Category Archives: Life

That’s Some Gap

I haven’t posted since the hockey season ended…even further than that as I stopped at the start of the third round. Completely missed talking about the finals so, congrats to the Vegas Golden Knights!

I’ve pushed my blog outside of my attention for too long and I plan on writing some updates on various things starting this week. I need to get back onto the writing horse.

What are you writing?

I published The Darkest Winter three years ago and I’m not entirely sure where that time went. I quickly came up with two sequel ideas to make it a trilogy but the basic ideas never went anywhere. Book 2 felt like it was going to be difficult to make original and interesting. It would cover a lot of the same scenarios as TDW. The third, while pretty separate from Book 2, would take the series in a different, larger picture idea set years later. None of it felt interesting to me every time I tried expanding the concepts. Then Covid-19 lockdown happened and writing about miserable things fell completely by the wayside.

That led to a new concept about how to stop terrorism based on religious zealotry. A major real-world thing, obviously. I like my concept but cannot break the story. I have the very beginning but making the story plausible is a major mountain to climb. All sorts of action sequences are possible but so much can go wrong that I haven’t been able to make the basics of the story work well enough to make it more than a short story or what I’m really afraid of, simply a more elaborate outline that ends up going nowhere because nothing is fleshed out.

I’ve written a few short stories, most of them I like a lot. I could do some editing to make each one stronger, but my favorite is ultimately Harry Potter fan fiction. I can’t do anything with that. But it was a valuable exercise. It’s about 40 pages long and I took some concepts that aren’t talked about much in the books to explore. I like my original characters, there are a ton of deep cut Potter references, but again, it isn’t mine. I really like fantasy but I don’t know if it fits me well enough to keep going with. I did have a lot of fun writing this, but I’m using concepts that were made by someone else, which was inspired by tons of other work. Can I bring something new to the table? I keep coming back to that idea in everything I write. If I do anything with this story, I’d have to strip it bare to my concepts and make a totally different world. Would it be worth reading and investing in? I keep running into that idea and it’s holding me back. Like if I can’t make a new genre, I shouldn’t bother. That’s a ridiculous thing to think of as all art is built on the art that comes before it.

But I now have a new idea that I like a lot. It’s about ghosts and humans, something that veers into the Beatlejuice headspace. While the concepts aren’t new, I think the angle is. I’ve written the start of it, but I’m going to rewrite it because the perspective doesn’t work. I’m also doing research to get ideas going. I want this to be weird and funny, an approach I want to ape from author Simon Rich. Right now I have no clue of what the end is and the rest is just a jumble of ideas that don’t point me to a story arc yet. The difference between this and my other ideas is that this feels like I can find a path to follow and see where it goes.

It’s that 2021 feeling

We can pretty much call 2020 the year of death. It started with Austalia on fire and then the Kobe Bryant helicopter accident sent people reeling. That was before COVID-19 made it’s presence fully known.

Yes, 2020 wasn’t all bad. But for most people it was. And it’s not over. A new calendar doesn’t magically reset everything but the feeling of hope is in the air.

That hope, I think, is everyone looking towards the future. We’ve never had a more important time to work together to move forward. I hope enough people feel and act the same way for us to keep moving forward. It won’t be easy but it can be done. I’d like functioning adults to take the wheel and pilot us out of this.

I think this picture from Times Square last night says it all. We can’t have another 2020, it’s not right.

It’s been a while

I didn’t write a blog post for all of June! I don’t think I’ve missed a month in years if any. Time to break the dry spell. The good news is, I was busy. I picked up an editing gig and that took up a lot of my time.

This is the 4th book and 3rd author I’ve worked with and my system of content editing is improving with each one. It’s always interesting to navigate through someone’s work for the first time. A lot of notes are necessary, especially for a first draft, which is what I worked on. A lot isn’t clear or well defined so it takes some extra time to put the dots together when they are often too far apart or even non-existent. First drafts tend to be overwritten and also lacking in detail. What an author thinks is important, may not be to the reader. In most cases, the author thinks they’ve covered enough of a topic or idea for a reader when they haven’t. The second draft is largely filling in those gaps, moving things around, overall getting the pacing right.

