In the run up to Christmas, the Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency will be posting an entry from one of our authors each day, offering anything from writing tips and their inspiration, to Christmas memories and their wishes for the year to come.
ANNE CAMERON
Christmas is my favourite time of the year. I love the fact that it gets dark well before the six o’clock news, that I can eat my breakfast in the glow of twinkling fairy lights and snuggle up with a good book before a roaring (or in my case electric) fire. Mince pies, the smell of pine needles, last minute shopping with a brass band playing all my favourite Christmas carols…
There can never be enough jingle in my Christmas!
My adoration of the festive season started at an early age. It was a love so strong, in fact, that it couldn’t be shaken by the shock revelation on Christmas Eve, when I was four-years-old, that Father Christmas didn’t exist. My brother delivered the bombshell with the kind of glee that only an older sibling in possession of toxic information can muster.
But it couldn’t be true! He had to be lying! And I was determined to prove him wrong….
I waited by the window, searching the skies for telltale signs of flying reindeer. I listened for the soft thud of hooves on our roof and the jingle of those very special bells and finally, convinced that I’d heard them, I raced off to bed, confidence restored.
Christmas was back on!
The reindeer had taken flight and I was surely about to receive a visit from the man with the white beard and the stash of presents. All I needed to be absolutely certain was one tiny glimpse of the red suit itself. The clock ticked by as I waited, my eyelids drooped but I clung to consciousness armed with the knowledge that my brother would pay for his cruel joke. And then… the door was opening. I snapped into fake sleep mode as something stocking-shaped was draped across the foot of my bed. I peeked, just for a fraction of a second… and the awful, bauble-shattering truth came crashing down upon my head.
Unless Santa had started delegating deliveries to my mum, Christmas was sunk.
I recovered…. eventually.
And my love of all things Christmassy has somehow endured over the years. Perhaps that’s why I’ve sprinkled the second book in my Lightning Catcher series with enough snow to sink a small island? Could it also explain my excessive use of knitwear, pompoms, snow boots and stodgy puddings? Is it possible, in fact, that I have allowed my yearning for the perfect, shockproof, Santa-encompassing Christmas to inspire an entire book?
Let me grab my Rudolf slippers and I’ll give it some serious thought!
LIGHTNING CATCHER: THE STORM TOWER THIEF, the second book in the action-packed Lightning Catcher series by Anne Cameron, is out in May 2014.
Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency 