The Penultimate

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 96

Yesterday was an odd day and it felt like no matter how much I was sitting here writing the word count wasn't budging. I kept pushing though, and by late in the night I'd hit 2800 words, which was pretty good. Thursday could've been a better day than that, but I had a long work assignment for the paper and knew I had all day Friday to finish, so I didn't press too hard. I'm about 3/4 done with the finale episode, and will be finishing it up this evening. I'm so ready to be done!

Other stuff

Nothing really. I wish the Texas Rangers would stop losing. They picked a terrible time in the season to go on a losing streak, and they need to play their best the next three days or that spells trouble for us. So go Rangers!

I'm off to write!

Step Twelve

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 92

Yesterday was a very productive day, which came as a nice surprise. I only had a few hours of sleep, had to work the first part of the day, fell asleep at the keyboard in the afternoon, went to my family's house for a few hours for dinner, and I still somehow managed 3600 words. I broke it into two writing sessions. From 3pm to about 4:15pm I was asleep at the computer, but from 4:15pm until 5:30 I wrote 1500 words and finished episode 11. Then later last night I got moving on episode twelve, the season 2 finale, and wrote 2100 words.

I was really pleased with how episode 11 finished up. In a book full of dark happenings, this may've been the darkest of them all. I was unsure on how it was going to work, so it was a relief to write it and feel like it played out perfectly. And then to start the finale, I can't tell you how good that felt. Weirdly, I think the finale will be one of the shorter episodes. I'm usually a "go out with a double sized episode" kind of guy, but unless something balloons unexpectedly, it looks like the finale will run a bit shorter than the average episode. Which is fine with me. The book's on track for low to mid 70,000 on the overall word count, and that's not including all of the bonus material we'll be packing into it.

Other Stuff

Nothing really. Just excited to be this close to the finish line. I've got work tonight covering a big football scrimmage/fundraiser thing, but I'm writing a little before and a little afterwards, all in preparation for finishing on Friday. Getting it done on time should be easy enough and barring complications I'll be celebrating at some point tomorrow night.

The Very Big Night

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 89

For how busy of a day it became yesterday, I actually managed to do a good job of keeping the word count solid. I wrote 2200 words, spread over two separate writing sessions. I watched my nephews for a few hours in the afternoon, then wrote, then spent the evening hours covering City Council for the newspaper. I got home and wrote that, finishing around midnight, and I jumped into more Black Badge. Council is extremely draining, so it was nice to power past that and get some quality writing done.

Other stuff

It was a huge night for my newspaper. We've been in business for a little over 5 years. The other local newspaper in this area has been in business for like 70 years. So you can imagine the uphill fight it's been for us to gain credibility and acknowledgment. Well, we're not the red-headed stepchild anymore. Last night the City Council voted to elevate The Grizzly Detail (that's the paper I write for, for those that don't know) to the status of Official Newspaper of the City of White Settlement. They didn't take the title away from the other paper, so now there are two official papers here, but I really don't even care, because this is a huge victory for us. We're a tiny operation, with just 3 people on our main staff (that includes me). The division of labor can be weighty sometimes, and each of us wear about twenty different hats, from writers to photographers to deliverymen to web designers to whatever else we need to be. We've worked so hard to get to where we're at, and to get the recognition last night and to have the council put their support behind us (well, 4 of the 5, one voted against us, hahaha), it's so rewarding.

Being the Official Newspaper means that we'll now receive every notice that the City is legally obligated to place in the paper. They have to do this all the time, from ordinance notices to bid announcements, they put in ads constantly. Ads are the only revenue stream for a newspaper, and securing this new source of ads is a big boost for us.

I'm not going to lie, I feel like we've deserved this distinction for a while now. We turn around city news insanely fast, and my bosses give me the freedom to be a storyteller. They allow me to craft things like City Council coverage into a narrative, alive with quotes and supporting information. We've gone above and beyond in this city, and we just kept our heads down, ignored the negativity, ignored the attacks that came against us, and focused on doing what we're passionate about. Informing the citizens about the important things going on in their world. I'm insanely proud of what we've accomplished, and I feel like this is a huge validation for us.

