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What I Wrote, and Why
We're a Wonderful Wife is a work of love, and it was nominated for Novel/Novella of the year 2022. It's 445,000 words long, there are 14 chapters and 6 side stories with more on the way. It's currently being re-edited and being published in novel form. It's about a couple, Don and Lanh Campbell, he's a disabled veteran with a Ph.D. (and PTSD), and she's a Vietnamese American, a Military Wife (the Toughest Job On Earth) with a PhD in speech pathology and is teaching at the University of Minnesota. We're a Wonderful Wife is the story of how they met and how they persevered over a series of setbacks and heartbreaks.
This is the story of my story.
My wife and her mother watch Hallmark movies non-stop. I would walk into the living room and watch with them for five minutes and say, "He killed the victim," or "He's the mystery lover that keeps sending her roses," or "She's really a princess but he'll never leave the farm, so she'll stay with him..." I'm usually right.
"How do you know?" asked my wife, but she refused to rise to the bait when I try to bet her on the outcome of a Lifetime movie.
"Because these scripts are so insipid and simplistic. They're written at a sixth grade level for fourth grade intellects. Only a moron couldn't see the end coming... why are you looking at me like that?"
"Go write your own!"
With Hallmark's Christmas in July echoing through the house, (my wife and her mom are both deaf as stumps) I sat down and wrote a modern version of A Christmas Carol and called it A Krissymas Karole, a play on the names of the main characters in the story, Karole and her daughter Krissy. It was weird, it was sexy, and it was horrifying - I loved it. But I missed the 2021 Winter Holiday Contest deadline, so I sat on it for a year.
A big switch-up in A Krissymas Karole is that the Ghost of Christmas Past doesn't show the Scrooge analog (Karole) HER past. The ghost shows the past of her best friends. I had tons of backstory on the characters, so out of boredom I began to write their story and published it in chapters as We're a Wonderful Wife.
We're a Wonderful Wife was, of course, a play on the title "It's a Wonderful Life," another classic that is trashed by amateurish scripts in almost every Hallmark "Christmas" movie. I wanted to do a completely original take on that story too, but when you get down to it, It's a Wonderful Life is actually a version of A Christmas Carol. They're roughly the same story.
We're a Wonderful Wife starts in the fictional town of Grant Valley MN. I named it after a county in Minnesota and it's near Lake Itaska, the source of the Mississippi River. I put it there because I love that area. In 1980, I almost bought some land in that area to go camping on whenever I wanted. At $100 per acre with highway access and drainage, it was a steal. Unfortunately, it came with hot and cold running mosquitos. In the military, Don and Lanh traveled the world, Europe, the middle east, Asia. They end up at places that I visited and was stationed in my career because it's best to write what you know. The readers can feel your experience come off the page for them.
Throughout the story, there are a pair of angels watching the goings on of Don and Lanh. They are always at the periphery, never interfacing with the characters, never affecting the story... mostly. They're not biblical angels. Biblical angels are all messengers, their job is to contact humans and speak to them. These two semi-visible characters just watch. Lanh catches glimpses of them and notices that one's blond hair is tipped in purple, so when she has a Christmas ornament of an angel, she will give it purple hair tips with a sharpie.
We're a Wonderful Wife is part of what I call the Andiverse. It has connections to my Andi's Dream series; it has connections to my StormWatch series, and it has a connection to my very popular story Friend Zoned and all of this is the Andiverse. These connections take nothing away from the story, and my readers love finding the connections. "Hey, that's Ayato Tanaka!" (Ayato pops up all over the place.) It gives regular readers a chance to see familiar characters pop up in situations that were only hinted at in other stories.
Chapter 1 - Don and Lanh's First Christmas.
Don Campbell is the only child of a widowed Minnesota dairy farmer and his mother's death on Christmas when he was eight shattered him and his dad. Don and his dad are pure fiction. I always wanted to be a farmer on a small farm, and I grew up on my grandfather's tree farm (easy crop). I figure why not write about what I like? As a child, I worked on a neighbor's dairy farm on weekends, helping the old couple that owned the farm. All I did was stack hay and muck out stalls, but my cousin and I were paid in fresh milk. Better than cash!
