Black Friday Humbug Redux

Black Friday is upon us once again. When I first began writing this blog six years ago, one of my first posts concerned Black Friday. You might ask what Black Friday has to do with writing. Well, not a whole lot, but, then again, it could generate some interesting stories and articles.

As I prepare to give thanks for all the good things and the few true friends I have, I’m planning on what I’ll do the day after Thanksgiving. That particular day is now almost a national holiday, albeit without the blessing of Congress. Over the last six years, retailers have ramped up their sales and promotions for this one day when it seems like everyone goes shopping. But not everyone, for I have never given in to temptation. And I'm not any richer or poorer for it.

You see, I choose to stay home, avoid the crowds, and wait until a calmer time, say the day before Christmas, to do my shopping. Seriously, I shop for Christmas all year round. Why wait for the bargains on Black Friday? The stores all have them at other times. It's just that they have everyone trained to think that if they shop on the day after Thanksgiving, that something magical will happen to their pocketbook.

Today, I don’t even have to go out of my house to do my Christmas shopping. Last year, I did almost all of it online in the quiet of my home while sipping a piping hot cup of coffee. And for those of us who do use the Internet as our virtual shopping mall, Black Friday isn’t even that important. For us, Cyber Monday is the big day.

So what does this all have to do with you, the poor freelance writer? You, like me, probably can’t afford a whole lot of gifts anyway. With all the hoopla what has accompanied Black Friday in recent years—there’s always the controversy of if and when stores should open on Thanksgiving. Now let’s see, which one will open the earliest? On the local T.V. news last night, the consumer reporter presented listeners with the schedule of store openings. With all that’s happening in the world right now, how important is that?

Unlike in previous years, no store seems to be staying open all night. In fact, one group of stores promoted the idea of staying closed on Thanksgiving just so their employees could spend time with their families. Sounds great, but I’m sure that wasn’t the reason. In fact, that promotion got them more coverage than that of all the other stores combined.

Black Friday presents lots of ideas for writers, the most important of which is greed. Competition, between stores and between shoppers, is another one that offers lots of possibilities. And for those who write articles, why not find out how this whole blasted thing got started or how important is it to each store’s bottom line.


Look at Scrooge, Charles Dickens' lovable character in his story "A Christmas Carol." I think everyone shops like crazy because they don't want to be called a "Scrooge." But really that old guy was just depressed because the days got shorter and the London streets were dark, dingy, and smelly in Dickens' day. No wonder Scrooge wasn't all excited about Christmas. But through his story, Dickens does leave us with a strong message. It's not what you give, but how you give it. Remember that the next time you whip out your credit card.

A Dickens of a Christmas

Today, everyone gets swept up in the retail, shop-til-you-drop world of Christmas. But for several centuries, it’s been writers who have memorialized holiday traditions or even created new ones through their stories. Two that come to mind are Clement Clark Moore’s poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and Charles Dickens’ novella “A Christmas Carol,” my all-time favorite.

It just doesn’t seem like Christmas without ole Charlie Dickens’ classic. Sure, the ghosts are spooky, but he draws his readers into the story in such a way as to make them experience cold, snowy, in some ways, desolate 19th-century London. I’ve seen every film version and have read the story many times. In some ways, it was Charles Dickens who inspired me to be a writer. And to think it all started with Christmas.

“A Christmas Carol”is probably the best-known and best-loved Christmas story of all time. It has even been credited with changing the way 19th-century Brits and Americans celebrated Christmas. Dickens’ tale tells the story of a greedy, rich, Christmas-hating old man named Ebenezer Scrooge who’s constantly proclaiming “Bah, humbug!” One Christmas Eve Scrooge receives a visit from three spirits. These spirits—the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come—show him scenes from his past, present, and future. This supernatural experience transforms him into a joyous, generous soul who cherishes Christmas above all other times of year.

But what inspired Dickens to pen such a story? Most literary historians believe it was his
concern for the poor that brought him the inspiration needed to write “A Christmas Carol.” In September of 1843, at the invitation of Miss Angela Burdett Coutts, a wealthy philanthropist and a friend of his, Dickens toured one of London's Ragged Schools. Funded by private charity, these schools sought to educate some of the city's poorest children. The visit moved him so deeply that he spoke on the link between poverty and ignorance at the Athenaeum, an organization dedicated to educating workers, in Manchester. It was while he was in Manchester that the idea of transforming his impressions of the Ragged School into a work of fiction planted itself in his imagination. That October he plunged into a new story called “A Christmas Carol.” And while his social concerns may have inspired him to write the tale, it was his empty pockets that provided the motivation to undertake his new project.

