Elijah David

When it comes to Christmas specials featuring Santa Claus, Rankin/Bass'  Santa Claus is Comin' to Town  is probably the most well-known, and with good reason. It's classic and the years have been kind to it, much like they have to A Charlie Brown Christmas . But for many years,  Comin' to Town  was not my favorite version of the Santa myth. That honor went to the lesser-known Life and Adventures of Santa Claus , also produced by Rankin/Bass and based on L. Frank Baum's book of the same name. Although I hadn't seen it for many years, I would still tell people that this was my favorite version of Santa's origin story. This last year, I was finally able to sit down and watch the special again, and I found myself comparing it to  Comin' to Town   as I had before, but now the scales of my favor were tipping decidedly toward the earlier special. I've been mulling over why that is, and I've come to the simple conclusion that it's all about myth an...

Currently Writing: Albion book 2                                NaNoWriMo prep Currently Reading: A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny                                 Blood Thirst: 100 Years of Vampire Fiction by Leonard Wolf                                 Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb                                 Monster by Mirriam Neal My friend Sky at Further Up and Further In does a blog link-up for writers called Beautiful People every so often that allows writers to delve into their characters and share those insights with each other on their blogs. This month, in anticipation of NaNoWriMo, she's changing it up and making it Beautiful Books...

My friend Mirriam has started a series of giveaways on her blog for the regular commentators: she's giving away a sketch to a randomly selected commentator once a week. Yours truly was selected as the first recipient and, with her permission, I am sharing a picture of my prize with all of you. This is Mirriam's take on the Mad Hatter from her Wonderland retelling that I was blessed enough to be a beta reader for during June. Mirriam is just one of the awesome friends God has blessed me with over the years, and she's one of the most creative I've known. Reading her Wonderland retelling and another of her works in progress this summer gave me some renewed inspiration and motivation to forge ahead with my second Merlin book, which, as I've said a few times lately, is giving me grief. She's not afraid of dealing with deep issues and talking about the things that really matter, but she's just as happy making snarky comments and fangirling over Marvel (...