A Christmas Story for your enjoyment

Hello all. In the spirit of Christmas I decided to post a Christmas story I wrote recently. Should give you some idea of the type of stuff I wrote, but know that I don't usually do anything poetic. I just did it for this story because I thought it worked. Anyway, without further discussion have a Merry Christmas, and I hope you ejoy this story:

A Lesson from Santa
By: Taylor Knock

I woke up in the night,
And what did I hear?
The sound of my parents
Trying to spread Christmas cheer.

This is not right.
No this will not do,
For my parents are wrong
To spread the lies that they do.

They tell of Santa,
And pretend he is true.
They fool my younger brothers,
But I am no fool.

I set my alarm for a time of One,
For on this Christmas morning,
These games will be done.
The myth of Santa shall be lost,
My parent’s lies exposed as false.

I descend the stairs
Without making a sound,
Hoping my parents will not know
They’ve been found.

I press against the wall,
I look around the corner,
I see a large red sack,
Filled with presents and toys.

Oh they’ve gone far,
For look what they’ve bought!
A fake sack as cover
In case they were caught.

I truly want to laugh,
I truly want to,
For when I expose them,
They’ll know I’m no fool.

I’ll turn and I’ll yell,
Surely waking my siblings,
And they’ll all see
That the winner is me.

I smile at the success of my devious plan,
And round the corner to only see a hand.
A large hand covered in a black glove,
And heading for me with no amount of love.

It wraps around my throat,
I have no time to respond,
For the glove is around me,
I am its pawn.

This must be my father,
Who has definitely seen me,
And he’s mad that I have not been deceived.

I squint my eyes,
And look past the black glove
To see a man whose beard
Is as white as a dove.

It is not my father
That much is clear
But a great big fat man
Who comes once a year.

“Ho ho ho,” he says
as he grits his teeth at me.
“Tell me my boy,
is it I you’ve come to see?”

I say nothing,
For I am not fooled by this ruse.
Surely my parents
Had something to prove.

“I am no fake,” he says.
“I am no ruse.
Truly I’m Santa,
And it’s you who shall lose.”

“Lose?” I say,
Not getting his drift,
As he picks me up,
And slams me into some gifts.

“You’ve been a very bad boy,” he says
As he walks up to me,
And I have to admit
He’s very convincing.

“How much did they pay you?” I ask.
“How much was the fee?
Did my parents give you permission
To do this to me?”

He laughs in response
With such strength and such force
That it shakes in his belly,
It shakes the whole floor.

“Your parents know nothing,” he says.
“Your parents just sleep.
This idea was hatched
By no one but me.”

“Is that so?” I say
Not believing his lies.
“And I suppose your great beard
Is not held with a tie?”

He charges at me,
And slams me into the wall,
Holding me up,
Making me hope I don’t fall.

“I am very real,
This you can see.
It is because of your deeds
That you are speaking to me.”

“I know not what you speak of,” I say.
“I know not what you mean.
How could I demand
An audience with thee?”

He grits his teeth,
His eyes glow red.
He slams me down,
And I regret what I said.

I crash and I look
as he reaches into his red suit,
Pulling out a long list
that rolls under his boot.

“In November your brother of three,
mysteriously fell form a tree.
He said it was nothing,
But you and I know
That it was you who pushed him
Into the snow.”

I stiffen as he reads that deed to me,
And I wonder who his source could possibly be.
I try to back away into the Christmas Tree,
But he walks forward and crushes his boot onto me.

“It was a hot summer day
When your brother of six
Just wanted to play.
Yet you would not play,
No you would not,
Instead you forced his hand
Onto a stove that was hot.”

I try to defend myself,
I try to respond,
But he crushes his other boot
Into my right arm.

“When a puppy came looking
For a home in which to stay,
It was you
Who tossed it out like a stray.”

He looks up at me,
Away from his list,
And begins to speak
With a considerable hiss.

“It was just this past night,
When you yelled at your parents,
You vowed to ruin Christmas,
And demanded my appearance.

“It is this moment,” he continues.
“It is right now,
When you commit another crime,
For someone as evil as you,
Should not dare to think in such rhymes.”

