I often forget, as I live my life through a constant stream of updates to Facebook and Twitter, that I have a blog. And it’s really a platform that I shouldn’t ignore. So often I get the itch for a long-winded diatribe on a particular topic, but end up simply regurgitating contracted thoughts in 140 […]
My 2011 New Year’s “Opportunities”
My general thoughts on new year’s resolutions pretty closely echo those of fellow Iowan Romelle Slaughter II (sidenote: I really want to meet Romelle someday. He seems like a really interesting person /sidenote). I hate new year’s resolutions. I really do. For a long time I would create some resolutions, and then either lose interest […]
Holiday Letter (Blog Post) 2010
I’m too lazy and last-minute to do this the “traditional” way, where I sit and write out a long and heartfelt letter outlining all the things me and my family have done this past year. My thinking is that the people who don’t care about my life wouldn’t even bother to read it, and those […]
Writing as a passion (as opposed to a chore)
So, a month ago, Juice magazine held a fiction-writing contest for their first ever fiction issue. Though I detest word limits, especially those as minimal as 1,000 words, I entered the contest with a small espionage tale. It wasn’t my best work by far, and well out of my scifi/fantasy comfort zone. But I was […]
A Ficly book? It has happened!
Via Kevin Lawver’s wonderful Tumblr, I came across this yesterday. What is it? Nothing more than a collection of somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 stories written on Ficly.com. I’ve talked about Ficly a lot in the past. It’s a fantastic site, not just because you can create and share short pieces of fiction there, but also […]
It will someday be a playhouse
My wife got it in her head a couple of weeks back to do some major backyard landscaping renovations. The centerpiece of the work would include converting our old shed into a proper playhouse for the kids. I loved the idea. I mean, who wouldn’t? We’re not using the shed for anything more than storing […]
Social Disconnection
You never really understand just how dependent (read: addicted) you are to something until you are forced to be cut off from said “thing” for an extended period of time. Case in point: for the past two weeks, my workplace has blocked social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This has likely been done in […]
Time
Man, where has the time gone? In the period since my last blog post back in February, I have experienced the following (not necessarily in this order): We learned recently that my father has been diagnosed with cancer. I suppose this probably warrants more than just a bullet point on a list, but I’m trying […]
My gratuitous Ficly wish list
Now that I’ve published fifty Ficly stories, I’m a self-described, federally-licensed Ficly Veteran™ and as such, demand more, newer, and better features out of the online micro-publishing platform. After all, what else am I paying my $29.95 monthly subscription rate for, if not exceptional service? So I’ve assembled an official List of Things™ (rendered on equally-official […]
I’m boycotting Amazon
Well, it appears as though the dust has finally settled on the Amazon/MacMillan fight this past weekend. I’m not even going to begin to attempt to summarize what happened. You can follow the Google search link I embedded into that first sentence, or check out some blog posts below from some authors whose opinions I […]