Lanh is a Vietnamese/American daughter of war refugees; her folks were toddlers when they escaped. She's the youngest of six children (3 boys, 3 girls) and was born a sickly preemie. They thought she wouldn't live. The Nguyen family moved to Grant Valley, Minnesota, from Minneapolis to open a Pho restaurant. There was some family politics that I didn't expand, but Lanh's father wanted to get out from under his brother's shadow. Lanh is an amalgam of many Vietnamese coworkers I had before I was cut from the cable industry. Her brothers and sisters are amalgams of Korean friends I had when I lived in Korea.
Don and Lanh were both social rejects. He was a grungy "farm boy" and even though Lanh's older brother and sister Bao and Kim-ly didn't have a problem in school, Lanh was teased unmercifully. When they met, they were on the cusp of suicide. Don and Lanh were set up to be the butt of a prank at a school Christmas dance, but they were so into each other they didn't notice that it was a prank.
Chapter one was an introduction to our characters and is full of teen love, ice skating, homework, and Lanh's insistence that she can bring Christmas back to the Campbell farm. She fell in love with the cows and, even though Don never had Asian food before, he fell in love with her family's restaurant. At one point, Don got the crap beaten out of him defending Lanh, even though they just met. It establishes Don's moral code, that you don't pick on the girl I'm dancing with. It also establishes that when it comes to standing between Lanh and trouble, Don was fearless.
The Chapter opens with a ménage à trois with Lanh's older sister Kim-Ly and a mystery man and a mystery woman who beg her to stay. This was how We're a Wonderful Wife was supposed to end, but the end was changed for reasons I'll explore. It then flashes back to a ménage à trois starring Kim-ly and her college professor and his woman, mostly to establish that Kim-ly is aggressive and has her own sexual rules.
Later, Tam, Lanh's oldest sister, was introduced and we find out that Lanh's mom was so busy with the business and the other children, Tam practically raised Lanh, and Lanh still calls her "mommy." Tam was still in Minneapolis working on her doctorate, so when she come to visit for Christmas, she said, "What's wrong with Lanh?"
"Why do you think something is wrong with Lanh?"
"She's smiling."
I wanted to establish that Lanh was the moody, sad, forgotten child who was teetering on the edge of teen suicide until she met Don. Don was the angry, lonely child that was one more horrible prank away from running off to Minneapolis where he would probably end up dead with a needle in his arm. Don and Lanh completed each other, and their parents saw it. Lanh's dad, Duong, declared that Don and Lanh weren't allowed to see each other until Don's grades came up and Lanh agreed to be Don's tutor. In Duong's words, "If you wish to spend time with my youngest daughter, you need to get your grade point average up, and she has agreed to tutor you. Therefore, in order to get your average high enough to spend time with my daughter, you will need to spend time with my daughter so she can get your average high enough."
Chapter one included Don and Lanh's first kiss and their first Christmas together. They were trapped at Don's farm by a storm with Don's dad and the twins, Lanh's older brother and sister Kim-ly, and Bao. The entire chapter was a joy to write.
Chapter 2 covers the next year of their life, from January to Christmas. It's broken into four sections: winter, spring, summer, and fall. I chose the pond on the Campbell's farm as the unifying device. I didn't want the story to spread around haphazardly. Don loves swimming, Lanh loves fishing, and they both love boating and ice skating, so using the pond to tell their story was a natural.
- Winter
Winter happens in January and centers on Lanh's relationship with Tam and we introduce Lanh's service animal, a goldfish named Marissa. Don is ice fishing, so this section centers on the sisters Lanh, Kim-ly, and Tam. Lanh had to work so she couldn't go fishing with Don, and she's having issues because at sixteen she's having her first period and Kim-ly is teasing her. Being a preemie, Lanh is a very late bloomer. We discover Tam refuses to date, and Tam learns about Lanh's stash of sleeping pills she keeps should the need to commit suicide arise.
