Merry Christmas, everyone!

I won’t turn this into a New Year’s post and talk about all the things I did in 2013, except one: I wrote a new Christmas story.  It was a bit of a challenge, as I wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving to get started, per my aversion to ECF (Early Christmas Frenzy), a dangerous condition affecting millions of Americans every Halloween, but God met me in my weakness and gave me the whole pile of plot one night in the shower.

Skellan and Boxter is part of a much larger story, much of which is still formless, but I thought it would be fun to explore their eventual universe with a short story to give away at Christmas.

My two major acknowledgements are to Troy Sherk, who endured my barking orders for hours until he designed a much better cover than I ever could have; and Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time, which was a massive inspiration for Skellan and Boxter.  And by “massive inspiration,” I mean, “I hope I don’t get sued.”

But Adventure Time mostly reminded me to have fun again.  My current novel project takes place in the same universe as this story, but has a much more mature, serious feel.  It might be rated R for “thematic content.”  It was great to step away from the furrowed brows of a heavy, adult-aimed novel and dump some cream soda all over everything.

So I hope you enjoy Skellan and Boxter and the Christmas Troll.  I had a blast writing it, and hope to see more of these questing goofballs in the future.

Merry Christmas!

Find the .pdf here.

You may also enjoy last year’s story, Wenceslas, which you can find on Smashwords.