Writing the report is an effort of giving useful advice and suggestions without being terrible about it. It’s easy to criticize and when it comes to first draft, there’s a lot of it. That can be brutal to read through so much negative feedback. So writing the report is about become a teacher. Explain things well, don’t just say “this is wrong.” That doesn’t help and it’s not wrong, it’s just not complete. Finishing the first draft doesn’t mean the story is done. That’s the basis I use for all of my notes. Why don’t I think this works and what can be done about it? Say what works and how that can be expanded.

I can frequently find the thread that an author lays out. My job is to grab it, shake it to see what sticks to it, and then do my best to figure out how the author can get more to stick to the thread so they can get their intended message across. One of the worst things to hear from a reader is that they see a character completely different from the way you intended. That has to be fixed.

I handed all the material back last week and it has been received positively. Mission complete!

Writing Interesting Titles Is Difficult

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything non-review. Keep it real at home orders are still in effect so there’s nothing major for me to report. That also means nothing dramatic has happened so that’s what I’ve been aiming for.

I haven’t watched a movie in a while. It’s been all TV shows–Netflix has recently put up a ton of animation. Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex 2045, The Hollow, the big standout of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar is some genre defining stuff and I haven’t watched it since it aired so that’s going to be something to get into.

I’m on the final season of Schitt’s Creek, liking that a lot. The second season of Dead to Me was great and Westworld started off strong but got rather meh. I’ve been wanting to switch back to movies as my list keeps getting longer…I think I’m going to start with Honey Boy.

The NHL is inching closer to restarting. Preliminary talks are for a 24 team playoff which will start at the end of July. There are a ton of logistics to figure out but most of the NHLPA agreed to the basics so the ball is officially moving. Sounds like the Rangers would play Carolina and since the Rangers clobbered them this entire season, that is something to look forward to. It’s going to be much different from the norm but I’m so down for hockey, I really miss it.

My writers group restarted using Zoom a month ago so that’s a reassuring feeling. We skipped 5 weeks which is the longest down period for us. Progress has been made even though I haven’t written any fiction in way too long. My last submission was the first chapter for my next book and I’ve done nothing with it since. I keep thinking I don’t know where to go with it (a lot of logistics to make it believable) is holding me back. It’s not a good place to be in.

I’m reading comics with Hoopla (The Runaways right now) and Stick by Elmore Leonard to try and kick start my writing juices. I first started Stick almost a year ago so that’s a stupid amount of time for me to put it to the side. It’s a fun read too–Elmore is a hell of a writer and I’m picking up a lot from his style (his dialog is so good). I’m getting more inspiration there than the comics as comics are a very different medium. Still, it’s good to explore different writing worlds to expand your thought process. There is some suspicously bad art in The Runaways, though.

It’s 2020!

2020 looks and sounds like a number from the future, doesn’t it? Like it’s always been a faraway date in the future where we thought technology and the world would be a much different place. We thought we’d be in a world more like the Jetsons and we’re not even close to that. Which is probably a good thing because why would we all need to live in the sky? What happened at ground level to necessitate every building being on a massive pedestal?

I digress. In many regards, we live in a much different place than 2000, I think we’re just used to the incremental upgrades and changes each year (in terms of tech at least). The iPhone in 2007 seems like the last true mega disruption we’ve seen. Smartphones are so common and look so alike now that no one really thinks twice about it. There are small changes every year that don’t get the attention that it did for 4 years or so. Tesla would probably be the biggest innovator but that’s at a price level way beyond most people still (and there is a question of long term quality there that still needs to be seen).

Speaking personally, 2019 was an okay year. I have been looking forward to 2020. Saying that does sound silly though. Why do we put so much value on a certain calendar change? Like there’s a magic power that comes along with it. It’ll clean the board, rearrange things for you so everything is just right. It’s always up to you to make a change. The number of the year has little to do with it. The next day is pretty much the same as the one before it. New Years Day is just 3 words we decided to capitalize to make it look important.

I’m fast approaching the year and a half mark of publishing The Darkest Winter. I managed to hit my goal of 100 books sold which is a major achievement. The downside is that my next book is still a mishmash of ideas I’m trying to find a compelling and meaningful story in. It’s been frustrating. While it took me a long time to write The Darkest Winter, it always felt like a had the path of it in my head. As I wrote each chapter, I knew where I wanted it to go and that got me to the end. Here, I’m just stuck in first gear and for some reason, the clutch is burning so that means I’m going nowhere fast.