- Spring
More transitions, Don passed Advanced Algebra thanks to Lanh's tutelage, and Lanh learned to help birth calves. (She thinks they're cute) She is also becoming quite a fisherman. Don and Lanh plan for their future together without realizing it. As Tam and Kim-ly watch, Lanh and Don play on his rowboat and swim.
- Summer
After the three sisters bale and stack six tons of hay, Ralph pays them for their work and then they go skinny dipping in the pond. Unfortunately, Don's eyesight is so bad that he missed the fun. This shows the three sisters coming together, no longer at each other's throats.
- Autumn
Don's love for Lanh is proven again when the school delinquent tries to sexually assault Lanh. To stop the thug, Don attacked the guy and got beaten viciously but Lanh could get away. Don was beaten so badly that he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Don gave up his position on the swim team and nearly his life for Lanh, but that didn't matter to him. But she feels guilty, which makes him feel guilty (Teens!) Fishing together on the pond cures all wounds.
- Winter
Two families join for Christmas. The Kiss! Kim-ly announces that Don gave Lanh a tonsil massage and Lanh took the barb well, showing that she was coming around. Traditions are made, including a family ice skating party on The Pond. I like my decision to use the pond as the unifying object. It's an idea I will use again later.
Don and Lanh's senior year is filled with activities, including the fact that they were 18, but they wanted to remain virgins until they were married, so they came up with creative ways to handle the sexual tension. The chapter starts with Lanh coaching Don and another member of the swim team, Rosa, who becomes a close friend.
It was supposed to be a single chapter, but at 35,000 words, I was cramping and cramming trying to get it all in and keep it chapter size at 24k words. In the end I cut the chapter into two chapters of 24k words, and it still felt cramped to me. Two years later, I now wonder why I had put a 24k word limit on my chapters, but I did.
Success follows Don and Lanh through these chapters, academically and athletically, and on Christmas Eve, which Don and Lanh consider their anniversary, Don proposed to Lanh in front of her family. They even publish a book together.
Side Story - Valentine's Dance
After publishing Chapter 5, I realized that I never wrote about Don and Lanh's prom, So I wrote a side story about it, with Kim-ly and her twin brother Bao chaperoning it. At the last minute I changed it to the Valentine's Dance because with a wedding coming up they'd be too busy for a prom. This was my entry for the 2022 Valentine's Contest and my first incest story (twincest)
This shows the value of the Series function on Literotica. I have a 14 chapter story, but now I can write side stories and slide them into the series wherever I want.
Side Story - Blindsided by the Blind Guy
This is a story that is part of the overall arc but is about Tam. She is now a professor, and her mystery boyfriend Jake is a fellow professor at her school, and he is blind. I did a lot of research to find out how to describe how a blind person gets about in a place like a school. Jake is a trickster and pulled a prank on Tam, trying to break her out of her shell.
I got so much mail from blind readers of lit and a blind Lit author. They were so happy that my blind character was written correctly. He wasn't parked in a corner; he wasn't an object of pity. They loved Jake and I want to write more about him and Tam.
Don and Lanh's wedding. Did they make it to their I Do's as virgins? And where did they race off to on their tractor? The wedding is held at Don's farm and it felt cramped to me; I put so much into the event, but in 24k we follow the events of Don and Lanh's wedding and wedding dance after the reception, which is something that they do in the upper Midwest. Don's grumpy, grouchy grandfather falls in love with his new Vietnamese granddaughter. This was probably the most joyful thing I ever wrote. Setting my readers up for the big fall? That was the intention all along.
This story came in #3 for the August 2022 Story of the Month.
Side Story - My Very Dear Cô Dâu
This was my first entry into Letters & Transcripts. Don got orders to Germany, and it took him months to get an apartment for himself and Lanh. This is his last letter home. She should get it before she flies to Germany to reunite with her husband. It's a letter full of longing and love and Literotica readers hate it. Cô Dâu means "Bride" in Vietnamese. I thought that would pique the curiosity of readers, but it has had the opposite effect and years later this story only has 4009 views.
