I love sweeping landscapes, stunning cityscapes, and monstrous monsters. I love grand-scale wonder that, if I were to be exposed to it today, would shock my socks off (don’t worry, they’re freshly washed). Seeing the pyramids or the Grand Canyon in person will give you all the feelings associated with just the sheer awesomeness of it all. But what about your readers? They deserve to feel the same way while experiencing the new and unique creators,…
Unless you’re an inter-dimentional time traveller, you probably don’t know a whole lot about space combat against fearsome alien races. Likewise, you might not be very familiar with the way dragons live, how they fly, or even hunt for food. And yet, new writers are often told to “write what you know.” Writing what you know is a lot like trying to find a job straight out of college. Jobs require experience, but in order…
It’s October 10, and in a few short weeks, November will come as a thief in the night. I’m never ready when thieves come. My first few times doing NaNoWriMo, I would have a story idea and, without much thought as to what it would entail, I would embark on my writing journey. No outline, just my initial thoughts and then anything that sounded good as I came to it. I’m not like that anymore. I’ve…
Welp, it happened. Last weekend, my wife gave birth to our second child! I still don’t know how I have two kids, but tell you what, they are the best kids ever (sorry, other parents. Your kids lose that battle.). It’s been a wild week as we’ve been getting ready for him to join our ranks, then actually bringing him here, and then taking care of him. Basically, taking care of this new little guy…
Fall has fell. Fallen? At any rate, summer’s gone. But you know, it’s not so bad. The trees are turing all sorts of fun colors, and even though it’s still warm down here, there is so on the mountains, adding to the contrast and beauty of it all. It’s ironic, then, that all this beauty comes as everything starts to die. Leaves, once green, burst forth into yellows and reds and oranges before they finally…
Some books spawn incredible things. Take, for instance, the Lord of the Rings movies which broughtfhat epic to life and created real-world locations that can still be seen today. Fun t-shirts and other fandom paraphernalia is an easy way to show off your obsession. Even debit cards were predicted through science fiction! While there are potentially numberless creations stemming from words on a page, one of my favorite real-world adaptations has to be Harry Potter’s quidditch.…
I went camping with my wife and child once again this past weekend. It was an adventure in things going wrong. We reserved our campsite well in advance, and yet when we showed up, there was already a family camping in our reserved spot. To make things even more confusing, the post at the site where reservations are clipped said that the Coopers (yes, I still remember their name) had this site reserved, and have apparently been…
I don’t really have anything to blog about today, so I’m just going to let my fingers take control and we’ll see what comes of it. Yesterday was our family dinner. We have those once a month since my wife has a lot of relatives here. We had it at a park since there was going to be nearly 50 people there. The way it goes for these park meet-ups is each family brings their…
The Olympics are over. I wasn’t able to watch as much of it as I would have liked, although I was able to watch some. The Olympics give me the opportunity to watch those obscure sports that are just impossible to find anywhere else. Like handball. I love watching handball. Rugby, though, is my favorite, and I was excited beyond reason when rugby sevens made its Olympic debut this year. Fast paced and magnificent, sevens…
I had the valuable opportunity to attend scout camp last weekend with the two 11-year-old scouts in my troupe. We got there early Friday morning (like 8:30, soooooo early), set up camp, and then the scouts got to learn all the things from proper flag etiquette to first aid, to carving and to capture the flag. Yes, capture the flag. Whenever there was at least a half our of free time, that’s all the boys…