The only part of my new book I’ve clearly had in my head is the first chapter. I’m editing it now, what I have is incredibly rough as I don’t feel like I know my main character yet. I have a cool concept (overly simplified summary: an idea to stop terrorism without war) but there are so many variables I feel overwhelmed in picking a direction. This idea is right now more interesting than books 2 and 3 of The Darkest Winter (I don’t know if my idea for book 2 is worth telling. If it is, it’ll be much shorter than book 1). My next step is going to be writing a detailed outline. I did a pretty simple one for TDW and that served me well for the first 12 chapters or so and then I added bits to is at I went to keep me on track. I think a robust outline is the only way I’m going to be able to crack this.

In 2019 I did keep up with my overall writing. I made 67 posts to this blog on a myriad of topics and that’s a good practice for me to keep up as it keeps my writing in good shape. The writer’s group I run (5 years now) is still going strong and that is another thing for me to be proud of. I and those in it continue to get a lot out of each meeting and that means a lot to me. I’ve also edited two books for other authors and I expect one of them to be published this year. That’s also a lot of fun for me to do and it raises my writing analysis skills quite a bit each time I do it.

There’s a lot to look forward to this year. My wish for all of us is to be happy and healthy for all of it. Take care of yourself and each other.

Fall is in full effect

Summer held on for as long as it could, giving one last heat blast on October 2nd. Now the chill has officially moved in! So that means hockey weather is here.

And so is the NHL season! The New York Rangers beat the Winnipeg Jets 6-4 in the home opener last night. It was a hair raising game with too many Ranger penalties (looking at you Strome). Defense was super dicey at times, rookies Fox and Hajak looking rather cross eyed at times. That meant Lundqvist had to put on his crown to keep them in the game, saving 43 of 47 shots. One of those was a soft goal, but he was stunting most of the night. All in all, promising, if sloppy. Winnipeg was all over Panarin and he was still able to make moves, which also let my boy Zibanejad run around. Both Panarin and Trouba scored so dropping all that money on them seems like a good idea so far! Oh! And Staal was the first to score! Staal! So it’s a promising start, they just need to get comfortable as a team.

The fall season also means a whole lot of entertainment is flying straight at our eyeballs. A lot of returning shows of course and a couple of new ones.

I tried watching the new season of American Horror Story and it bored me to death, so I’m out on that one. The Deuce is on it’s final few episodes, The Righteous Gemstones is amazing. Ink Master wrapped another good season

Netflix is killing it, I have more on there than I know what to do with. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was fantastic. Derry Girls season 2 was terrific. Disenchantment and Big Mouth are back. I have a few stand up specials to watch, the last season of Orange is the New Black is on the backburner still, some horror movies I’ve had in wait I’ll get to this month. The Great British Baking Show! Between Two Ferns movie, The Spy, Mindhunter. El Camino!!!

On Amazon, I watched all of Undone in less than a week, liked it a lot and I’ve heard so much about Fleabag I need to figure out when to watch that. I’m probably going to stick to one series, finish the season, watch a movie, go to another series, and go like that until I run out of shows. Like I’ll run out of shows. Mr. Robot final season starts this Sunday! I think the Walking Dead is this weekend too and I have no idea why I still watch that.

And here’s a real big on out of no where: pro wrestling! All Elite Wrestling made it’s TV debut. I haven’t watched wrestling in I think 15 years so this was a trip. It was a lot of fun to watch and since I recorded it I can jump through the shoots (the story bits wrestlers do to set up fueds and such) that I have no patience for anymore. The talent they have is really fantastic. I’m happy to see anyone rise up to stick their thumb in Vince McMahon’s eye after all these years. Force his organization to be less garbage with competition.

The Darkest Winter Update 21

Yesterday, I did another book appearance. This one was at an apartment complex in Caldwell, just down the road from the library I did a few months ago. Thanks to Frances at the Caldwell library, I got this one set up (networking!).

And it was another success! It was expecting at most 12 people at the Marian Manor and it turned out to be closer to 30! I did my intro as I normally do but added what the book was about as there were people in attendance who weren’t part of their book club so they didn’t read The Darkest Winter. From there went into the genesis of the story and how I wrote it and the goals I wanted to accomplish in the story. Then I opened it up to questions.

