in-depth writing techniques. But what would help you? What would make you a better writer or happier person if you understood better? Please let me know in the comments below.

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!

It was Christmas Eve, and the snow was falling hard. Lizzie used to like the snow when she’d had a warm home to go to. But since then, she, for the most part, hadn’t been fond of it. She was glad of it that night, though.

When the sun went down, she found her way to a specific gazebo. There, a handful of other children had collected.

There was Toby, the oldest after her at 10. His little sister, Lisa, who was just six, was leaning against him, coughing.

Alex was there too, her arms crossed over her chest. She had a raggedy scarf wrapped around her face.

“Did you find any food?” Toby asked, by way of a greeting. “I only got a loaf of bread, and I think it’s got mold.”

“I couldn’t find anything,” Alex said, looking sulky.

“I did,” Lizzie said, reaching into her bag. “I got this, too.”

She pulled out a bottle of cough syrup and tossed it to him. “This should help Lisa,” she said.

Toby and Lisa looked at the bottle. “I hate cherry,” Lisa muttered.

“Shut up, Stupid,” Toby said. “It ain’t supposed to taste good, it’s supposed to make you feel better.”

Lizzie took out a box of gingerbread cookies. “I got these, too,” she said, “for Christmas. And, I’m going to tell you a story.”

Alex and Toby had brightened at the cookies. Together, the three of them sorted out the bread, picking off the moldy bits. The three of them got Lisa to eat some, and take some cold medicine.

Finally, with cookies in hand, the four of them cuddled together for warmth. “You said you had a story?” Alex asked.

“Yeah,” Lizzie said, putting her arm around Lisa. “It’s about a group of lost fairies.”

“Fairies are for girls,” Toby said, “I don’t want to hear a story about fairies.”

“Hush, there’s other stuff, too,” Lizzie said. “Anyway, these four fairies got caught out of their circle when it vanished. So, they had to disguise themselves as human kids.

“The problem was, so long as they were in their disguise, they couldn’t use their magic. And since there was only four of them, and they needed at least six to make a fairy circle, they were stuck in the human world.”

“Sucks for them,” Toby said.

“Shut up,” Lisa said. “What did they do?”

“They couldn’t do anything,” Lizzie said. “But the fairy queen knew that they were lost. And so, she sent a knight to find them. The knight was worried, though, that he wouldn’t know the fairies. He was also worried that the fairies wouldn’t know that they could trust him. But the queen said she would give him a gift so that the fairies would recognize him.”

“What did she give him?” Alex asked.

“A red poinsettia flower, to wear in his coat,” Lizzie said.

“What’s that?” Lisa asked.

“It’s those red flowers everyone’s got around now,” Lizzie said.

“But how was he supposed to tell who the fairies were?” Toby asked.

“The queen took care of that, too,” Lizzie said. “She gave him a charm, that let him see their footsteps. They would always leave silver footsteps so long as he had the charm.”

“Did he find them?” Alex asked. But before Lizzie could answer, a flashlight shone over the gazebo.

All the kids went quiet. The light bounced back and forth over the area, accompanied by the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow.

Alex bolted before they could even see who it was. Lizzie and Toby watched her run, only to see what they’d feared worst catching up to her.

A police officer.

Toby looked at Lisa. Lizzie knew that she was too sick to run. He wouldn’t leave her, she knew.

Lizzie took his hand and waited.

A moment later, a second officer shone his light into the gazebo. “What are you kids doing out here?” he asked.

“Sorry,” Toby said, standing up. “We’ll go home now.”

“No, nu-uh,” the officer said and pointed at Lizzie. “I recognize you. You’re the one who stole stuff from the Walgreens. I’m taking you all down to the station.”

“But our folks-,” Toby said, but was interrupted by Lisa giving a huge, wracking cough.

The officer’s face softened. He put a hand on Lisa’s head. “You’re burning up. Come on, let’s get you kids inside.”

He picked Lisa up before either she or Toby could stop him, and headed for his cruiser. Lizzie and Toby followed. Alex was already in the back seat, looking furious.

“Lizzie, Lizzie,” Toby said, pointing at the officer. “Look what he’s got.”

The police officer had a red poinsettia tucked into his coat pocket, right over his name. Lizzie put an arm around him, glad that the officer had followed the silver footprints she’d left in the snow.

Copyright © 2017 by Nicole C. Luttrell

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