Writing is never a destination. It’s a journey.

As a writer, you go from place to place, book to book. Even if your books are a series that usually stays in one community, you still grow. You still progress. The bar you set when you write your first book is not the same bar you set when you write your ninth or tenth book—at least, not if you fancy yourself to be a professional author.

For me, every book has had an unseen goal in mind.

When I wrote my first novel, I wanted to write a love story where the sex didn’t drive the love plot but came in its own natural way. When I started the Zachary Gagewood Mysteries, I wanted to see if my love for mysteries as a child could translate into solid mysteries by my own hand. My main goal when I wrote Hex of the Dragon Fruit in 2019 was to come up with an epic fantasy story that took place in a world purely in my imagination; my secondary goal was to write a story in excess of 100,000 words.

Now, I’m embarking on an effort to write two books simultaneously. Although I’ve faltered in previous attempts, I’m hopeful to succeed this time. However, one of those books has a rather special goal for me.

To return home.

As I was getting the latest installment in my mystery series published and my mind turned to what I could come up with next, I knew I wanted to take a break from the mysteries. As this period was also when the Christmas season was approaching, my thoughts turned to writing a Christmas story. Granted, I’ve already written two novels where the most wonderful time of the year is front and center, not to mention a short story, but I felt the need to write another heartwarming Christmas tale.

It then occurred to me that, as I’ve written almost 20 books, most of them have taken place in Wisconsin. Very few of them have taken place in Arizona, where I was born and lived for 30 years, and none of them had taken place in my hometown, Chino Valley.

It was a little surprising, considering that Chino Valley was where I grew up and still have most of my friends today. I don’t have any issue with my hometown, at least nothing that would prevent me from writing about it, so it seemed logical that I embark on a mission to bring Christmas to my hometown—at least in the form of a book.

It makes all the sense in the world to have a Christmas story set in Chino Valley. The town is just north of Prescott, designated as Arizona’s Christmas City. I brainstormed and came up with a number of Christmas activities that could be intermingled throughout the book—it should be interesting to see which ones stick and which ones don’t.

Of course, simply writing a story about Christmas in Chino Valley wasn’t enough. There needed to be an oddity. For that oddity, I revolved the plot around the idea of having a white Christmas in Chino Valley, a possibility that is rarer than it is in other parts of the United States.

Many folks believe it never snows in Arizona. This is untrue. The only difference is that it snows more in the higher elevations, of which Chino Valley qualifies. However, snow tends to melt faster because Arizona temperatures don’t linger below freezing in the daylight hours like they do in Wisconsin. Also, it’s more of a rare treat in Arizona, unlike other parts of the country where it snows once or twice a week in the winter months.

I digress.

Anyhow, I just finished the first chapter of what is tentatively titled White Christmas in the Desert. It was nice to write about Chino Valley again, but I was amazed at how quickly it all came flowing out. I started out with about 1,500 words by Saturday night, and by the time Sunday ended, I had about 5,600 words to kick off the tale.

Of course, the first chapter was a piece of cake compared with what’s next. In chapter two, I really set the story when an 8-year-old boy makes his Christmas wish. He wants to have a white Christmas—in Arizona.

How am I going to pull this off? I don’t know, but as long as I’m writing about my hometown, it’s sure to be a fun ride—a ride on horseback along the Peavine Trail. It’ll be much better than on a one-horse open sleigh, that’s for sure. In the meantime, keep a watch for other posts on White Christmas in the Desert. I’m sure other memories are going to come out of the woodwork like bunnies hopping through the wild grass lands.