Welcome

You’re Invited ...

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 15:05:54 -0700

This is a bit late, so I apologize. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be doing a couple of events and, if you’re in Utah, you can come out and see me.

First, I’ll be attending the Authorpalooza event at the South Town Barnes & Nobel this Saturday, February 6th. I’ll be there, signing books and talking about all things writing and author related. Come on out Saturday between 1:00 and 4:00 pm and stop by.

Secondly, I’m a guest at Brigham Young University’s annual symposium on Science Fiction & Fantasy — Life, the Universe, & Everything 28. This runs from Thursday the 11th to Saturday the 13th and I’ll be there all three days. You can find me on panels dealing with the art of story and the business of writing or in the halls between events. With big name writers like my friend Brandon Sanderson, this will be a terrific event you’ll want to attend. See you there.

My schedule for LTUE 28 is:

Thursday:
• Noon — Creating a wizard that isn’t another Gandalf, Merlin, Dumbledore, etc. (Brandon Sanderson, Paul Genesse, Dan Willis, Aleta Clegg)
• 1:00 pm — Defining Children’s Literature: What are a children’s book, a middle grade reader, a YA novel and an adult novel? (Stacy Whitman, Lisa Mangum, Mette Ivie Harrison, Dan Willis, Pat Castelli)

Friday:
• 9:00 am — Paths to publishing: When is traditional best and when should you try an alternative.(Stacy Whitman, John Brown, Dan Willis, Eric Swedin, Sandra Tayler)

Saturday:
• 9:00 am — Guys Take on Writing Romance. (L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Clint Johnson, Aleta Clegg, Dan Willis, John Brown)
• 10:00 am — Using Fantasy and Science Fiction in the Classroom: Reaching reluctant readers. (Aleta Clegg, Dan Willis, David Ferro, J. Scott Savage)
• 5:00 Booksigning.

Weight and See

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:27:45 -0700

I’ve made no secret of the fact that, as a certified Big Fat Guy™, my goal this year is to lose weight. Now, before I go on, you need to understand two very important things:

First, if you aren’t a Big Fat Guy™ now, or you’ve never been one, you don’t have a clue. I don’t care how good your imagination is or what some other Big Fat Guy™ might have told you once, you just don’t understand.

Secondly, no Big Fat Guy™ worth his salt is a diet virgin. We’ve seen them all, we’ve tried them all, from the fads and quick-fixes to the “just grind it out at the gym” plans. And, from this varied experience, we’ve learned two things: 1) all diets work, 2) most diets are failures.

The dirty little secret of weight loss is that most any diet, from the most radical of the fad diets, to the most pedestrian of the “eat this but not that” diets will cause you to lose weight. Where they fail is the in the post-mortum, the after-diet. Most of the time, successful dieters put the weight right back on. Sometimes it comes back quickly, other times it takes a while, but almost inevitably, it comes back.

The reason for this is deceptively simple. As Lou Costello once joked that a diet is “where you can eat all you want of everything you don’t like.” This is why diets fail, because as soon as you’re off them, you go back to eating what you like, you resume your old patterns.

Now for the big secret - THIS ISN’T A BIG SECRET! Every Big Fat Guy™ out there knows this. We don’t like to admit it, but we know it.

I bring all this up because, now that the new year has started, I’ve been getting lots of helpful advice from friends and family about how to go about loosing the 100 pounds I’ve set as a goal. Don’t get me wrong, I love and appreciate you all. That said, stop it.

Seriously, just stop.

Go back up to the two points above and memorize them. If you aren’t a Big Fat Guy™ you don’t get it and I don’t care what great new diet / workout fad / gizmo you just heard of, I’ve tried it. No, really.

You can always tell people who’ve never had a weight problem. They give you advice like: “Start hitting the gym,” or “Just 30 minutes jogging on the treadmill will do the trick.” Hey, I’ve got a suggestion for you, hows about you strap 100 pounds of weights around your middle and then jog on the treadmill. You’ll be lucky to make five minutes — and I carry that around all day, cupcake.

I have to admit, the exercise junkies make me the angriest. They seem to think that just because they can hike 5 miles up a mountainside that I ought to be able to. Apparently all I’m lacking is willpower. Let me tell you something, if I hauled my fat ass 5 miles up a mountain I’d probably have a heart attack and die. How is that healthy?

Most recently my father, who I love and respect, tried to pawn off a high-tech activity-monitor on me. He told me it would help me “adjust” my lifestyle to become more active. No, what it will do is annoy me until I decide not to be annoyed by it any more and throw it away. When I politely turned down his offer to pay for this glorified pedometer, he said, “Well that just tells me that you’re not serious about losing weight.”