So yeah, as you can tell, I'm really pumped up about this. It makes me want to work even harder, to get even better, and to show this community on a weekly basis why they should be proud to have us as their Official Newspaper.

Quietly marching forward

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 87

Yesterday was an oddly calm day for me, as my roommate lives on a cycle of strange and ever shifting bedtimes, and yesterday saw him go to bed at like 2pm. That meant an empty and silent house for me to exist in, and while it was certainly nice, it was also a little weird.

As far as writing goes, I had a really good day that I wish had been really great. I wrote 3700 words, which is a really big day, no doubt, but not quite as huge as I had been hoping for. I totally spaced about an assignment for the newspaper, so 2 hours of my prime writing time was spent doing that instead of working on Black Badge. But, the writing flowed pretty well, so no real complaints. I'm halfway through episode 11 and I'm really pleased with how the story is playing out, so that's all that matters. I should have enough time to still reach my goal of being done by the end of Friday.

Other stuff

Tonight's got the potential to be pretty big for my newspaper, so I'm getting a little nervous about that. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but there's a City Council action that pertains to us that could be a big deal. It's sure to be a crazy meeting, but my boss will be there which is always nice. It's usually just me, so it's nice to have the big cheese there to act as a shield.

Hopefully the meeting and the fallout isn't too insane, as I'd love to get in another writing session after I come home and finish the council coverage. I don't think I've ever successfully come home on a Tuesday, written the council coverage, and then turned around and wrote fiction. Council is so draining that by the time I'm done putting it together I just need to veg out for a few hours and then crash. But, I've never been on a mad dash to finish a novel after council either, so maybe tonight I can work through the post council crash and get some more Black Badge written. We shall see.

That's about it. Yesterday I also went to the bank and to the grocery store, cooked some tacos and took out the trash, watched the Rangers beat the Red Sox while I wrote (I've mastered the art of watching baseball AND writing at the same time, it's just a shame it took me 95% of the season to figure it out), and.... I guess that's it? No, I also watched a movie. "Something Borrowed", because yes, I do love romantic comedies and I'm not ashamed to admit it. It was really good, and not as "paint by numbers" as most films of that genre are, although it did confirm my longheld belief that Kate Hudson is the absolute worst actress. If she and Cameron Diaz where in a movie together the TV would just break so that it wouldn't have to live through the terrible act of projecting their terrible performances onto the screen. So yeah, I obviously have strong feelings about it.

Hope the week is treating everyone well or good or both, depending on how much you care about proper grammar.

Ending on a high note

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 83

After bemoaning the weekend, I ended it on a high note. 3300 words were written to close out episode 10, and to top it off I was done before 10pm, which is about 4 hours sooner than most of my writing sessions have been ending over the past few weeks. With just two episodes left to go the sun suddenly shines brighter and the heavy workload of the rest of the year seems a little less intimidating.

Other stuff

Being done at 10pm afforded me to do something that was far overdue, and that was clean. For a little over a week I'd migrated to my secondary workstation in the living room, abandoning my primary computer in my bedroom to the avalanche of notebooks and paperwork that had overtaken the desk. So I spent a few hours getting the bedroom whipped into shape, and then also had to do some straightening in the living room as I set it back to how it should normally be. The final result was a much happier life, as I hate living with clutter. The room's in great shape now, and I'm back on my beloved neon green keyboard in front of my widescreen 32 inch monitor.

The Black Badge Season 2 deadline is by the end of Friday, so today's already been filled with one writing session and I'll get another one in after dinner. Tuesday night, Wednesday morning and Thursday night are all full this week, so my big writing gains will need to be made today (I'm already making great progress there) and Friday. My hopes are to finish episode 11 Wednesday afternoon, then immediately start episode 12. Friday will be an all out writing marathon, and I'll either finish on time or die trying. It's been a while since I had to push it to the limit, and in a sick way I'm kind of looking forward to it. Or maybe I'll make much better progress than expected Tues/Wed/Thurs and Friday won't have to be too brutal. We'll know soon enough!