Lately, Dickens’ financial situation had become dire since the sales of his latest novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, were floundering. Dickens felt sure that a story like “A Christmas Carol” would appeal to readers at Christmas time and thus generate needed cash. For he wasn’t only a good writer but a sensible businessman.

Dickens blazed through the writing of his new story, completing the manuscript in only six weeks. The project seized hold of him, inspiring him to work from morning until late at night. He passed some of these nights striding as many as 20 miles through the shadowy, still London streets, meditating on the story. In a letter to a friend he confessed that the work so charged his emotions, he found himself alternately laughing and weeping, an experience he transferred to his main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, in his story.

Dickens financed the publication of the slim little book himself, insisting on illustrations and a quality binding. It appeared in bookshops on December 19, 1843. Dickens complained that booksellers seemed uninterested in promoting the story. Nevertheless, the entire first printing of 6,000 copies sold out in less than a week. After subtracting what it had cost him to produce the book, though, Dickens earned very little from its first printing.

But Dickens managed to celebrate Christmas merrily that year, exclaiming in a letter to a friend that he had rarely experienced a Christmas season so full of dining, dancing, theater-going, party games, and good cheer. He even attended a children's party where he entertained the assembled company with magic tricks, to all appearances dumping the raw ingredients of a plum pudding into a friend's hat and pulling out the finished product. The children’s party also appeared in his story. It was as if Dickens, himself, had become Scrooge and relished in the joy of Christmas.

So while writers may write about more mundane subjects throughout the year, it’s often Christmas that brings out the best in them. And while it may be too late to compose your own Christmas story for this year, there’s always 2015.
Merry Christmas!

Seeing the World and Writing About It

When you say you’re a travel writer, everyone thinks you live a glamorous life, jetting to exotic locations, working on your tan, staying in posh digs. Let’s face it, that may be okay for Ruddy Maxa, but for the rest of us, travel writing is hard work and probably the worst paying of all the writing genres.

Sure, you’re dying to get an article published about your last vacation. But travel writing isn’t about writing about the fun you had on your first cruise or the grand shopping experience you had in a foreign market. It’s writing about the life and culture in other countries—educating your readers so they can make the most of a trip there if they choose.

Let’s look at the wrong way to do it. A woman took her younger children with her to London. She had a rotten time with them. When she returned , she wrote about all the bad experiences she had with her kids. Instead, she should have planned her trip better and even if things went badly, she should have put a positive spin on her article by writing about what a visitor can do with children in London. She wrote this article for a Sunday newspaper travel section. Unfortunately, most newspaper travel editors rather publish pieces that find fault with a destination than show how to really enjoy it.

But writing travel articles for newspapers is different than those written for magazines. The latter’s purpose is to entertain. Take inflight magazines for instance. You won’t find a negative article in them, nor will you find an article about flying unless it’s about how to make the experience a good one—effective ways to deal with jet lag, for example.

To be a good travel writer, you have to be a good traveler, not a tourist. Going on vacation is one thing, but traveling to a place to write about it is quite another. As a tourist, though you may plan your trip in detail, you go, enjoy yourself, and come home to tell your friends about it. After that, your memories may linger, but eventually you move on to another place. Not so for a travel writer.

You’ll need to learn to travel for research.  You’ll need to research the place before your trip, do on-the-ground research while there, and more research after returning home. Only then will you be able to write well about it.

Also, a professional travel writer doesn’t do just one article from a trip. Instead, the true professional does lots of research so that he or she may write many articles for different publications, all about different facets of traveling to that destination. How many articles can you think of to write about London. If you said lots, you’re correct. The list is almost endless.

But travel writing doesn’t have to be about exotic places. You can write great pieces about destinations closer to home, within driving distance, for instance. You can also take less expensive forms of transportation like trains.

So if you’re serious about travel writing, start writing about places you know well already. Whether they’re destinations close to home or on the other side of the globe, make it your business to learn everything you can about them, then write articles that will make anyone want to go there.