Side Story - Serendipitous Liaison
A silly spy game Don and Lanh play in Luxemburg city. Someone mentioned that Luxemburg would make a great place for a spy story and suddenly she's the Dragon Lady and he's Agent Double Oh Seven and Five Eighths. It's a fun little story. Lanh's brother, Trung, is on his honeymoon with Angela in Luxemburg, which wasn't far from where Don and Lanh were stationed. BIG LESSON LEARNED: even though Serendipitous Liaison is the PERFECT name for this story, it's a bad name for the story. Readers are staying away from it in droves. Why? My guess is that they don't know what a Serendipitous Liaison is. Don't pick smart names with big words.
This chapter traces Don and Lanh from their wedding night, honeymoon on Lost Long Lake, and into basic training. Don's adventures in basic training and Lanh's heartbreak at home. They both survive and he heads off to Technical Training, where he gets orders for Germany. In Germany, Lanh has an emotional meltdown. They can't afford to fly her home, so Don considers suicide, then the Air Force will send Lanh home. Don't laugh. It happened a lot while I was over there. Lucky for them, Chief Brown and his Vietnamese/American wife Annie intervene. When Lanh gets past her meltdown, they have some fun in Germany. This chapter is a recollection of some experiences I had or witnessed while I was in Europe.
Chapter 7 - Dr. Sergeant Campbell
Lanh is told she is infertile on Christmas Eve and all their hopes and dreams of a big, loving family are shattered. This chapter covers about seven years as Don and Lanh throw themselves into their education and race each other to a doctorate in their chosen field of study. They end up in Korea for a few years, then on their return home they apply to adopt a child.
The day that their adoption was approved, Don was TDY in Saudi Arabia and was horribly injured and they lost their chance to adopt. Don's injury was caused by a personal terror of mine - Jet Blast Injury. What happened to him and how his unit took care of Lanh was typical of how a unit I was in treated their troops and their dependents.
This chapter recorded Don's career and ended it.
I had written the story and was slow rolling it out so it would accompany A Krissmas Karole in November for the Winter Holidays. As I looked at where these chapters were going, I felt awful. I was going to kill Lanh. That was the plan all along. In fact, I had written the story past her death, and it refused to go in the direction I wanted it to go. It always ended up with Don's death, too. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. My stomach always ached. I was so emotionally invested in these characters; I was mourning for them. It was horrible. My readers could see it coming as I rolled out the chapters. Then a reader wrote:
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Wonderful story. I have to ask you why you hate and despise Don and Lanh so much? You've given them nothing but heartache and turmoil their entire lives. Seriously, the only truly happy moment you didn't destroy was their wedding. I'm sure hoping you turn it around for them.
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That was a sign. I threw away chapters Nine through fifteen and started re-writing everything I had past the next chapter. It sucked away the power of A Krissmas Karole and made it kind of weird, but I don't care, I could finally get some sleep.
I love the way I set up this chapter. It's probably been done a thousand times before, but this is mine. It's a series of vignettes of Don's treatment and recovery and each vignette is introduced with a photograph. For example:
PHOTOGRAPH
Scene around a hospital bed, Don, Lanh, Tam, Kim-ly, and Al Zimmerman are all conversing happily. Lanh is feeding Don with a spoon as he lies in the bed and Kim-ly looks on with a concerned smile.
Then the chapter text relates the vignette, and, during the vignette, a photo is taken. There are about 8 'photographs' in the chapter and the chapter ends with Don retired and 100%+ disabled. He's now an unemployable civilian, feeling like an anchor holding back Lanh. It's a heart-breaking scene when Don realizes how useless he is and tells Lanh to go on without him, not an uncommon feeling among disabled veterans, but Lanh handles it correctly. We also meet Arlo, Tam's youngest child. He and his "Unka Don" are crazy about each other.
Don and Lanh still play their sex games and one day Lanh takes Don to an Adult Super Store and introduces him to glory holes. She blew him to orgasm but caught his semen in a condom and gave it to Kim-ly.