Still hatin' on the weekend

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 80

As expected, I got no writing done on Black Badge yesterday, which is a bit maddening. It was not a totally lost day, however, as I got most of my newspaper writing done, built a pretty cool new feature for the newspaper website, read more of a book I'm reading, had dinner with my family, and accomplished a few long overdue Hall Brothers administrative type things. I had a contract to send out and finally got that done and sent out, and then I wrote the back cover text for one of our upcoming novel releases. I've started to really enjoy writing the back covers for books and I think I'm getting pretty good at it, so it was great to get this one locked down. I'll triple check it today and then send it to the cover designer extraordinaire Paul Milligan who is in the process of designing the cover already.

Other Stuff

I'm finishing up newspaper work right now and then will spend the rest of my day finishing Black Badge episode 10. I went over the next few months of Hall Brothers business with my brother last night and boy, the rest of this year is so packed for us. If I didn't have novels to write in the midst of all of it, it wouldn't be so bad, but I do and so it is. The good news is that I'll have a month or so where I can take a breather in March of 2012, so I've got that to look forward to, hahaha.

My problem is that I'm focusing on everything at once, which is always overwhelming. But like last night when I did that contract and the back cover text, when I can break things down into just one at a time it's not nearly as bad. But for right now I'm complaining. I just need to finish Black Badge and then there will be a few weeks of editing and outlining where I can take a little break, so that will be nice. I'm also really looking forward to my twin nephews birthday in a few weeks. There might be something big happening with our newspaper this next week too, so I'm anxious to learn more about that.

Anyways, life is busy, but full and awesome. Looking forward to tomorrow, when I plan on hiding out in the house all day and working on Black Badge episode 11. I'm trying to get finished by the end of Friday night, and it's going to take a big push to meet that goal, but it'll feel so good to be done! Completing a novel is one of the best feelings in the world, an almost indescribable rush of accomplishment that you have to have felt to really understand. It's nice being close enough to where I can start thinking about that bright white light and the end of this long and harrowing tunnel.

I hate weekends

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 80

Considering that yesterday turned into a shopping bonanza, I still got a decent amount of writing done. My budget isn't too pleased that I finally wandered into some closing Border's bookstores, but I'm happy about it. Although I did feel like a vulture, picking at the carcass of something that matters to me. Bookstores closing is a bad, bad, thing, and I felt kind of crappy profiting (well, saving money, whatever) off of it, but I guess that's life.

I didn't actually start writing until around 11:00 pm, which is a bad time to start. But I did get 1600 words written, and finished the second scene in episode 10. It was another down scene, which is how I refer to scenes that don't include crazy action. Black Badge contains very few down scenes, so I try to have fun with them and pack them with more character interaction than "Look out!" or "I'm out of bullets!", hahaha. I'd love to finish this episode today, but I don't think I can, for reasons I'll get into below.

Other Stuff

I hate weekends. Imagine if your entire workweek was shoved into two days, add in an overnight second job, and you'll understand my Saturdays/Sundays. Sure, I have work during the week like sports coverages and city meetings and such, but the bulk of my work is done on the weekend. And I pretty much hate it. Everyone else I know has weekends off, which makes my weekends worse. Like this weekend, I've got a friend in town from Oklahoma, but he can only hang out today. I've got to write all day, and when the night comes I have to head out to do my second job, which means I pretty much will never be free on a Saturday.

But, oh well. My job is amazing, super awesome, and my life is amazing, super awesome. So I'm done complaining.

Not much else to talk about. Of the six books I bought yesterday, all six are sequels to books I already own, which I thought was kind of funny. I watched Point Break today while I was working. It's like the 75th time I've seen that movie, and I love it dearly each and every viewing. I've also sat through most of Spiderman too, which sadly I have to say doesn't hold up very well. I loved that movie a lot originally, but re-watching it is a little painful. It's so over the top cheesy and the effects don't hold up at all and the costumes are awful and yeah, I'm just not that much of a fan of it anymore I guess.

Alright, back to work, then having dinner with my family, then back to work, then off to my other work, then back home to get back to work, then back to work tomorrow morning through all day tomorrow, and hopefully back to work on Black Badge tomorrow night to finish up episode 10.