I surely want to move away in fear,
For I know now who he is,
And the truth of his beard.

I know of that red suit,
And the big matching sack,
And wish this night was
Something I could take back.

“Stop thinking in rhyme,”
He yells in my face.
He removes his feet from my chest,
And my heart begins to race.

“There once was a time,” he says.
“When coal was enough,
For someone’s whose deeds
Were evil as thee.

“Tonight I discover
That is no longer the case,
For someone like you
Needs to be put in their place.”

“What shall you do?” I ask,
Fearing the worst
As he wraps his right hand
Around my dark shirt.

“You’ve been a very bad boy,” he says.
“Very bad indeed.
For this you deserve
A special warning from me.

“Do not do evil,
do not misbehave,
for there will be no more Santa,
ignoring your dark ways.”

“I will do better,” I say,
full of great fear.
“I only wish that I could take back
all the deeds of this year.”

“That is a good start,” he says.
“A good start indeed.
Perhaps you deserve
a gift under the tree.”

He lowers me to the ground,
And looks at the chimney.
He smiles as his gaze
Comes right back to me.

“You still think in rhyme,” he says.
“That crime I can forgive,
but should you return to your old ways,
you shall see me again one of these days.”

He turns from me
Moving over to the tree,
And grabs the two cookies
Left by my brother of three.

He eats them in silence,
And closes his big eyes,
As the taste of the cookies
Seems to fill him with surprise.

He opens his eyes again,
And looks back at me
As he points to the presents
Under the tree.

Laying right with them,
Laying right there,
Are many I know my parents
Had not placed there.

He says nothing more
As he walks to his sack
Slinging it over his shoulder
And onto his back.


He walks to the chimney
And stands underneath
And takes one more good hard look
Back at me.

“Be a good boy,” he says.
“Do it for me,
And you’ll like your presents
Under the tree.

“Be bad again,
And you should worry,
For no amount of pleas
Shall save you from my fury.

“Have a Merry Christmas,
But remember to fear,
For if you do not,
I’ll see you next year!”

With those words he turns,
And looks up the chimney,
And fits as if
He is someone who’s skinny.

I hear his boots stomp,
As I rise to my feet,
And run to the window
To find what I can see.

There in the distance
Traveling away from me
Is Santa on his sleigh
And some Reindeer flying
As if they had wings.

I stand there grabbing my arm,
And I came to realize the truth.
There is a Santa Claus,
There is one indeed.

He knows when you’re sleeping,
That much is true,
And if you are not good,
Then he’ll see you one day soon.

Copyright 2007 by Taylor Knock

My Time as a Writer

Hello again. I've had a somewhat busy week consisting of editing, reading, editing, and reading. Fun fun.

Anyway, thinking over this blog I realized that in order to avoid any long explanations before each individual blog entry I need to share my history as a writer. It shouldn't take very long, though it will encompass a little over 10 years in time. I just feel it's necessary to do this so that everyone who reads has some idea of where I'm coming from.

My love of writing emerged around a time of great loneliness in my life. I was 12 years old, and I had just moved away from a town I really loved in Virginia. It was actually when I moved back to South Carolina (the first of...at least 5 moves within the state). As a result of my loneliness I began to closely cling to one of the few constants in my life, namely comics. Specifically, X-men comics. It was around this time that I received an assignment to write a fictional story for one of my classes, and I based this story largely around what I'd been reading in X-men at the time (for any other readers, this was right around the time of Gambit's Trial). Yes, it was a hack job, but not completely. There was original stuff in it, and it was pretty good. I'd always written stuff that was good, and I'd always enjoyed doing it. It was after I got the highest grade in the class on that paper (unusual for the C, D, and occasional F student I was at the time) that I realized I wanted to be a writer.

Early on I was a hack and nothing else. That's okay though. I believe once any writer unlocks the potential of their imagination it is nearly impossible for it to be original. Mine certainly wasn't. I wrote X-men fan fiction. Lots and lots of bad X-men fan fiction. My imagination had no restraints at the time, and any idea I thought of made its way onto paper. In addition, my grammar was bad, the pacing was off, I didn't do good characterization, plots made little sense...need I go on? It was valuable though because I continually got better. From month to month I would realize the inferiority of my previous writing, and make many improvements. I stuck with fan fiction, but it started to get better.

