Category: Blog
- The Troop
So, I decided that I would read some camping-themed horror since I was going on a camping trip with my kids’ scout troop. The book I ended up choosing was The Troop by Nick Cutter. Body horror to the max undersells it. It made me squirm while reading it. Worms…
- 4/18/2022: Meh
I missed posting yesterday, and I won’t make excuses for it. I could have fit it in. Today, I don’t feel much like writing an essay or fiction or even a poem. I just feel kinda… meh. I’m starting to feel pulled in the direction of working on more technical…
- 4/16/2022: Diary of a Burnout, Part VII
After ranting for 6 posts about my old jobs, I finally write some things that might be useful for me, and possibly others. You can find links to the other posts here: one, two, three, four, five, and six. Sweet Jesus! I finally get around to something more interesting than…
- 4/15/2022: Ray of Light
Today, I want to highlight a special little guy in need of a good home soon. Ray is the sweetest little (big) guy I’ve come across in a long, long time. Trigger warning: there’s cuteness but also a picture of a dog’s stitches after an amputation. We foster puppies a…
- 4/14/2022: Diary of a Burnout, Part VI
In our last adventure, I got a job at Domino’s, took on more responsibility, started to get burnt out, and took a job to work at a startup with a friend. In this post, I’ll discuss that experience. You can read the previous parts here: I (link), II (link), III…
- 4/12/2022: Diary of a Burnout, Part V
To recap, I worked a lot of different jobs in a short amount of time (8 jobs in 8 years) in my early career. I start maturing and settling down a bit now. You can catch up here if you haven’t read the earlier posts: I (link), II (link), III…
- 4/11/2022: Diary of a Burnout, Part IV
Okay, so in parts I (link), II (link), and III (link), I complained about the beginning of my career. In this post, I’ll delve into the middle part of my career and maybe not spend so much time on each specific job. There are so many that it’ll just fly…
- 4/10/2022: Diary of a Burnout, Part III
This is part 3 of a series on what has led to what I feel is career burnout. You can read parts I & II here and here. In the last installment, I talked about how I felt like I got a shot at my dream job, and then it…
- Why Most of the Writing Advice I Read Is The Same
Confessions First confession: I don’t know what I’m doing. Anyone who knows me isn’t surprised by this. Second confession: I read, listen to, and otherwise (taste?) consume writing advice. I haven’t published a thing aside from this blog, so it’s not surprising that I’m relatively early on in my journey.…
- COVID, Uh, Finds a Way
The past few weeks have been hard for me and my family. Half of us had COVID earlier this month. My youngest daughter is 10 and was therefore unvaccinated. She brought it home from school despite wearing a mask and trying to be careful. However, she is only one of two children in her class that wear one. Masks protect others more than yourself, so it didn’t help much when one of her classmates that sits at her table brought the virus to school. I, my wife, and my mother also contracted the virus from my daughter. Thankfully, we’re all vaccinated and experienced only minor symptoms. My mother is 70 and had worse symptoms than the rest of us, but still nothing bad enough to require hospitalization.…
- Resistance is… Inevitable
Originally, I intended to write a thematic analysis of The Lost Boys, which I might still do, but the weekend got away from me. Partly because I watched The Lost Boys and six other movies in a horror marathon at my local theatre. Part of that is due to Resistance.…
- Other Worlds: A Bookshop Speculation
I like books. And reading. And shopping for books to read. I love the smell of books. My mother planted this seed when I was young since she also is a hopeless book romantic. She taught for 20 years in Detroit, the last few years acting as a librarian. It was a stressful job, and she would muse occasionally about opening a used bookstore. Had it come to fruition, she likely would have specialized in religious and romance, or, even better, religious romance books. Now that I’ve gotten to around that same age, I too have thought about what it’d be like to own a bookshop. I would call it Other Worlds: A Speculation.…
- Here’s What You Get Instead
I had intended to write a well-researched article, or at least a lightly-researched one, about opening a book store, since it’s something I’ve thought about off and on. I even found an article about one in Texas that did okay despite the pandemic. Maybe next week. Here’s what you get…
- Why Am I So Obsessed with Quotes?