The rare day off

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 77

Yesterday was a rare off day for me, but one I definitely needed. I had a big word count of ZERO for the first time in a while, but I didn't feel too bad about it. It was nice to rest my left wrist, as its been a little agitated lately from my marathon writing sessions. And it was nice to spend the day with my family, talking with the grownups and goofing off with my nephews, who are hilarious and awesome and wonderful.

Other Stuff:

Today was pretty awesome. I had my work/shopping adventure in Arlington, which was nice. Football in the morning, Frye's Electronics for lunch, and then a double feature of movies at the Arlington Studio Movie Grill. Saw Fright Night and Conan and really liked them both, with Fright Night edging out Conan.

Tonight I plan on getting another scene done on Black Badge episode 10, and that's about it! Hope you're all having a great start to your weekend!

Calm Before the Storm

Not much going on today. Getting ready to head over to my family's house for our weekly family night, which is always wonderful.

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 77

I was planning on yesterday being an easy day, shooting for 1500 or 1200 words, something in that range. It took me a while to edit episodes 8 and 9, and it was already getting a little later by the time I started writing episode 10. After two straight days of pedal to the metal writing, yesterday was a slow crawl. But I hate ending a session in the middle of a scene, so I crawled on and on and on, through the fantastic Rangers game, and into the deep night. Finally around 2am I finished, hitting 2200 words for the day and closing out scene 1 of episode 10. It was a better word count than I had been hoping for, so that was good.

Other stuff

Not much else to share today. I've got a busy weekend ahead of me, kicking off with a football scrimmage in the morning which will be followed by a day of shopping and hanging out in Arlington, which I'm really looking forward to. I've got a lot of newspaper stuff to do this weekend, so it'll be something of a struggle to get time in on finishing Black Badge, but I'll make it happen.

I am struggling for an idea for the bonus short story to go in the season 2 collected edition. The first season I used it as an epilogue to the season, Scrolls I used it to tell a completely separate story, and with The Bond we used it to launch a side character into his own thing. I kind of want to do something different this time, but I'm just not sure what. I've got a week or so to figure it out, so maybe something will come to me.

I've also been thinking more about my new novel idea, and wondering when it is that I would work in another novel during the year. I want to do it, because this idea is fantastic and dark and wonderful and weird, I'm just not positive when I'd write it, as my year is pretty filled up with writing and editing and such. But it's on my mind, and sooner or later I think it'll break through and demand to be written.

And that's it. I hope everyone is having a great day!

Follow the Leader

I don't blog nearly as much as most of my favorite authors do. Self promotion 101 for authors is to have a strong online presence, a way to connect with your readers. Usually when I blog it's to overshare about my life, and not anything too terribly related to my writing. But, my writing is something I'm deeply passionate about, and it's what I spend a huge amount of my time doing, so why wouldn't I blog about it? So here we go, in what I'll try (but may fail) to make a much more regular thing.

Current Project = Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete = 75

The past few days have seen huge progress on Black Badge Season 2. I completed episode 8 on Monday, then started episode 9 later that night. All in all it was a 4700 word day, which is almost double my usual average of 2500. Then yesterday I completed episode 9, writing an additional 4400 words for a 9k+ two day total, which is really good.

If you're thinking "Hey, isn't Black Badge Season 2 supposed to debut on hallbrosentertainment.com in just 26 days? Then why the heck are you still writing it?" you're not alone, because I think that a lot these days too. I'm not taking a long time to write it, I took a long time before STARTING to write it. It's an important distinction for me, as I pride myself on being fast with projects, but it's not that important of a distinction when it comes to the fact that it really needs to get done soon.

As for the story itself, it's sailing along beautifully. I'm really amazed at the amount of growth the characters are having over this season, and pleased to see them maturing and changing and making working on a sequel everything I always dreamed it could be.

For today's goals, I'll be doing my quick edits on episodes 8 and 9, and then starting episode 10. I'm not planning on writing much on 10 tonight, that way I can give my sore pinkie (pinky?) finger a day off. I'm hoping for 1500 words or so, and the overall goal is to be first draft done by Friday Aug 26.