Most of the fiction I wrote for many years continued to be fan fiction. I just wasn't interested in writing original stuff for a while. My nonfiction, however, was original, and usually good. Well researched stuff. Partially encouraged me to major in History along with English when I went to college. It was there when I sought these two majors along with a Creative Writing minor that I did finally begin to write original stuff. It was short stories for a while. Not many of them. I continued with the fan fiction because I liked writing stuff that was just for fun.

Around a year ago everything changed. I got the idea for the book I'm currently editing. An idea that I knew was the best idea I'd ever had. An idea that took a lot of research, a lot of work, a lot of planning, and a lot of writing. I did it though. It took me until September of this year to finish the book. I then edited it once after leaving it alone for a couple of weeks. I then left it alone for about two months to allow myself to forget stuff, and began editing it once more this week. This edit is the longest and most complex edit. I printed it out, and I am reading it out loud to myself. This forces me to take my time and to pay attention. It also helps me to catch mistakes.

So that's where I am now. I still write nonfiction (Like this entry you see before you). I have written a fiction novel and am currently editing it. I also still write fan fiction. This may seem like the strangest thing, but I believe it's important. If I actually make writing a career then I'll be writing because it's my job. Writing fan fiction ensures that there is always something out there I am writing just for fun. Something that there is no way I can ever consider publishing because it's illegal for me to get paid for it. It's fun, and I enjoy it. That's the main motivation.

The stuff I still write can be found at an imprint called Marvel 2079 on the website Avengers 2000. Shouldn't be too hard to find. Interesting 26 issue series I wrote there called Morbius that spans almost my entire writing career. The first 10 issues or so I wrote when I was young, and I honestly was still missing a lot of the fundamentals (grammar problems are a consistent problem). The next issues show my considerable improvement over the years. I also consider Morbius #12 to be one of the best things I've ever written.

And that's my history. Consider it my resume if you will. How I try to prove to you, the reader, that I perhaps do have some useful things to share with you. I hope you think so.

Upon First Entry

Hello everyone who may have accidentally stumbled upon this blog. From this first entry I'll try to give you a heads up about what I'll be doing here.

The main point of this blog is to talk about the ups and downs of being a writer. First of all, note that I have not yet been published, and that is actually part of the reason I chose to start this. I have written a book that I am currently working on to get it to the point where I can send it to an agent, and I feel it would be helpful to any other aspiring writers who haven't even gotten as far as I have to know the steps to get here, and to have an understanding of the next steps I'll be following. Hopefully someone will be able to get published by either following my advice or completely ignoring it. Either way I'll have accomplished my goals.

Some things will be done here mainly for other writers. For instance, I know how difficult it is to find out how to format a manuscript, a query letter, etc. I only found out how to do all this right because of months and months of research in various books. I want to save you that time, and give you the chance to find out how to do such things by reading just one entry here. I'll try my best to provide good advice, and I hope that someone else will be willing to correct me the times I hand out bad advice. I'll try my best to help other aspiring writers who know even less then I do about the publishing industry take those baby steps toward one day being published.

I'll also talk a lot about my own writing. Occasionally I'll post a little story or something that I wrote just for fun. I rarely write such stories, but when I do I'll often post them here. Mostly, however, I'll talk about the book I'm currently working on. I'll take you through the steps of editing and creating a polished project. I won't reveal too much about this book or what it's about just yet. I will, however, give you a hint...

Beautiful, I know. I'll provide other tidbits later in much more descriptive detail. Not too much because I want you to read the book should it ever be released, but I'll tell you quite a bit.

Other then that I'll talk about the various parts of being a writer. The benefits and detractions of it. This can range from the many topics of writers block, loneliness, lack of motivation, the great thrill of getting a new great idea, how nice it is to be blessed with such a gift, battles with confidence, and many other things. I will note that I'm a married man, and any married writer knows that this is significant. It will be something that comes up in the future.

Anyway, that's all for now. Hope all readers find this blog enjoyable to read, and I hope you all have a lovely Thursday.