The Knight Before Christmas

(*This is a work of fiction, but is based on a lot of true (k)nighttime stories that have been read.)

“’Twas the night before Christmas…”

“Why ’twas?” the boy interrupts, brows curled.

“It’s a contraction,” the boy's dad dutifully explains, “for it was.”

“Mommy had contractions before I was born?”

“Yes, but, no. This is a different kind of contraction. You take two words – it and was – and you splice them together.”

“I don’t like spices.”

“Not spice – splice.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s try this again. It was the night before Christmas…”

“Why is the knight before Christmas?”

“That’s just how the story starts. It’s the introduction, like once upon a time.”

The boy studies the page of the book with the meticulous eye of a seasoned “I Spy” reader. “No, the knight – where’s the knight?”

“Huh?”

“The knight before Christmas.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you said, ‘It was the knight before Christmas?’ Where’s the knight?”

“You mean like a knight with armor and a sword?”

The boy nods, as if his point is obvious and his dad a dunderhead. “Uh-huh.”

“It’s not that kind of knight.”

“Huh?”

“It’s night, as in sleepy-time. Like right now, outside, it’s night. The moon’s out –”

“No, I want a story about a knight!”

“I thought you wanted a story about Christmas?”

“No, I want a knight story.”

“That’s not what –”

“A knight story, Daddy.”

The boy's dad knows he is beaten. He closes the book, reaches for another, and opens it to the first page.

“Once upon a time, there was castle called Camelot…”

Happy Hours in Portland

I've been to Portland, Oregon only once. That was a couple years ago, and just steps from our hotel there was a microwbrew festival going on. I came away with the impression that Portlandites take their drinking pretty seriously.

I've got one friend in Portland. She is a pilgrim to this Pacific Northwest city by way of Chicago. Not long after she left the Windy City for Puddletown, I asked her if she would be interested in designing the cover for my book, Lost in the Ivy. I knew from seeing her artwork that she could do it. But I didn't really think that she'd do it. So I was pleasantly surprised when she agreed to do it. She'd never designed a book cover before, but you'd never know it from seeing the book. I can't tell you how many compliments that I've gotten about that book cover, many coming from other authors.

What I never expected is that the designer of my book cover, Cindy Anderson, would become the author of her own book, the Portland Happy Hour Guidebook. The book is all-Cindy. She designed it, she wrote it, she even did all the exhaustive research for it - hopping from one Portland watering hole to the next. Knowing Cindy, she probably made new friends at each stop. She's got that kind of infectious personality.

I'm anxiously awaiting my signed copy of Cindy's book. If you're planning a visit to Portland, I'm sure that Cindy's book would put you in all the right places. Or if you know anyone who lives in Portland, well, look no further for that perfect gift.

Order your copy today. You'll be happy that you did. 

Heavy on the gravy

In preparation for that big turkey feast, I'm going to load you up on the gravy today. Here's a big ladle to serve up my extra thick batch of news:

• Pick up the December copy of Chicago Parent magazine, which hits stands all over Chicagoland this week, and you'll find in it my essay, "A Better World," along with the requisite precious pic of Daddy and The Kid. Or you can read it online. 
• At ChicagoWrites.org, check out my interview with Chicagoans Nell Taylor and Emerson Dameron, founders of the most original and proudly independent Chicago Underground Library.
• And enter Mystery Lover Corner's "In the Spirit of Christmas" drawing for a chance to win a signed copy of my book, Lost in the Ivy, along with 77 other items being given away by some great mystery authors.

Now have a happy Thanksgiving. Just be sure to leave some turkey for me.

Update on Thursday, November 23, 2006 at 10:17PM by Randy Richardson

Okay, just one more bite: The interview I did with Chicago thriller author J.A. Konrath for ChicagoWrites a few months back got picked up by AbsoluteWrite.com. The interview is reprinted here.