Other Stuff

Received the proof copy for Martin T. Ingham's "West of the Warlock" today and it looks so gorgeous. Once again our cover designer Paul Milligan has knocked it out of the park, as the book is just fantastic in every way. Martin created what is perhaps the most entertaining story I've read in many years, and while you're welcome and encouraged to read it for free as it runs episodically over on the Hall Brothers website, trust me when I say you're going to want the collected edition. So many extras, and just an amazing book to own so you can read it again and again.

On a personal level, I'm doing fantastic. High school is back in session, which means my summer off from sports coverages is over. I'll be at a HS football scrimmage on Friday morning, a Volleyball tournament on Saturday morning, and from there the sports coverage rollercoaster carries on. I love football, but the season is extremely intensive and I almost always end up getting sick towards the end of it or right after it. I'd love to avoid that this year.

You'd think I'd be dreading the return of sports, but I'm not. I get to go back to doing photography, which I really enjoy, and getting to watch a ton of sporting events for free is a pretty good way to make a living in the world.

Beyond that, I'm doing flantastic. About to watch the Texas Rangers, I'm reading a new book called Sandman Slim, I'll be spending the day tomorrow with my family, I came up with an amazingly awesome idea for a new novel yesterday, life's good for sure.

The Offer

So a few weekends ago I posted cryptic Facebook messages about how super stressed I was. At the time I didn't want to talk about what was going on, but now that my decision has been made, I'll share. I was approached by another newspaper and they wanted me to leave The Grizzly Detail and come work for them. It was a weird position to be in, and I was very honored that this organization thought highly enough of me to seek me out and try to hire me. It was really difficult for me, because I'm a few things. Number one is loyal. When I fall in with someone, I tend to adopt a "ride till we die" attitude. My bosses at The Grizzly took a big chance on me five years ago. I was unemployed, had no print journalism experience, and no college to back up my claims that I really could do the job. And yet they brought me on, and ever since it's been full speed ahead. They've never told me no, never said "you can't do that", and never tied me down to just doing one thing. They made me a partner, and together we've built something special.

The second thing I am is very routine oriented. Creative types are usually very freewheeling, but I'm not really. I like my life to run a certain way. I like that I see movies on Friday morning, hang with my family all day Thursday, work Wednesday morning, cover Football games on Friday night. I get comfortable in routines and I hate the idea of them changing.

Ultimately I turned down the offer. I feel good about the decision, and I feel good about how it all got handled. In the end, it came down to the fact that I'm not done where I'm at yet. I've grown by leaps and bounds in my time with The Grizzly Detail, and I've had a chance to help the company grow along the way. We've made a difference, sometimes a small one, a few times a big one, and I don't feel like I'm done growing with this company. The newspaper industry isn't exactly thriving these days, and maybe I turned down the one and only offer I'll ever get. It's amazing to be presented with opportunities, and it's a true honor to have them brought to you instead of having to seek them out. It humbled me and inspired me to keep doing what I'm doing, because it seems to be working. And I'm happy with my life, and that works for me too.

So yeah, a whole lot of stress, a lot of consultations with friends and family, and a big life decision to stick where I am. It was handled well, and I'm still on good terms with that organization. That's good, because no one knows what the future holds, but for the present, I'm happy where I'm at. I believe in what we've built, what we continue to build, and the work we're putting out on a weekly basis. The day I'm not, I'm gone, but that day's not today, and I don't think it'll be any time soon either.

The Weird Weekend

That was a pretty strange weekend. I spent most of the day Friday at home writing, but decided to head to the bookstore later in the evening. On the way I got a call from my brother. Something wasn't right with my grandpa, and my brother suggested I get over there. When I arrived, it seemed like my grandpa was dying. I mean, he was dying. It's kind of weird to recall it that way, because as of right now he's completely fine and happy and alive, but Friday night, I think he was right there. What's more, I think he wanted to be there. He's talked before about being ready to go home to be with Jesus, and I know he's got a lot of aches and pains and weariness and stuff. I don't know, now that I start typing about it I really find that I don't want to talk about it. Suffice to say, it was a surreal night and my grandpa very nearly passed away. And the next morning he was completely fine again.