It’s a credit to how much I love my dad that I did not use profanity nor hang up on him. See, he’s never been a Big Fat Guy™. He doesn’t get it and frankly, he never will.

That said, let me spell it out. If you’re a Big Fat Guy™ and you want to lose weight, the first thing you have to do is change the way you eat. At the Big Fat Guy™ stage, all exercise is going to do is beat up your body and make you hungry. (There have been several recent studies about how exercise is actually a bad way to lose weight because it increases hunger and you eat more, nullifying all the work you did.)

Anyway, I have a plan for losing those 100 pounds. It’s something I’ve cooked up from years of experience and trial and error. I’ve got this — seriously. Now, if you’re a former Big Fat Guy™ or the spouse, parent, or child of one and you want to tell me what worked in that case, I’d love to hear it. Just don’t expect a big reaction.

On Life & Christmas

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:34:41 -0700

While I was driving my daughter to her violin lesson the other day, I was listening to one of my favorite Christmas programs. It’s a little auto-biographical book by a fellow named George Durrant entitled “Don’t Forget the Star.” In it, Mr. Durrant recounts his memories of Christmas starting as a child and moving up through adult life. While that may sound somewhat pedestrian, you need to understand that George Durrant is one of the most spiritual men I’ve ever met and that comes across in his book. It’s both funny and touching and filled with the things that make Christmas, Christmas.

As I listened to the Audiobook, read by the author, my mind was compelled to consider my own life. Christmas is a time for reflection, I guess. (That’s probably why vampires hate it so much, but I digress.)

My life is a strange dichotomy. I’m a published writer with four books in print. I’ve done what 99.9% of people who want to write a book will never do - I got published. Not only that, I did it four times. You’d think that’d be a good thing, but you’d be wrong. If I’d worked the counter at my local McDonalds during the time I wrote my books, I would have made more money. So professionally, I’m a success, but career-wise, not-so-much.

The rest of my life is like that too. Like my father before me I’m a bit of a Jack-of-All-Trades yet Master-of-None. I suspect that’s an ADD thing since I can’t stick with anything long enough to really get good at it. I suspect that’s more frustrating to my wife than to anyone else, the woman has the patience of a Saint.

So anyway, there I was, sitting in my van, waiting for my daughter to finish her lesson and thinking about my life. I was glad I wasn’t armed. But the funny thing about life is that it aint over till it’s over. So long as there’s life, anything’s possible. As my mind caught hold of that idea, I realized that it doesn’t matter what happened in the past. It’s like those disclaimers on advertisements for mutual funds — Past Performance is not an Indicator of Future Results.

So, for the first time in my life, I think I’m going to make some New Year’s resolutions. I’ve spent the last 20 years or so drifting in an ADD fog and I’ve had enough of it. I know what I want out of my life, so it’s time to go out and get it.

First, I’m going to sell some more books, only this time I’m going to sell my own, original work instead of writing tie-in fiction. If I can do that, it will make enough money to make the effort worthwhile. I’m about half-way through my latest book, The Flux Engine, so I’m going to finish that & put up a website to spur some interest in it. Once that’s done and out in front of publishers, I’ll start my next book, a yet untitled Fantasy novel about a Heist. Then I’m going to be doing a Christmas book about the spirit of goodwill losing his job and finding happiness.

Next, I’m going to get back into shape. I need to lose some serious weight, so I’m going to start on New Years and go till I’ve lost about 100 pounds. That still isn’t all I need to lose, but it’s the bulk of it (so to speak) and will serve as a good yearly goal.

Third, I’m going to get organized. ADD makes me incredibly distractible, so I’m going to need to start planning out virtually every minute of my workday. I’m the stay-at-home dad for my two little girls, so I’ll need to factor them in as well. If I can make and keep a schedule, I’ll be free to do whatever I want. If I don’t, my time will simply evaporate like frost in the sun. Even though this goal is third, it’s the linch pin of all the others. I’m getting myself an iPod Touch for Christmas, and I’m going to be loading it up with my goals and their various implementation plans and all of that in a calendar with regular alarms to keep me on track.

Fourth, I’m going to spend some time polishing my computer skills. I used to be a programmer but I got laid off in 2001 and I haven’t kept up my skills. I’m going to learn iPhone App development and Objective C so I can get a real, paying job to fill the vacuum that publishing is currently leaving. If I can start making a living with my writing before I’m up to speed as a programmer, great, but I want this hedge in place in case I never sell another book.

