Tuesday, April 28, 2015

A to Z Challenge 24: XMas

X is usually one of the harder letters, but I don't really have to do much stretching here.  I have a book called Transformed for Christmas and obviously another word for Christmas is XMas, so there.

As I said on the Valentine's Day entry, when doing these, you need some method for the gender swapping.  In this one Charles Dickens had written the delivery system for me.  Thanks, Chuck!  Because this is basically a retelling of A Christmas Carol, only in a more bizarre fashion.

As in the old story there's a businessman who's a total asshole, though not really a miser.  On Christmas Eve he's actually planning to lay off a bunch of people just because the stock price went down a little.  His secretary convinces him to wait until the day after Christmas to actually announce the layoffs.

That night he turns on CNBC and his old business partner is in the anchor chair!  He warns the guy that if he doesn't change his ways he'll be visited by three ghosts.  You've heard that one before, right?

So yeah the first ghost shows up and takes the guy to the past.  It's his past, but instead of being himself, he's in the body of his ex-wife, on the day when she decides to become his EX-wife.  Unlike my other stories, while the guy is in the body of the woman he can't really control what she does; he's just along for the ride to experience events as she does.

Later there's another ghost to show him the present.  He's stuffed into the body of his hot secretary Bobbi to see the squalor she lives in while trying to provide for three kids, one of whom is very sick.  Sound familiar?

And yeah there's another ghost to show him the future.  Not just a gravestone, either.  He gets to see exactly how he dies through the eyes of a gold-digger trophy wife.  That's not really a pleasant experience, is it?  You might be convinced to change your ways after that.

You probably already know how all that turns out.  I mean who hasn't at least seen some version of A Christmas Carol on TV?

This was a fun story to write, though it's not the most popular holiday one.  I think even in December the Halloween one outsold it.  Humbug.

Since there's only like 240 shopping days left to XMas, you better hurry and go buy this for $2.99 on Amazon!

16 comments:

Cindy said...

I always thought it was clever how how you blended the two story ideas.

Anonymous said...

hello fellow A-Z blogger, just dropping in to say Hello
Kim in Australia

Anonymous said...

Now if only you could transform into a good writer. :(

Your next title: "I Failed At Being A Real Author So I Transformed Into A Sleazy Wordporn Peddler."

Arlee Bird said...

Fun for the whole family. If it were a hard copy book it would make an unusual stocking stuffer.

Arlee Bird
A to Z Challenge Co-host
Tossing It Out

PT Dilloway said...

Jealous?

Anonymous said...

Disgusting. I truly cannot think of one thing to be jealous about. Please, name just one thing.

PT Dilloway said...

The money. How many books have you sold this month?

Anonymous said...

I make six figures as a web publicist. I don't need book money. But even if I did, I sold 227 books this month. And not just online. I sold out of all titles at the local chain bookstore during a recent book signing. You get a lot of those? Meet the man behind Eric Filler, the guy who so desperately wishes he was a woman getting gangbanged by dudes, but who doesn't have the courage to put his actual name on the book? I didn't think so.

That number's on the short end, mind you, as I haven't released anything new this year. But my all time high is just over 16,000 sales in one month for a single title. And I didn't need to write lazy wordporn to achieve it. Imagine that.

So please, name one thing to be jealous of. I'm still waiting.

PT Dilloway said...

You chide me for using a pseudonym while using a fake name yourself. You're so funny. You make me laugh.

Anonymous said...

Oh no, I assure you, my books all have my real name on them. I'm very proud of them. I'm just not giving you my real name because then you'll go downvote my work and give my books bad reviews purely out of scorn. My name would be unfamiliar to you anyway, but you don't know who I am and I plan to keep it that way for the safety of my work. But that doesn't mean I won't stand up to a shameless bully who takes pride in trying to push honest authors around for telling the truth.

You also have nothing to say to what I just told you... which speaks volumes. Someone presents you with hard facts, and you try to divert to something else. How sad.

Andrew Leon said...

Pat, do you ever come up with anything on your own? Your like the plagiarism king. So, to make it clear, the "You're so funny; you make me laugh" line is totally mine. And it's so simple. You can't come up with anything better? I mean, sheesh, you've been tossing it around for weeks, now, after stealing it from me.

From where I'm standing, the dude slammed you. Hard. You should go check your nose and stuff.

Andrew Leon said...

Oh, and he slammed you again while I was typing my response. I think you need to check more than just your nose.

PT Dilloway said...

You're hardly an impartial referee Andrew. I thought since he's your buddy he'd get a kick out of me using your pathetic comebacks. Of course if I'm like you I'd just delete his comments and then lie about deleting them. That's your go-to move.

PT Dilloway said...

As for the mystery man if you won't give your real name then your "facts" can't be proven and thus are not facts. It's ironic of course that you write a one star review of my book on Amazon after your comments were deleted by Amazon and then say I would go give you bad reviews if I knew your real name. It's a pretty pathetic dodge.

Anonymous said...

To paraphrase Neil DeGrasse Tyson: "The great thing about facts is that they're true whether you believe in them or not."

Facts are facts regardless of me giving you my name. But at this point I don't expect you to believe in logic. You believe that you can do no wrong and that nothing you've ever written is flawed, no matter what's shown to you. I can't make you absorb facts. I can only present them.

This is my last comment. I've already slammed you enough, and you still don't have anything of value to say in return. Just know that by me giving you a bad review and you being unable to angrily reciprocate, that's me "giving you a taste of your own medicine."

I believe, according to you, that's called throwing your own pathetic comebacks back at you.

And for the record, I did read your horrible, horrible book. That's genuinely not a fake review. So please, stick to writing about you getting plowed by men. The target demographic for that sort of thing doesn't have nearly the same literary standards as other books.

PT Dilloway said...

Taking your ball and going home is another of Andrew's favorite tactics. If you're really such a big deal I don't see what you have to fear from one bad review by me. Anyway, farewell Knox Kingston, if that's your real name. Lol

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