So Saturday was just sort of an impromptu family day. A lot of relatives who rarely come around were around at my parents house to visit my grandpa. He was in great spirits, and while he didn't seem to have much memory of the previous night, did talk about how he hopes everyone saw how peaceful it is when someone who's saved and knows they are going to heaven is going to die. Beyond that, I worked my second job and remained a little shell shocked from the previous night.

Then today I slept in and woke up feeling a little sick. I've been doing a ton of writing today, working hard on Black Badge Season Two. As it's gotten later I'm starting to feel worse. I'm hoping it's just being tired and not getting for real sick. Spent a little too long digging through old emails. What started out as an innocent search for some info turned into a depressing trip down memory lane. It's weird to relive old friendships, old relationships, and be reminded of what your life had then that it doesn't have now. It was funny to read my 23 year old self emailing his then girlfriend and talking about "having it all together". Oh 23 year old self, if only you knew what 30 year old self knows. And that's that no one ever really has it all together. Sometimes you're closer than other times to having it together, but really we're just trying to do our best.

Anyways, like I said, weird weekend. I'm worried about my grandpa. I realized a little while ago that I've been keeping my cellphone and my home phone right by me no matter where I'm at in the house. He seems so fine, but after being right there with him and holding his hand on Friday night as he took what appeared to be his last breath, I just don't know. It might be a little while before I stop expecting to get that phone call from my mom to tell me he's gone.

Finding the right readers

Okay, I need some help. I'm protective of sales numbers for my publishing company, Hall Brothers Entertainment, but I'm going to share a little about them right now. We're doing well, our first book sold beyond our projections and turned a small profit, our two anthologies have done extremely well and turned healthy profits, but one book hasn't quite found its audience yet. And that's where I'm hoping you can help.

Scrolls is my favorite thing I've ever written. If you're unfamiliar with it, I'll give you a fast summary. It's about a college kid who longs to be alone, but his life is complicated. His co-worker likes him, a campus security guard wants to be his best friend, his sister is in town trying to expose his well kept secret, and his ex-fiancee that he left without a word two years ago just transferred to his school. Oh, and magic is real and he's able to use it in ways no one else can, making him the target of a local magic wielding madman.

I feel like Scrolls is awesome. I'm not trying to be egotistical here, I'm just being honest. It's a collection of all of my favorite things, and I love everything about it. The people who've read it agree with me and seem to really enjoy it, but unfortunately it's a little bit different from everything else we've done on the website so far. If we were a television network, most of our projects would probably be on a network like FX. But Scrolls is much more like a CW show (but ya know, good). The problem is, most of our current audience seem to be those that like FX style shows (gritty, action packed, etc..), and reading about a college kid with magic powers dealing with his feelings for his ex-fiancee while trying to start a new relationship with a different girl doesn't seem to be getting them interested in buying the book.

So here's what I'm hoping you can do. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, come over to the site and check it out. If this sounds like something someone you know might be interested in, please steer them over to check it out. I'm not asking anyone to blindly buy the book (although it is a gorgeous and wonderful book), I'm just trying to get people who are interested in this type of thing to check it out. If you/they like it, then awesome, and if you want to buy the book, then awesome. But the whole thing is online for free, and more than anything I just want to build the audience and get more people on board before season two debuts.

Anything that you can do to help me out with this would be greatly appreciated. I love this project and would love to get the sales numbers up enough to where this isn't something that we have to consider cancelling before I have a chance to delve deep into the years and years of Scrolls stories I have planned.

The Hall Brothers Entertainment Scrolls page can be found HERE.

The Kindle edition of Scrolls can be bought HERE.

The print edition of Scrolls can be bought HERE or HERE.

The big 3 - 0

Thirty years sounds so dang old. Today is my birthday, and I am in fact 30. I hate the idea of being thirty. I feel like everything about me screams "guy in his twenties", but I guess it's just time I break the mold of what we expect of people in their thirties. Or more than likely, it's time I break my own mental barrier of what I perceive people in their third decade to be like. I'm all for being responsible and a good human being and more wise, but I'm not all for being boring, normal, or into NCIS (or related shows).