I received a ton of great questions! Many of them made me think much further than just surface-level “how did you come up with X” responses. I’ve found that a lot of people are very interested in the writing process: how a story comes together, if my characters surprised me, what parts of writing I do and don’t like, my process, other authors I turn to for inspiration.

I still tend to ramble on with my answers. I simple question can lead me to many anecdotes and I actually found myself forgetting what the question was and then asking, “Did I answer your question?” That’s much better than a yes or no answer, I think. Plus I’m keeping much better eye contact with the audience so I can see when I’m losing people. I consciously caught myself going on too long so I don’t think I went too overboard. I’d say I kept half the answers short and sweet, so that’s good. That gives me some wiggle room.

I’m definitely able to read my audiences better. I kept it entertaining, I walked around, was animated in my answers, and kept their attention for an hour. That time went really fast and that’s in large part because they were so good. I got a few laughs in too which is an amazing feeling. Turns out I’m great with crowd work! I wonder if watching all that stand-up comedy over the years has rubbed off on me.

Many came up to me to ask more questions, a lot of thanks for coming, a ton of compliments on not only the book but my presentation. One woman even told me that she stayed up past midnight multiple times to keep reading! That’s probably the best compliment an author can get. That and when is the next one coming out, which I was also asked!

I like doing these a lot, they’re so much fun. I’ve also noticed that going into these, I am not nervous at all. Speaking in front of my writers’ group for all these years had upped my public speaking game so well. I also attribute it to knowing the material backward and forwards, inside and out, that I can easily answer anything.

The Darkest Winter has been out for a year now. With that, this will be the final update. The whole experience has been cataloged here and it’s been enlightening, to say the least. The next project is stewing in the pot and I hope you’ll join me on that journey as well.

Beau Jackson- December 2007-July 2019

As I write this, I feel adrift. Beau has been sick for a few months now and the day I’ve been dreading has arrived. The sadness comes in waves. I’m fine one moment and this feeling in my chest appears and I remember he’s gone. The world keeps going like nothing happened and I lost a soul in my life.

Since he was a puppy, Beau was a character. A trouble maker from the start, most of his nicknames came from his mischief. Bug, Whataredoing, Getouttathere. His love of smelling things had no end. If that sniff came back remotely positive, you better believe he’d eat it. No garbage can was safe around him.

Barking at nothing was a favorite past time. Chasing squirrels, rabbits, deer, and chipmunks a game he loved and always lost. The critters in the backyard just got a break, to say the least. He’d even eyeball and bound after planes that flew over the house.

He hated the rain but adored the snow.

I came home for the first time today and he wasn’t there. Unless he was deciding to be a sleepy pup, I could count on him greeting me. Routines that I’ve had for more than a decade suddenly stopped. The clock in the kitchen sounds bizarrely loud now, the ticks of every second now have extra space to echo in.

One of my favorite things in life is when it’s just you and your dog. He’s lounging around and notices you looking at him. He wags his tail in response, simply happy that you’re together. “It’s good to see you!”

Bug, I love you to the moon and back.

The Darkest Winter Update 18

During the ebook expansion process, as I was setting things up for Kobo, Nook, and iBooks, I looked into Google Books. Their sign ups were closed and you had to apply to get in, with no indicator of when it would open again. So I forgot about it as I moved to the other platforms.

Right after the Kobo, Nook, and iBook editions went live, I got an email acceptance letter from Google. To answer your immediate question, yes, that’s a really cool email to get. Feels good, man.

So The Darkest Winter is on every platform I wanted. The availability is now pretty crazy, so let everyone know about it! The “work” on this novel is now complete and now I’m doing small burst promotions (riding those Game of Thrones coat tails on Instagram) and gearing up for my library appearance in June.

And just for the record, Apple iBooks was the most annoying platform to get on due to stupid software.

Now I can focus on new material which is long over due.

First page search results!

The Darkest Winter Update 17

It’s time to expand!

The last major step for The Darkest Winter is here. Starting tomorrow March 26th, the ebook will be available on Nook, iBooks, and Kobo. This greatly expands availability and I’m happy to reach this stage.

Making EPUB files work with different retailers has a shocking amount of hoops you need to jump through. EPUB is called a standard format but getting it there for each retailer isn’t exactly standard.

In other good news, I’m working on doing another speaking engagement in June. When that all comes together I’ll announce it right here.

Check it out and spread the word!