Last but not least, I’m going to set aside some time each week to read. Believe it or not, I haven’t read much since I got out of college. Sure I read one or two books a year, but for someone who wants to be a professional writer, that just isn’t enough. Also, I’m not reading the Scriptures like I should. I want God to bless me in my life, to be with me in my life and yet I suspect I’m the servant who doesn’t know his master’s voice. If I want to invoke the power of Heaven in my life, as is the right of all God’s children, then I must establish the connection that will make that possible.

Which brings me back to Christmas. To paraphrase George Durrant, Christmas can be Christmas without a multitude of things; wrapping paper, gifts, festive trees, egg nog, carols, and even Santa. But Christmas cannot be Christmas without Christ. He doesn’t fit into Christmas. He isn’t a part of Christmas. Christ is Christmas.

At this festive time of year, when worldly pressures and selfish concerns seem to pull us along at a frantic pace. We spend hours and hours shopping for gifts, standing in lines, fighting with wrapping paper and tape, and worrying over the budget for all those gifts. Yet how many of us take even a small moment to consider the tiny babe, born so long ago. The ultimate gift of love from a caring and compassionate God.

Wherever you are, this year, I urge you to stop, just for an hour or two, and re-read the second chapter of Luke. Reconnect yourself with the real meaning of Christmas. It’s the best gift you can give yourself.

Merry Christmas to you all and I’ll see you next year.

This Is My Brain on Drugs

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:51:23 -0700

When I was a kid, my teachers didn’t know what to do with me. Back then I was just out of control, these days they have a name for it. The last time I talked with my doctor he called it A D .. something or other, I wasn’t paying attention. Anyway, now I take medication for this condition and I have to admit, it doesn’t really seem to help.

Or at least I didn’t think so.

You see, years ago I had a friend named Karen. She was Bi-Polar, that’s a medical term meaning “Bat-Crap Crazy.” (Don’t write me letters, you know you are.) Anyway, Karen took meds that, to a very large degree, controlled the symptoms of Bi-Polar disorder. When she was on her meds, she was a bright, vibrant, intelligent, productive human being. When she was off her meds she was a human train wreck, wreaking havoc in the lives of everyone she came in contact with.

Now the weird thing was that, when she was on the meds, she was rational and reasonable and she knew how she was when she was off the meds. Yet, almost inevitably, she would arrive at a point where she knew she was doing well, and then decide she didn’t really need the meds anymore. Then, usually several months later, her friends would have to pull her out of whatever hell she’d been living in for the intervening weeks and get her back on her meds.

I never really understood that. How could she nor recognize that pattern? How could she not see what inevitably happened every single time she went off her meds?

Well, I got some insight into that this week.

As I mentioned, I take meds for that A D ... whatever thing. I’ve been taking them for almost six months now and, according to my wife, they’re not doing anything. I’m just as unfocused, unproductive, and easily distractible as I used to be. Well ... not necessarily.

You see, I forgot to take my meds on Sunday. My church schedule interferes with the times I’m supposed to take them. This led to a snowball effect where I didn’t take my meds on Monday or Tuesday. Then I got back on schedule on Wednesday.

After taking my meds on Wednesday, I did a post-mortem on the weekend and the first days of this week. My goal was to see what I was supposed to be doing. (Not coincidentally, I hadn’t done any daily planning for any of those days.) I discovered that, although I had things I was supposed to be doing, I had actually accomplished — nothing.

I mean zip. Zero. Nada.

Since I’ve been on my meds, the house is clean, the dishes are done, I’ve blogged twice, done the shopping, met with Brendan’s teacher, bought water softener salt, and done countless acts of “follow-up” that have been pending on my plate for a week. Don’t tell me the meds don’t work. Now they may not work well enough to make me the kind of productive person that most people are naturally, but at least I’m not a total waste of skin anymore (that’s a big waste in my case).

So, now what I need is a little pillbox like my grandfather used to carry, you know one that fits in your pocket and can hold two or three little pills. Something small. That way I’ll never not take my pills because I don’t have them on me. Unfortunately, no one seems to make these things anymore. So if you know where I can get one, please email me.

Also, that reminds me of something else I wanted to ask...

Wanna go ride bikes?

Like Father - Like Son

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:44:44 -0700

I had a meeting today with Brendan’s teacher, a talented and competent man named Mr. Bradford. Kayla was in his class when she was in fourth grade. Anyway, being me I had missed the regularly scheduled parent teacher meeting so I arranged to go in today.

Now I know Mr. Bradford well. In fact, he’s one of my pre-readers for my new book. So we had a good conversation about Brendan and where he is in his schooling and what he’s doing in class. I won’t keep you in suspense, Mr. Bradford said that Brendan is doing exceptionally well in reading comprehension, spelling, writing, and behavior.

