A bit Of Holiday Hoorah...Then Off to the Office...

As the night grows as dark as a miser's heart, it feels just as empty as said same miser's charity jar. The music's gone from high horns and tickled keys to a busted accordion and horrible harmonica. Where dancers had spun earlier, now drunks lean on one another stumbling through another wasted sunrise.

What's all that mean for the guy who sits in the joint like he owns the place? Time to move on, to go to work, to pound my feet flat in gumshoes.

But before I force this change of scenery upon you, let me share a bit about what I've worked on in the back of this dive. It's the opus I was crafting when the lights first came on and the shingle dangled out front the first time, so forgive me if the surroundings do not inspire emotions similar to that which my story is about in the likes of you this time around.

With the Holidays approaching like stampeding shoppers crazed by circulars and television ads this coming Friday, it fell upon me that a good Holiday Pulp story was in order. So I reached into my own Santa sack of ideas, concepts, and musings long

forgotten and took forth one I shared with the world a little under a year ago. THE ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS SAINT (the logo to the side here designed by Perry Constantine, who will pen a tale or two himself down the road of Nick and company) takes the eternal question that probably only I have asked- What if Santa Claus was more super genius/explorer/inventor/adventurer than he was Jolly Old Elf-and answers it. Originally conceived as a series (and it still may see life that way), I changed plans and simply intended on penning the first story for the December issue of PRO SE PRESENTS to see sort of how the locals might take to the idea.

As often happens however, especially with gregarious legends like Nick himself, this story simply wouldn't contain itself to a handful of sentences. No, it decided long before I did that it must indeed be longer. A grand work, it seems. Not one to be forced into a decision, though, I rode herd on said idea and it did not burst forth into a fully formed novel. Yet. Beginning with the December issue of PRO SE PRESENTS, the first NICHOLAS SAINT novel will be serialized in 5-6000 word 'chapters' through next November. The December 2012 magazine will then be a 35,000 word wrap up of this rather unique take on the Holiday traditions that inspire kindness in some of us, fear in others. So, yep, what started small has indeed grown as large as Santa himself. Who knows, you rattle your glasses enough, you might even catch a bit of the first chapter, originally entitled THE CHILDREN CHRISTMAS FORGOT, on this page in the next week or two. But not unless I hear glasses rattle.