Awareness of the outside world, holiday version. Putting the fact into fiction. UTHSC: Russell Chesney Publishes Article to Show Cause of Tiny Tim’s Illness, 2012. PubMed. Hat tip to Alex Falcone, from Instagram post @alexfalcone: 18 Dec 2025, with additional Muppets. In 1992, Doctor Lewis posited a different diagnosis, PubMed.
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Archives [Movies & Muse]
Enjoy!
Katherine
🎄💻🎊
Writer: Hello, Muse. I have a word for you. Betweenmas.
Muse: That’s a great concept.
Writer: Right? My friend Jane mentioned it last year. [Muse and the Christmas Movie Again, comment]
Muse: I take it that means we are writing a movie based on the time between Christmas and New Years?
Writer: Yup. I made the sale based on that one word. Now I need to supply the movie to go with. That’s where you come in.
Muse: Before we do anything else, lets go over some ground rules.
Writer: Lay ’em on me.
Muse: We’ve been through this before. Twelve Days of Christmas now happens before Christmas regardless of historical origin. [Again]
Writer: … grumble …
Muse: Also, recaps happen in December, regardless of the fact that the year is not over. [Again]
Writer: … grumble …
Muse: I want to hear you say it.
Writer: … okay …
Muse: So, what do we have?
Writer: Right now, a word.
Muse: And?
Writer: A word and an idea. The betweenness of the moment. Even if one does not celebrate the holiday, I imagine trying to get anything done is hopeless. Much like Europe in August. Go ahead, try to work, see how that goes for you. I know at least one person who tilted at that windmill.
Muse: Do you have something there?
Writer: Hmm. Having a big project that lands during Betweenmas? Trying to get action while everyone is on break? It’s a good thread for plot tension, having to work when others are partying. We can all relate.
Muse: So why would this happen?
Writer: A deadline? Maybe the person always has X due on Jan 1. For them it’s the same as April 15th for accountants. And for plot reasons they can’t get everything done in early December. They are always doing the task in the last week of the year. Ehhh.
Muse: You don’t like?
Writer: Getting too much like real life. There will be an element of frantic scramble to completing this task. There needs to be an element of comic frantic scramble, otherwise, not a holiday movie.
Muse: So, amusing mayhem.
Writer: Amusing mayhem that resolves happily. Which is why we watch holiday movies because life often does not resolve and if it does resolve, it is not necessarily happily.
Muse: So holiday movies are a cousin of romance in that they have a HEA?
Writer: Yes, minus the love story. Romance Writers of America has this to say about the genre. “Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.” RWA: About the Romance Genre.
Muse: No love story?
Writer: That doesn’t seem to be my dish on the gravy train.
Muse: Your current dish, as you say, is someone who is working when no one else is.
Writer: Well, there are a lot of people who have to work. Hospitals. Restaurants. Airlines. That would be less about a frantic dash to the finish and more about surviving the season. Maybe camaraderie? Enduring with the help of friends?
Muse: I’m hearing the words but not seeing the typing.
Writer: These are all set-ups, not plot.
Muse: What other options are out there?
Writer: (Looks out window.) A construction project? Maybe a construction project that was delayed by weather & now is on double time? The people losing money are not the ones doing the work. The construction workers are there because it’s the job.
Muse: Maybe they are happy about the extra pay?
Writer: Again, what happens? It’s not a cute Christmas movie with tree in the corner of an unfinished floor. They go to their normal job the 29th. Construction sites are fenced off. The workers don’t have contact with the non-construction parts of society while at work. They try very hard to keep non-construction people out of harm’s way.
Muse: So it has to be a main character who is trying to get people who are on semi-holiday to do things.
Writer: Can’t have comedy without conflict.
Muse: You’ve really fussed yourself to a standstill. We are usually done by now. You are usually lost in a creative cloud by now.
Writer: I thought you were supposed to be encouraging.
Muse: Tough love. Some people rise to a fight.
Writer: Nope. I cave like a soggy cracker.
Muse: Maybe your main character is a soggy cracker and they have to find it in themselves to get this done in the face of adversity from everyone else who is in the Betweenmas mood.
Writer: A character-driven story.
Muse: Sure.
Writer: We still don’t know the thing they are trying to do.
Muse: Maybe we never find out.
Writer: Hmm … it becomes the thing that is not mentioned … the doing of the thing is the important part not the specific task … Ms. or Mr. or Mx. Soggy Cracker must do the thing … not mentioning the thing becomes intentional … if management complains, I’ll just say it’s a self insert … we’ve all have things we need to get done … by being unspecific, the audience can project themselves … sometimes ya gotta spell it out for the money folks … so we start with this person in an empty office looking for someone to speak with … or maybe on the phone listening to voicemails … it’s really a form of quest narrative …
Muse: Hello, creative cloud.
Writer: (sounds of typing.)
Muse: Happy Betweenmas.
🎄💻🎊
Virtual Brush Box 