The Photo Shooter

Oh, those god-awful, ghastly parents, I thought, as I snootily scooted by them. You’d think that they were apes the way they were carrying on, babbling like babies and jumping like jackrabbits. All to coax a smile out of their darling little girl, whom they'd dolled up in a puffy red dress with an oversized green bow wrapped around the waist. I almost mistook her for a poinsettia against the artificial Victorian Christmastime backdrop.

'Tis the season to leave those emotional scars that will last a lifetime on your kids. All conducted for the sake of a holiday photo card whose average lifespan is a month or less. By January, they'll be part of a mass burial at landfill.

This was our third exercise in the annual rite of passage that comes around each November and involves an equal measure of kid cruelty and parental futility.

Old, seasoned pros we now were. The naivety of those first two years now was nothing more than a faded snapshot. I could stroll into the photo studio, head high, comfortable with snickering at those clownish parents that I passed by.

I'd been the buffoon before, but not this time around. No more would I let that clown with the camera subject me to the torture of the tickle stick, a parental sacrifice I'd made the previous year for the sake of one smile on the face of my boy.

This time, I had full faith that The Kid would come in and do what he was supposed to do, what he'd been coached to do, what he'd been bribed to do. Show his teeth for the camera.

The promise of a toy beckoned. All he had to do was smile. There was no way he could not come through this time. Daddy could stand on the sidelines, arms crossed, smiling himself.

Game time. The Kid positions himself atop a white sheet. The photographer suggests to him that he put his hands in his pants pockets. The Kid even listens. Just one little glitch, he puts one hand in the back pants pocket. The photographer asks him to put it in the front. The Kid looks to Daddy. He's confused, feeling a little scared now. This wasn't in the playbook. When he does get his hands properly placed in the front pockets, he looks like a mini-Zoolander. And like any fashion model, he's become temperamental.

You can see that he's not at all comfortable in this role that we've placed him in. Not even reminders of the deal we'd made will bring out the smile.

The frustrated photographer sees it, too. He pulls out the instrument of parental torture – the tickle stick. Daddy is, once again, the victim. Only this time not even the tickle stick will do the trick.

Desperate Daddy scoops up The Kid and takes him out of the photo studio and into the Lego store next door. Once again, Daddy reminds him of the deal that they had. When The Kid nods, Daddy races him back into the studio.

Daddy's dignity once again falls victim to the portrait studio. These are the sacrifices we, as parents, must make. The glorious tradition of the holiday photo card depends on it.

So Daddy does what any good, decent parent would do in a situation like this. He pulls out his two index fingers, sticks up his thumbs and engages The Kid in a mock gunfight. Bang! Bang! Bang! The shots ring out. Until finally Daddy hits his mark and The Kid surrenders his smile.

Daddy, the Photo Shooter, blows the smoke off the tips of his index fingers. He can ride off into the sunset and not have to look back. That is, until next November rolls around.

Life and Fiction: In the Blender

We all see things in others that they can't see themselves.

So begins the novel that I am writing. That may not be how it begins when it is finished. But that's how it reads now.

That opening sentence relates to the story's narrator, who is fresh out of high school, unclear of the world and his place in it. He has a muted self-image of himself and, as a result, attaches himself to someone who is everything that he is not - bold, self-assured, confident. He is comfortable being the follower and lacks the ambition to be more than that. His best friend is cognizant of this but also sees that there is more in him than he can see himself.

I thought about that story arc when my good friends at the Chicago Writers Association recently put me at the helm of their newly formed 16-member Steering Committee, basically entrusting me with guiding them in the right direction.

I am one who has never been all that confident in my own inner-compass, so asking me to steer a group of nearly 200 on a path to greater success makes me more than a bit uneasy. I am also one who has always shied away from taking on any kind of leadership role. I just have never seen myself as a leader. But, apparently, there are some in the Chicago Writers group that see in me more than I see in myself.

We all see things in others that they can't see themselves.

My own words. Life and fiction - sometimes they blend in the most unexpected and mysterious ways.