Then, just when I was ready to order a DNA test and send an accusatory note to the boy’s mother, the other shoe dropped.

Apparently, Brendan hasn’t been handing in a lot of his work — even some he had time to do in class.

Now there was a tune I’ve heard before. I still remember my father telling me that he and my mother were called in on an almost monthly basis to discuss my performance in school. According to the story, my teachers would just be beside themselves. I would never turn in any work, you couldn’t make me do it with a gun to my head. I’d spend class counting ants on the floor, yet every time I was called on to answer a question, I knew the answer.

It drove them crazy.

So Brendan comes by it honestly. Heck, for that matter so do I. My father was the same way, according to him.

Now all I have to do is break the pattern early. You see, I learned an important life lesson when I became a writer. Unfortunately I learned it far too late to do me much good, but I can still help my son. You see I was a very bright kid. In the sixth grade they measured my IQ and it was above genius. I don’t say that to brag, it’s just a fact. I didn’t know that, but I did know that I could get by in almost everything (except spelling, my ever present nemesis) just with my wits alone. I never did any work, heck, I got most of the way through college without doing any real work.

That’s when I discovered one of life’s little true-isms. You see, suddenly people who I knew weren’t as smart as me were doing better than me in class (it was a first for them and me). When I became a writer and started seriously bending myself to the acquisition and refinement of that art, I finally figured it out. Natural talent will get you only so far. After that, you just have to roll up your sleeves and grind out the rest. So if you ever really want to be successful at something, what it takes isn’t talent, in many cases that’s not even required. What it takes is the willingness and ability to work.

People who don’t learn how to work won’t be successful to any measurable degree. (It’s important to note here that, despite having enough raw credit hours for a master’s degree, I never finished college.)

So, the ball is in my court. I want Brendan to be a great success in life with everything he puts his mind and will to. That means I have to jump in now, while he’s young and he has to listen to me. I have to teach him how to work, and not just that, I have to show him how work leads directly to success.

If I can do that, the boy will have it made. He’s already smart.

The Thursday Morning Horror Show

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 20:23:44 -0700

I once had a friend, a mortician by trade, ask me if I minded the sight of blood. My confident response was; “Only my own.” I actually have an amazing tolerance for blood and guts. I can watch the surgery channel and be fascinated for hours.

I discovered today, that I’m not as tough as I used to be.

I came down this morning to discover the girls already up and looking remarkably guilty. Now this usually means that they’ve been into something they shouldn’t. The air froze in my lungs, however, when I saw Sami’s hands - they were covered in blood.

She didn’t seem hurt, so my eyes went immediately to Vanna. She didn’t seem upset or hurt, but she might have just as well been in shock. On two previous occasions, Sami has obtained a sharp knife and taken it to her room (where she hides all the contraband she’s not allowed to touch).

As I rushed to Vanna, I discovered a hot pad on the carpet, it’s white surface stained bright red. Now I was seriously worried. An adult can lose that much blood without being too inconvenienced but a four year old has a lot less blood to begin with. A quick check of Vanna showed no obvious wounds so I turned back to Sami, who stood behind me looking forlornly guilty, like a dog who just messed on the rug. I checked her hands but couldn’t see any cuts or wounds.

When I turned back to Vanna, she was holding something out to me. “Here, daddy,” she said.

It was a mostly empty bottle of red food coloring.

Men Make Fire

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 19:31:53 -0700

During the spring, I trimmed a bunch of low hanging branches from the trees in my back yard. Having done so, I piled up the branches, fully intending to cut them up and put them in the garbage can week by week until they were gone.

Intentions notwithstanding, they were still here last week. So tonight, for family night, I engaged in a timeless ritual with my kids, mainly my son. We all went outside and, as the sun went down, they got to watch the old man build a fire. Now I was a Boy Scout in my day, I made Eagle, in fact, so making a fire out of a bunch of well seasoned twigs was no problem. To my son it seemed just like magic.

We spent the next hour feeding the fire, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, and watching the full moon rise over the mountains. I taught my son how to blow on the fire and observe the number-one rule of fire safety - in this case that rule was; “Don’t let Sami (the 2 year old) fall in the fire.”

The whole family came out and a good time was had by all. So much so that no one wanted to go back inside. It took nearly an hour to burn through all the brush but after that Brendan and his friend Tristan from across the street went looking for more things to burn. Even when the whole thing had burned down to a mound of red-hot embers, they refused to give up.