Don and Lanh move to Greeley, Colorado, where Lanh gets a teaching job at Northern Colorado University. Their next-door neighbor is Karole Krigbaum, a very tall buxom blond from Folkston GA. Her boyfriend abandoned her, then came back and threatened to kill Karole. Lanh and Kim-ly fall in love with Karole and this is where we learn that Kim-ly has Kung-fu training and she convinces Jayce to change his mind about killing Karole. Karole is drawn into the family and they become very close. Kim-ly visits from Minnesota often and sometimes works remotely from Don and Lanh's house. Halfway through the chapter, Kim-ly and Karole are both pregnant.
Don and Lanh take Karole with them to Minnesota for her first white Christmas and she was overcome with emotion when she received dozens of Christmas presents for her baby. Lanh's mom puts her to work in the Pho restaurant and the people of Grant Valley fall in love with their "knocked up waitress that talks like a trucker."
The women of the family gathered and Tam and Kim-ly's rape as teens were discussed.
This chapter introduces Andi Roberts. She was Don's doctor who treated him for sleep apnea and emphysema. Sleep apnea is a tremendous problem for veterans, they have a much higher rate of Sleep Apnea than civilians. I left a lot of foreshadowing in this chapter; I wanted it to be dark and disturbing. Lanh's angels began intruding on Don's dreams. Karol's water breaks and Lanh couldn't get out of work to be her coach, so Don takes Karole to the hospital and helps with delivery, but Lanh eventually shows up to help her closest friend ever.
Lanh reveals how terrified she was when Don was injured in Saudi Arabia, and she wanted his baby. In case something happened, she would have some of him to hold. That's when she and Kim-ly hatched a plan for Kim-ly to carry a baby for them.
The scene where Don has a row with a TSA agent is real. Several times, the TSA agent asked me to take off my oxygen so I could step into their stupid scanner and make his life easy. I always show up at the airport early just to fuck with them. In my experience, TSA agents are not smart and no attempt is made to make them smarter. If they would say the magic word "Please" I'd have no problems with them and I'd do what they ask, but "Please" is not in their vocabulary. That confrontation with TSA on page 3 has really happened to me several times. But that's how they treat disabled people with arrogance and disdain. Next time I'm going to ask to go through TSA in a wheelchair just to piss them off. For all their sins, Southwest Airlines is great toward disabled people, and if they find out you're a disabled veteran, you're their hero. Southwest Airlines should run the TSA.
One of Lanh's angels helps Don with his first flight while on oxygen. He flies back to Minnesota alone to coach Kim-ly. She finally admits that he is the father on their way to the hospital in the predawn gloom, but Don has his payback. As Kim-ly is in labor, her sister Tam arrives to help Don. Kim-ly did "color commentary" for all of Tam's three births. Tam's husband Jake was there, so Kim-ly would graphicly describe the "action on the field" to embarrass Tam. Don and Tam both got their payback when Danh was born.
Don has dreams of Lanh's angels taking Lanh away from him, which are terrifying him.
After Danh's birth, Don takes Kim-ly to a fancy dinner. This was originally written as a scene between Don and Karole a year after Lanh died and they eloped. In the original version, it was Don and Karole's honeymoon dinner.
Karole's ex showed up and cleaned out her accounts and left her penniless, which made her dependent on Lanh and Don. That was something they didn't mind. They were moving back to Minnesota, and they wanted her to come with them. Karole was part of the family.
Don's arrest by the DEA needs to be fleshed out, but I love writing about Huy's wife, Ahnjong.
I love writing about Lanh's oldest brother Huy and Don; they became great friends, which surprised me. It just worked out that way. It wasn't intended to happen. When Huy and Don broke into Karole's house after the DEA raid, Don talks about an ugly purple urn and burying it. Originally, it was Krissy's funeral urn. That was another leftover scene from the original version. (In the original version, Don writes a will leaving everything to Karole and after Ahnjong files his will with the county clerk, he disappeared, and his body was found on Lanh's grave and that's where the story ended.)
