A Letter from Santa

No, I haven't abandoned this blog. I'm not planning on doing that any time soon. Though, I suppose, no one really PLANS on abandoning a blog. Things just happen that way, eh? Still, I'm still here, and I have plenty of things I want to blog about.

In the mean time, though, I thought I would share with you a new regular tradition in my family. On Christmas Eve, Santa leaves my son a letter on the tree, usually depicting some adventure the big man went on during the year. I thought I'd share with you this year's letter. It's pretty fun.

So, enjoy A Letter from Santa, 2011.

Hello again, my dear friend! When I didn’t get a letter from you this year, I was concerned. Had something happened to you? Were you angry with me? But then, I saw you at the Bernardo Winery, and was gratified to know that not only were you well, but you were happy and telling jokes. I still smile at that candy cane you pulled on me.

Thinking of letters reminds me of something that happened this year. Just a few weeks ago, in fact. Our letter carrier, a young elf named Jeffery, came running into the workshop in a panic. I was called down immediately, and managed to calm Jeffery down enough to get the full story out of him. He had gone down to the receiving room, where all the letters to Santa from all over the world arrive, to pick up the latest deliveries and bring them to me. However, when he got there, there were no letters!

What had happened?

As we watched, new letters arrived. Jeffery assured me that new letters had arrived after he noticed before, too, but there should be a pile of letters he had yet to sort. And that the whole pile disappeared from as he made his last delivery. We quickly set about searching the room when I discovered a small, elf sized hole in the wall under some discarded present boxes. I took one sniff of the foul odor that came from its depths, and knew instantly what had happened.

Goblins.

Yes, there are goblins in the North Pole. Goblins are elves that end up on the naughty list and never get off. They are very, very bad. And for many years, the goblins have been trying to ruin Christmas for everyone. They’ve done everything from trying to wreck my sleigh to kidnapping Rudolph to even stealing my magic sack one year. This year, they were trying to stop Christmas by stealing all the mail. Without that mail, I won’t know what the little boys and girls of the world want, and if I don’t know that, I can’t deliver it.

There was no other choice. We needed to go into the underground tunnels the goblins live in, and try to recover the mail. I told Jeffrey the news and he agreed with me. He pulled down his cap and said he was ready to go. Just then, we saw something out the window. It was a friend of mine, one you might remember. It was the polar bear from last year, the one with the bicycle.

He asked what was going on, and when we told him, he agreed to come along and help out. Polar bears don’t like goblins. So, with the same magic that allows me to slide down chimneys’, I got the three of us into the hole and down to the goblin tunnels.

It was dark down there, but Jeffrey had been smart enough to bring along a candle. He lit it with elf magic and we made our way down. It was dark and scary in the tunnels, but I kept on going. I knew I had to get those letters, because children like you were counting on me. Eventually, we could hear something in the caves ahead. It was the goblins! They were laughing and carrying on and bragging about their plan and how they had ruined Christmas.

Lights up ahead showed us where they were. When we peaked around the corner, we could see them, throwing the letters in the air and dancing on the pile. I shushed the polar bear and Jeffrey. Mr. Bear nodded and me and pointed his noise into the room with the goblins. I nodded at him, and he moved off.

With a mighty roar, he charged into the room. The goblins were so startled that they dropped all the letters and started running away from the polar bear as fast as they could, screaming the whole time. Jeffrey and I laughed and laughed to watch them, and the polar bear chased them down the tunnel. Jeffrey and I quickly gathered up all the missing letters and put them into Jeffrey’s mail sack. We carried them all back to the receiving room. Jeffrey smiled, and then sighed. This would put him behind schedule!

That was when Mr. Polar Bear came back. We told him the situation, and he said he would stay and help Jeffrey sort the mail, and make sure that no more goblins stole it. I said I would have a repair crew in to fix the hole in the wall, and we all agreed to meet for hot coco later that night.

It was all quite the adventure, but in the end, it all worked out okay, and Christmas was on schedule.

I hope you enjoy your presents this year, and I look forward to seeing you again next year. Just make sure to try and write me. I thought the goblins still had your letter, and I’d had to think they had done it again next year.

Much Love,

  

Santa Claus 

I Suck at Social Networking

So, I realize that it’s been over a month since my last blog post. (Shit, really? *runs to check last blog post date, then checks the current date.*) Okay, not really over a month, but pretty darn close to a full month. Far to long for a blog that people will keep reading, right?

I’ve also noticed that I hardly post anything on Twitter anymore, and that most of my posts on Facebook are just sharing cool things OTHER PEOPLE have posted.

And it’s not like I stopped liking or enjoying these things. I love this blog. I love Twitter and Facebook, and all the friends I’ve made through those places.

I just suck at Social Networking.