Finally, we poured the nearby bucket of water on the coals and stirred them around until I was satisfied the fire was out. Then, with heavy hearts, and many entireties to do this again soon, we went in to get ready for bed. It was, without a doubt the best family night we’ve had in a while.

There’s something to be said for such primitive rituals as cooking food on a stick held over a fire. They speak to something primal in us that binds us together in the unity of shared experiences far better than watching a movie ever could. I think we’ll have to do that again — and soon.

Of Mice and Fire Alarms

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 13:39:33 -0700

I know what the fire alarm sounds like at my church.

It’s sort of a combination of an alarm, which rings three times, and then a voice that tells you, very calmly, to evacuate the building. I also learned today that, God forbid there ever be an actual fire in our church, most of my congregation would burn to death. I say this because, as the calm voice droned on, we all sat there in our pews calmly doing nothing.

Well, almost everyone. I, for instance, hustled out into the hall where my oldest daughter was letting the youngest work out some energy by running up and down the halls. You see, this is not the first time I’ve heard the fire alarm at my church. The first time was about six years ago when it went off right before Stake Conference (a regional meeting involving several congregations). That’s when my son, then about three pulled the alarm. So it came as no surprise to me, as I rushed out into the hall, to find my daughter leading her two younger siblings up the hall with the indicting statement; “Dad, Sami pulled the fire alarm.”

I guess all I need to do is wait for Savannah to pull it and we’ll have the Hat Trick.

Still, Savannah is her own little girl. After church today, as I was preparing dinner, Savannah came in and said, very pleased with herself; “Dad, I found a mouse.” And so she did. Cradled in her little, four year old hands was a very dead mouse. With the weather turning colder, they get into the basement from time to time, which is where Vanna found it.

As disgusting as that scene was (I have no love for rodentia), I must point out that Vanna had a smile on her face that said she’d just found a new friend. She was very upset when I made her drop it in the trash can and then wash her hands. She is our little Horse Whisperer, amazingly good with all kinds of animals.

This doesn’t mean she’s getting a pet rat, mind you. I’m just glad her mother wasn’t downstairs for this one.

Halloween

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:46:42 -0600

I love Halloween. Not like I used to. I used to carve about six pumpkins and dress up in amazing costumes and have an absolute ball. Now I don’t have ay free time and I’m just another boring adult.

Case in point.

Four years ago I was a pirate for Halloween. Now for most people, that would involve a striped shirt, an eyepatch, and a plastic sword.

Not so for me.

I wore a green pirate coat with black cuffs and gold buttons (my wife made it), with a red and orange vest, black pants, and boots with cuffs turned down on the tops. I had a black baldric with a gold doubloon stenciled on it and a real sword hanging from it. Despite all that, I didn’t stop there. I put some tables in my garage, hung them with Jolly Rogers and had a 3 foot high map of my neighborhood, drawn like a treasure map with my house as the Pirate’s Cove. I had a treasure chest full of candy and a small strongbox with full size candy bars for the children of close friends. To this fanciful dressing, I added the front end of a sunken ship, made of cardboard and fitted with the tube from a roll of carpet for a mast. This I mounted at a 45 degree angle and hung with another Jolly Roger, illuminated from below with a spotlight.

This is my idea of Halloween. I would carve several jack-o-lanterns and get into the spirit of it all. Yet here I sit this year, not a single lantern bought so much as carved and no costume even considered.

I’m all grown up and I have to admit - I hate it.

Thoughts on ADD (ooh, something shiny)

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:07:54 -0600

Confession time. I spent the last two days doing absolutely nothing.

Well, that’s not entirely true, but not much useful got done.

I used to think it was because I was lazy, but since being diagnosed with massive ADD, I think I’m starting to see something else.

I spent the better part of this morning on the phone with a good friend and business partner of mine. We were supposed to review some employee training that would take about an hour. We spent two and a half hours on the phone and got about half of the training done. The rest of the time was spent in a fascinating, yet utterly unproductive, discussion about such wide ranging topics as politics, genetically modified foods, and Thermal Depolymerization (google it (trust me)).

In a rare and precious moment of reflection, I realized that my two unproductive days and my unproductive meeting have the same thing in common - a distinct lack of structure. I’ve come to realize that without structure, my time slips away and I have no idea where it went. It’s not like I sit around and watch TV, but my time disappears as though I do.

That said, it’s time to get organized. That’s not going to be an easy task since I’m Mr. Mom to two little girls during the day, but I’ve just got to suck it up and do it. If I don’t I’m never going to get my novel finished. If I don’t take charge now, I’m going to be stuck where I am forever - and quite frankly, I’ve been stuck here long enough.