The dream that Don had at the end of Chapter 10 is foreshadowing to a Krissmas Karole
This chapter is the climax of the story. It is A Krissmas Karole, but told from a different perspective. Don, Lanh, Karole and Krissy have hit the low point. Karole's truck has been repossessed and her medical certification has been taken away. She's now working at a call center. Lanh's hours have been slashed at the hospital and Don is making some money writing articles and taking speaking engagements, but what Don does most is babysit Karole's one-year-old daughter, Krissy. They are living on Don's VA retirement pay and it won't carry them past Christmas; they need to go back to the farm while they still can afford to.
The chapter starts with a midsummer visit to Minnesota. There's mention of a farm hand named RJ being hired. He was originally planned to be Karole's future love interest, but things worked out differently.
Don is having reoccurring nightmares of Lanh being killed, and dreams of having sex with Karole or Kim-ly. He openly told Tam he was going to commit suicide if something happened to Lanh.
I want the reader really worked up for when the climax is reached because it was at this point in writing when I finally came up with a positive end to the story. I wanted to manipulate the readers similar to the way that Alfred Hitchcock manipulated his audiences.
In the series option, A Krissmas Karole follows Chapter 11, it is in essence the climax of the story.
I'm not going to give away what I did to change the story, and now that I've decided to publish the original version here on Lit and eventually novelize it, I'm not going to give that away either.
Chapter 12 - The Prodigal Brother
With Karole, Lanh, and Mai in the ER, Don is at his lowest point. His folks know that if Lanh dies, Don will probably follow her. Lanh's brother Trung returns. His wife had dumped him when he turned down an offer from the Winnipeg Jets to play NHL hockey. She wanted to be a hockey wife, and he wanted to be an agronomist.
Lanh's brother Trung re-appears from a self-imposed exile and joins Don in getting Lanh and Karole out of the hospital.
Trung helps Don, Lanh, Karole and Krissy move home to Minnesota. It's a tough grind through Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota during a horrible storm, but as they pull into South Dakota, their fortunes change. Lanh's brother Huy (who is their business lawyer) has been working behind the scenes and things begin to change. Trung and Karole fall in love. Don, Lanh, and Kim-ly eventually join old friends Andi and Paul
Andi and Paul invite Don and Lanh on a cruise on their yacht. An old friend of Don's, Josh Gravely, and his new fiancée, Veronica, are on the cruise as well. This story has been done in the Stormwatch series from Josh and Veronica's point of view and is being written into the All Aboard Andi's Dream series from Andi and Paul's point of view. The timelines between the stories are being fixed, so for now, Andi's Dream is cannon, Stormwatch and a Wonderful Wife timelines are being adjusted.
15 years ago, Lanh's oldest sister Tam was pranked by her blind lover Jake Johnson. Now the Matriarch of the Nguyen family, Tam, thinks it's time to get back at her husband Jake for the trick he played on her years ago. It's a great prank, but even though he's blind, Jake saw it coming...
Karma rewards Don and Lanh for their love and their ability to stay together through some horrifically traumatic episodes. The Cliffhanger from the end of Chapter 13 is resolved, and Don and Lanh retire on the Campbell family farm where their love first blossomed. Kim-ly has the ffm that the story started with. The angels appeared to tell Karole why the entire story happened.
So that's what I wrote. It was nominated for Novella of the year for 2022. Chapter 5 was #3 story of the month for August 2022. Side story Blindsiding the Blind Guy came in 2nd place in the 2023 Valentines contest, and a Krissmas Karole won the title of 2022 Erotic Horror Story of the Year. I'm planning to publish the original version in the 2024 Winter Holiday contest just to see how it does. Compared to the 2022 version, it's pretty freaky. Really freaky.
So now it comes down to the question, Why did I write it?
I could pontificate on the exploration of the characters, the juxtaposition of events, the literary challenge the story presented, but in the end there's only one reason why I wrote it:
Because I could.