I think the reason for this is the social part. I’m not really good at that part off the computer, when dealing with people face to face. Why should I believe that I’m better at it online?

And it’s not like there’s been nothing going on in my life. Lots of stuff is going on.

The ren faire guild my wife and I belong to is going through a restructuring that looks promising, and has us both wanting to stick around where previously we were considering quitting.

I started a tabletop RPG group and managed to get in one actual session of play before it was put on hold as the couple who’s house we play in decides on if they are moving or not.

Recently, my family took a trip to Disneyland and California Adventure, where we had a blast!

My wife celebrated her 40^th birthday.

I’m celebrating my 10^th anniversary at work this month.

I just got a brand new phone (a Samsung Galaxy S II), and man, am I super excited about that!

And there’s things happening in the world that I am interested in, too.

Occupy Wall Street is going on.

Steve Jobs died (today!), and I’m still sorting my feelings on that. Hopefully, I have a blog post on that soon.

There’s TV Shows that I’ve become interested in.

Doctor Who (I’ve just finished Season 5 on Netflix, but it runs out there… I can’t figure out how to watch Season 6 online without paying $3 an episode on iTunes, and I’m starting to go through Doctor Who withdrawals).

Haven on SyFy (I still cringe to type that) is awesome.

The webseries, The Guild, is running a really funny and fantastic season right now.

And, of course, there’s writerly stuff to talk about. I’m still trying to get myself to finish the Snow White in Space novel, hopefully before NaNoWriMo, because I plan on starting a whole new novel in November. But the truth is, I’m struggling getting myself to sit in front of the computer and write. I just seem to want to play video games. I don’t know if that’s a sign that this novel sucks and I just give it up, or that I’m just procrastinating, and I should suck it up and move on.

My point here is that it isn’t like there’s not stuff I can talk about. I just, for some reason, am not talking about them.

Normally, this would be the point where I tell you all that I’m going to change all that, and post here more often, and talk on Twitter and Facebook more often, and become a better Net-citizen.

But the truth, that’s a promise I’m not sure I can keep.

But here’s what I can promise. I promise that I will TRY to post more often, about whatever happens to possess my geeky little mind, whenever I can. No set schedule, because it’s obvious I can’t keep one for very long. But, as often as I can manage.

So, I’m still here, and I hope you’re still reading. Here’s to hoping that I can keep this up again.

Thanks for sticking with me, and for those of you that haven’t unsubscribe from my blog after this post, double thanks. There’s some cookies and milk for you in the kitchen.

Monday Morning Update!

Monday Morning Update!

Well, I guess technically, it’s Monday afternoon. At least, it is here. But, I digress.

So, status updates for me. First, let me say that I had a good week, and an even better weekend. Very productive, I got some good writing done around my housework. My current WIP, an epic fantasy project I am tentatively calling The Final Days, now has two out of three character outlines as part of the Snowflake method of outlining. After I finish the last two, I have a slew of minor characters to do at least one paragraph on. I’m actually looking forward to this, it gives me an interesting perspective of the story to see it from different eyes, and it gives me some good insight into my characters. Also, it lets me know if their individual arc in interesting. For example, I just realized that these two characters that I have written up at this point are not being tortured enough. I need to ratchet things up for them, or at least keep that in mind when working on the actual story later. So, for this reason alone, Snowflake get’s a big thumbs up from me.

And now for the big news… submissions! Yes, I have submitted my novel to an agent, on Friday. That’s right, I actually followed through, and sent out a query letter to an agent on Friday. It was amazingly scary, hitting that send button, and this one will be particularly scary, because her website says she is so busy that if she’s not interested in my story, she just won’t respond. So, no news, in this case, is bad news. I just have to let it go and see what happens, I guess. And move onto the next submission. I’ve found a magazine that I think I want to submit one of my short stories too, maybe several. I’ll let you all know how this goes next week.

My weekend was also good for some other, non-writerly reasons. My wife, son and I all went to see a puppet show this weekend at the park. It was a little corny, but the boy liked it, and that’s all that matters. We have fun, and wandered around the park in the sun for a while. Also, I had some fun experimenting with some cooking this weekend. Not that I don’t cook, I’m the cook in my house, I just did some new things. I made a chili recipe that turned out FANTASTIC. I also made some cheesy, pizza pop-corn, that also was really good. And we ended Sunday with Sloppy Joes and cheese fries. All in all, a good food weekend.

One other thing before I go. I’ve been using Scrivener for Windows since the beginning of January, and I gotta say, this program is awesome. In my current WIP, I have all my notes, my outline and the manuscript all in one file. It’s fantastic. I think a full review may be coming on Wednesday. What I will say now is that I can’t wait for this bad boy to go live, so I can purchase it.

So, until next Monday, that’s my update.