The story behind the book: The Ghost of Christmas Threeve

A real Santa. Made possible by advances in technology that enabled the creation of a bot that travelled at the speed of light, dressed in red and white, and delivered presents to children all over the world.

That’s the book I planned to write in the winter of 2023/4 for release in the autumn of 2024. It was not the book I ended up writing.

Somehow the above idea got hijacked by events going on in my life away from screen and keyboard. I was getting divorced. I was losing my house. My freelance copywriting business was heading down the tubes thanks to faceless geeks inventing machines that could write. I was bitter, twisted, and certainly not in the mood for a fun book like the real Santa idea I thought I was going to write.

However, the tech and automation idea remained a focus, and provides the basis for the events in The Ghost of Christmas Threeve which I released at the beginning of August 2024, in plenty of time for the festive season. Alack, with no budget for marketing, (see above: business problems), it barely registered on the sales list that year, although it performed far better last Christmas attracting its first 4 and 5 star ratings and reviews.

Somehow, much of The Ghost of Christmas Threeve seemed to write itself. Looking back on it, I remember it coming together quickly, like I was just providing the typing fingers to get ideas and words down on the screen (and no I didn’t use AI and will never use AI).

During the 6 months or so I spent writing it, I was heavily influenced by three great seasonal films I love.

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol being one. I wanted a story containing the same person’s past, present and future. And although that’s not what I got in the final version of Threeve – I did try to make this angle work without success in early drafts of the book. The idea of having a trio of different scenarios the main character has to experience survived, and I feel there’s a bit of Scrooge in the bedpost ghost.

I also love It’s A Wonderful Life. The idea of a festive film about a man reaching the point of no return and clawing himself back from the precipice with some fantastical intervention resonated with where I was at in my life at the time – ie, not a good place.

And I like the Groundhog Day idea of living the same day over and over with a few differences.

I never thought I’d successfully throw all those influences into a blender (my brain) and write a story that worked. But I think Threeve does work, and is probably my best work. It still gets me rooting for Nick Crosby when I re-read it (usually once a year in the summer to check for typos and to see if there are areas I can improve before the festive season returns).

And that’s why I’m writing this now. I’ve just re-read The Ghost of Christmas Threeve. It’s short at 33,000 words (only 3,000 words longer than Dickens' masterpiece) and hopefully makes for uncomfortable reading for those who are surrendering their thinking and doing to machines, obliterating jobs for humans in the process.

I hope that this Christmas, Threeve at least gets people who read it to stop and think about the negative impact automation is having on the world. What are people meant to do when their purpose in life is taken away, when the means to provide for their family is destroyed?

You can find out more about the book here.