So, thirty years old. It doesn't feel like I've been alive for all that long, which is just frightening evidence that one day soon I'm going to wake up and be sixty and wonder how the heck I became an old man so fast. I feel good about who I am these days. I feel like a good person in general, a good uncle/son/brother/friend/employee/business owner/writer/citizen of the earth. But I feel like I've always been pretty good at those things, and maybe the thirties is when I should focus on kicking it up a notch, going from good to great. I need to do better with my relationship with God, that is something I'll immediately identify as a deficiency in my life. And I need to lose weight and make that something I commit to fully and just do. But beyond those things, I'm pretty awesome. I know, I know, sounds like something someone in their twenties would say, right?

So that's it. For my birthday I teamed up with close friends and family to buy myself an iPad2, and I'm thrilled about the purchase. It's awesome and super powerful and all that jive, and I feel like I'll be using it three or four years from now. I also now have a new (used) car. It's my first ever car payment. Having a car payment is something that people in their thirties are all about.

As far as the past year, I have zero regrets really. It was by far the most productive year of my life, and from 6/15/10 to 6/15/11 I've written not one or two, but three novel length projects. I've also written a bucketful of short stories, just another thing that has caused my creative output to surge far beyond past levels. Creatively it's the life I always dreamed of living, and Hall Brothers Entertainment has made it a reality. Few people have the honor of saying they are living off of money made doing what they love most in life, but I get paid to write, and spend my days and nights writing fiction and journalism, and people read it and most enjoy it (some cuss me out over it, when the news doesn't fall their way, but that's okay).

I deeply love my family, and I love my life. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, I still believe that there is goodness in this world, that people can be gentle and kind and thoughtful and funny and wonderful, and that the world is a place full of wonder and hope and amazing things and people just waiting to be discovered. I believe that there is joy to be found in every day, that happiness is possible for each and every one of us. 98 out of every 100 days are good days for me, full of laughter and optimism and creativity and passion and love, and I see no reason why turning thirty will change that whatsoever. I kind of wish I was still 28, or 29 even, but oh well, I guess I'll just have to accept being thirty, at least until I finish work on this time machine...

The Randometer

I know as a lifetime North Texan I'm supposed to be jazzed about the Dallas Mavericks in the playoffs, but the urge to jump on the bandwagon just hasn't hit me yet. I've got a website open keeping track of the score, and I hope the Mavs win, but running through edits on a Hall Brothers Entertainment project and listening to some tunes just strikes me as a much more pleasant way to spend the evening.

However, I did have the urge to blog since it's been a bit since the last one. I don't really have too much to talk about, so here's some random thoughts.

I like the idea that mean people mellow with time. Not all of them end up losing that meanness, but most just turn "surly", which is at least a bit more bearable than mean.

I'm normally super excited about my birthday but this year I'm just not feeling it yet. It could have something to do with leaving behind the twenties and entering into the thirties, a fact that I find to be horrifying and awful in a lot of ways. Seriously, who wants to be thirty? It's awful sounding. So for now I'm just pretending like my birthday isn't fast approaching, and we'll see what happens from there.

A new videogame came out that I want to buy, but I just can't rationalize buying a game for full price anymore. $59.99 plus 8.65% sales tax = $65.18, and spending $65.18 on any game just seems like such a wasteful thing to do. Maybe it's a sign that I really am approaching the dreadful 3-0's, but I just hate the idea of spending THAT much money on a game. I could by 10 books for that much, or 8 gallons of gas (ZING!, take that economy!), or pay my car insurance bill for the month. The thing that stinks is that it takes so darn long for games to come down in price, and by the time the game gets cheaper I'll have forgotten all about it. Oh well! I've got stuff to write anyways, and I've never been particularly good at balancing how much time I spend playing videogames.

The level of quality we're finding in some of the novel proposals at Hall Brothers is unbelievable. We've got one book contract signed that will be releasing later this year and it's so good. It's a fantasy/western genre mash-up and the story is just a blast. It's like the best kind of summer blockbuster movies, with some great character moments, a brilliant setting, awesome action, just so good. Then we've got a book contract in place with a writer who brought us a brilliant proposal for a novel. I don't want to reveal much about that one since it's not releasing until next year, but the concept is so great and this is a book that we really think can be a big seller. We have a book contract offer out right now on another manuscript that I fell in love with. It's such a triumph of storytelling and I really hope that when the author gets back to civilization (he's travelling across Europe, currently) he'll respond affirmatively to our contract offer. It's been really humbling and inspiring for me to read the works of these people, just to see the quality of stories they're entrusting to me and my brother. I take being a publisher to be something as a sacred duty, and I really want to do everything I can to get these works in front of readers and share the brilliance of these writers with the world. I'm excited about it, as you maybe can tell.

