Finally, it is August, and I am doing what many of my romance writer comrades are doing- writing a holiday romance novella. This one will center around Christmas, for a planned collection my contemporary cohort, Melva Michaelian, and I have in the works for 2026. While we have written a novel with holidays in it (Queen of Hearts gets three holidays plus a wedding) this is the first time I have set out to write a story where the holiday is the whole point. Never mind that it’s technically a few days before the holiday story and most of it takes place in a car. (forced proximity, yep, plus second chance at love)

This time, I am being very intentional in my pre-writing, and paying attention to what works for me now. For new people, hi. I’ve been through some stuff and it kind of affects this writing thing. Anyway, this time around, I am leaning into the way that makes the most sense for me. This also plays into my desire and intention to use the good stuff because I am worth it, dangitall.

Part of that is setting up the sections I can envision myself reaching for/turning to, which I figure out by putting the blank dividers in, with filler paper that has nothing on it, and then see what I would like to have there. If that doesn’t make sense, that’s fine. It only has to make sense for me. Results may vary with others. Right now, I am working on my character lore.

Normally, when I am the only person writing the story, A) I am writing historical, and B ) I stare at the screen, making noises like “huh” when I run into something I don’t know. This time, I am going at the character lore (or backstory; I will use the terms interchangeably.) in a different way. Part of that is influenced by the improv class I started taking this past week (awesome, loved it, will probably blog about it more later) — think of the next obvious thing.

If my classmates noticed the lightbulb that popped up over my head when the teacher mentioned that, well, they rolled with it because that’s what one does in improv. When researching a historical romance, for instance, I have a framework of where I need to look for what I need to know about the people, places and things in my story. Contemporary, though, has always been different. It’s now. I live now. Shouldn’t I know about now?

Well, yes, but I am me. I was born where I was born, brought up the way I was brought up, and my characters are different people. The hero (I am Gen X; I’m going to say hero and heroine) has a different career than he did when the heroine knew him. Okay. How did he get to be a Career One Guy? What degree did he need? Where could someone who grew up where he grew up get one of those? When he changes to a Career Two Guy, not only why, but how? What does he need to do to get to do that? Commence searching. In most cases, a few clicks gives me what I need, because this story is about a couple (re)connecting and not their professional CVs.

I won’t go into all the questions I have been asking myself and/or the interwebs, but my goal is to create a master character sheet that I can use for all my projects, historical, contemporary, or otherwise. Things like birth order (it’s more than just first, second, third, etc) and enneagram, MBTI, archetypes, etc. I have books on all of those things, as well as history, and my beloved books of names from the dark ages to today, in various specificities. I don’t want e-book copies (though I may acquire some) and I don’t want to take out library copies (though I may, if absolutely needed) and I would prefer not to buy new copies. I want my copies.

The issue with that is that they are in the back of the storage unit, where we have not been since we started the dang thing. I don’t know exactly where I drew this line in the sand, but there I am, setting up the binder for this story, and I’m working on what I need to know about my characters, and I Want My Existing Books. This is not negotiable. This will involve blocking out a day or days to haul furniture out of the unit (it’s indoors, climate controlled) locate the research books and my top tier keeper classic historical romances, and Bring Them Home. (cue Alfie Boe’s “Bring Him Home” from Les Miserables)

There’s probably something symbolic about this, and I will be mentioning it to Therapy Dude at our next session. For right now, though, I will be taking it at face value, yes-and-ing the heck out of that and doing the next obvious thing. Behave as if. Tell the story I want to read. Hopefully, you’ll want to read it, too.

When do you, as a writer or reader, start thinking about holiday romances?