If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll notice that I share quotes. A lot of quotes. Several every day. Quotes of different kinds (though many contemplating mortality) from different people throughout history. What’s wrong with me? No one asked or complained yet, but I’m curious about why I am so obsessed with quotes.…
- Real Life Interlude, And Hardware Repair Tips
What happens when you have a stressful few weeks and then spill coffee on your laptop? Laptop repair instructions included.…
- What’s Stuck With Me: 20 Years After September 11th
Trigger warning: This post discusses the events of 9/11/2001. Twenty years ago today, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers. I think a lot of Americans have “where were you” stories for different events: JFK’s assassination, the Moon Landing, Pearl Harbor. My story for 9/11 takes place while I was…
- Time’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time
Time recently released a list of the best fantasy books… of all time. Literally dating back over a thousand years. While obviously such a list is going to heavily lean on what we consider classics in Western canon, it were the more modern books that surprised me. The books on…
- Broken Streak
Moving. That’s what broke my writing streak. And whiny children that don’t want to sleep at night in a new home they’re not familiar with and no melatonin to ease the transition to sleep, which means I don’t get to sleep at night. Or write. I made it 54 days.…
- Children of Blood and Bone: A Review and Social Commentary That Runs a Bit Long
With Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi set out to create a story that would help heal the wounds caused by systemic racism and the murder of people of color by police officers. While I can’t know how this affects someone from that community, I appreciate the message of…
- Work in Progress
I have written approximately 13,000 words so far in my current work in progress, 10 minutes every day for the last 39 days. That’s not a lot of words per day (334), but it’s more than I would have had otherwise. I’ve mostly enjoyed the process, but I do find…
- Cultural Appropriation
I watched Back to the Future with my 11-year-old daughter over the weekend. It’s been a few years since I’ve watched it. Writing and film-wise it’s held up well over 40 years. However, there were a couple of things I noticed that hadn’t occurred to me before, that I recall…
- I Almost Completely Broke My Site
Disclaimer: this might veer too far into computer nerd territory. But, I’m very relieved to have fixed the issue without having to restore a 6-day-old backup and possibly losing a post or two and theme/plug-in changes. So, here’s what happened… I use WordPress to run my blog. I’m not proud…
- The Third Week Ends
Three weeks have passed since I started back on the path of my writing journey. I have written at least 10 minutes every day still. I have not posted every day, nor have I been keeping the statistics I was before. I think this is fine since writing essentially the…
- Days 16 & 17
I wrote yesterday and today, but I didn’t track metrics for today. I have the choice to either stop tracking metrics altogether or consider it an aberration and track the rest of the time. To be fair, I don’t think it matters over the long term. It’s for my own…
- Day 15 / What I’m Reading
I had a full head of steam today and wrote for longer than usual. Helped that I removed some distractions and also that my children were asleep. Here are today’s stats: Time spent: 25 minutesWords written: 638 As I promised on Day 13 / Distractions and again yesterday, I’ll introduce…
- Day 14 (Two Weeks!)
Well, I’ve made it to the two-week mark! I’m happy to have made it this far without missing a day. Let’s see where we ended up for the day: Time spent: 18 minutesWords written: 480 Not too shabby. I seem to be stopping early when I could keep going, but…
- Day 13 / Distractions
Since I don’t want to say a lot about what’s going on in what I’m writing, I will take this opportunity to complain about my own bad habits. I know I’m not the only one who struggles with distractions when they should be doing something more “productive.” In my case,…
- Day 12
Another good, though short, session yesterday afternoon. The sorcerer is still dealing with goblins. Tricksy they are. Time spent: 15 minutesWords written: 397…
- Day 11
Our sorcerer is dealing with some goblin mischief in our latest scene. They’re not really threatening creatures so much as nuisances if you know how to handle them. I have no idea where this is going. Time spent: 14 minutesWords written: 355…
- Day 10
We went to a drive-in last night at the Historic Howell Theater to watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (affiliate link). We got back late, but I got my time in just under the wire! I miss going to the movies, so the drive-in has been nice. I…
- Day 9
Some things took a turn I didn’t expect while I was writing last night, but I really like it. I’m pantsing this whole thing, which is kind of unusual for me. We’ll see how it goes. Chapter 2 is done, and things are not going as straight-forward for our Rumpelstiltskin.…
- Day 8
I did write yesterday, but it was just before bed, so I didn’t have time to do a post. I did record my stats, however. It was a little more productive than similar-length sessions. I think this was because it was a lot of dialogue and I seem to come…
- Day 7
I hit the one week mark! It’s a meaningful milestone in this process, at least for me. It won’t be long it feels like before I’ve made it a month, I hope. Not much to say about the work in progress. Still on chapter 2. I don’t want to share…
- Day 6
Not much to say other than I’ve begun writing the next chapter, which begins with a magical ritual that hopefully I can convey in an interesting way. I don’t recall ever reading anything similar to what I’m attempting, so we’ll see. Time spent: 13 minutesWords written: 267…
- Day 5
I got a nice, long uninterrupted period to write today while most of my children were out of the house and my wife was napping. A whopping 42 minutes! Then I finished the first chapter and decided to stop, which was probably a bad idea in terms of momentum. I’ve…
- Day 4
I almost forgot to write last night, but I got in exactly 10 minutes under the wire. I didn’t get as many words as I have before, but meh. It’s about the time, not the words right now. Our mysterious old man is still trying to convince our young lovers…
- 10 Minute Author
I read Ten Minute Author by Kevin Partner a couple of months ago, and I got really excited to put his words into action. Then we sold our house and moved into a hotel. Work was busy. I had a bunch of excuses. We’re still in the hotel, but things…
- Day 3
I only wrote for about 10 minutes before being very much distracted by my dogs barking at a small child whining in the hallway outside my hotel room. My family and I have been living in a hotel spread across two adjoining rooms for the past month while we wait…
- Day 2
I wrote some more the night of August 26 (Day 1), and then some more yesterday, August 27 (Day 2). I haven’t written yet today, which is technically Day 3, but I figure I ought to post for Day 2 first. Anyway, I’ll stop babbling now. Maybe. I introduced a…
- Day 1
I ‘ve decided to start writing for at least 10 minutes every day. Every day. Afterward, I’ll write a little post about it. This is for accountability more than anything else, but it’ll also help me to track what I did and what decisions I made along the way. I’m…