I am extremely proud of this story, for which the International Federation of Holiday Weirdness gave me the trophy for “Most Unusual Title Ever Given to a Christmas Story.” It is an honor I take very seriously, and a legacy I hope to pass down to my son some day.
This is another story that links to something else I was working on at the time, although unlike the story referenced in “Pencil Sketches,” this one was actually finished. Some of the characters in this story also appear in my young adult novel Lost in Silver. If you’re saying to yourself, “Wait, Blake, I thought I’d read all of your stuff, and I’ve never HEARD of Lost in Silver…” well, I said the story was FINISHED, not PUBLISHED. I serialized that story on the old Evertime Realms website many years ago, but it’s kind of lost on the internet now. It’s odd that I have something completed just sitting on a hard drive that I haven’t done anything with, and every so often I think about dusting it off and putting it on Amazon, but I haven’t pulled the trigger yet. YA has changed SO much in the time since I wrote it that I don’t know that there would be a place for it anymore. But if you’re one of the few people who remember the story and would like to see it again – or if you’re someone who’s NEVER seen it and you’re wondering what it’s all about, drop me a line and let me know. Never say never, right?
By the way, this is the second story to mention “Timberton Parish, Louisiana,” the first being “Clarence Missed.” There is no such place. It’s a fictional place I conjured up for a story and then used for several other stories, then I stopped. If Stephen King can fill up half the state of Maine with fictional locations, dang it, I should get one parish.
Blake M. Petit 