In the lead up to Christmas 2014 we will publish a series of festive and inspirational posts written by the authors at The Madeleine Milburn Agency.
Eliza’s eagerly awaited debut, THE CRESWELL PLOT will be out in Spring 2016 (UK: Quercus US: Disney Hyperion)
My ideal literary Christmas guest would be Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King’s It. I think he could really embody the spirit of Christmas (duh, he’s a shape shifter).
Because I take prompts (and everything else) very seriously, I did consider a plethora of characters, but most literary characters are insufferable, which is why I relate to them so well. There’s the obvious ‘hot guy choice’: your Mr. Darcy, your Edward Cullen (same guy, right?) but these guys are all in love with their destined girl and I’m not Louisa May Alcott so I wouldn’t get a perverse pleasure in destroying the fandom’s OTP.
Pennywise (spoiler alert) is actually a giant spider (sort of. Actually one can’t really spoil the ending of this book because that presupposes one can actually understand it). Anyway, spider, so I imagine he would be very good at knitting tight stockings to hold our gifts.
In the book, Pennywise transforms into each character’s greatest fear. For me, that would be intimacy, so very holiday-appropriate.
It also taught me an interesting anecdote, which I share at any and every opportunity: if you spritz lemon into your eye, you can drink a pint of whisky without gagging. Now, I’ve never actually tried this (I detest lemons!) but I imagine Pennywise and I could make short work of eggnog this way.
I first discovered Pennywise in 6th grade, when a few of us gals gathered in the Teacher’s Aide room to read aloud the scene where Pennywise dismembers one of his victims. I was scarred for life but not in the way one would imagine, because I realized one of the guiding principles of my life (I mean, I probably didn’t realize it then—I was twelve! They were talking about willies!—but I realize it now when I should have realized it then). Stephen King’s It taught me that you can write about whatever the flip you want, as long as it’s interesting.
You can even write about sharing Christmas with Pennywise the Clown.
So Happy Writing Everyone and Happy Holidays, also!