I wrote a pretty weird story for Memorial Day. It'll be up at Hallbrosentertainment.com next week. Some really big issues made their way into it, stuff like life after death, and the physical properties of heaven and the horrors of war. Sometimes, right after I finish a story I'll rush around the house and find my roommate and proclaim that my story is super brilliant, but other times I'll sort of slowly amble around the house and find my roommate and shuffle my feet and proclaim that my story is weird and I'm not quite sure if it's any good. This was definitely the second option, and even after editing it today I'm still not sure about it. I usually make my final judgement after my brother reads the story and tells me what he thinks, so I'm hoping he does that before he goes to bed tonight. I'm curious to know if it's weirdgood or just weird.

Even though I know cool people aren't supposed to feel this way, I really don't like Radiohead. Maybe I'm not as cool as I think I am, but I just can't get into their music. Some great songs for sure, but overall their catalog inspires a big fat "eh" outta me.

Alright well, back to editing for me. I hope the week is going spectacular for everyone!

one simple rule

Another day of sleeping like a human has come and gone and I feel good. I didn't accomplish nearly as much as I should've today, but I gave my permission to take it easy. Sometimes I can be such a harsh taskmaster over my projects and deadlines that I don't fit in any time to just recharge and have a day to regroup and refocus. Today was that kind of day and it felt good. I had work early and I did a few work things throughout the day, but mostly I just let the day flow. Watched a movie, read a book, planned a few future projects, thought a lot about vacations (fun fact: I LOVE daydreaming about and planning vacations. It's my goal in life to someday have the resources to follow through on all of those plans) and that was about it. I will say though, I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow and getting back on track. There's a tall stack of MUST BE DONE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE HOLY CRAP! things going on in my life, and they won't be ignored two days in a row. A few weeks ago I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by some of that stuff, but my brother and I had a breakthrough about how to deal with that stuff and it's been a major help to me. In a nutshell, it's just about doing what you can. If you can, awesome, and if you can't then you can't, and you deal with it. It's a very zen kind of approach that I find inspires me to work super hard but to do it from a place of calmness and not in this frantic state of "MUST GET DONE". So that's nice.

My roommate and I stayed up super late last week and were talking about lifestyle changes and reliable ways to work out and such. Mostly we were trying to figure out somewhere we could go swimming at this Summer, as both of us love to swim but didn't do it a single time last year (and I'm kind of thinking I didn't swim the year before that either). But anyways, while talking about diets and exercise regimens and such, my roommate came up with an idea of a system with a single rule. No matter what it is you decide to do to get in shape and get healthy, you have just this one single rule to follow. Don't Quit. That's it. One simple, powerful rule. It's something that I'm trying to apply to everything in my life that I wasn't doing a good job of controlling, most notably my nutso sleep schedule (or lack thereof).

Speaking of sleep, it's just about that time for me. Hopefully the week is treating you all well up to this point. I'm excited about Thursday. It's become family day for me, I go to my families house and hang out with everyone, play with my nephews, have a business meeting with my bro and then play a board game with my mom, sister-in-law and grandpa. It's always a great time and such a refreshing and recharging experience to spend a big handful of hours around the people that love you no matter what and you love them no matter what.

Day One

Well, day one of the new sleep schedule seemed to go really well. I felt more mentally acute than I have in months, to a degree that actually freaked me out a little bit. It made me feel like I had been seeing the world through a slight haze for the past month or more and now it was gone, and I was finally fully awake. I slept straight through the night, and honestly that's probably the first straight 8 hours of sleep I've gotten in over a year. I normally sleep 5 or 6 hours at the most. So yeah, I think I may be an all new, super powered version of myself if I keep this up. I'm weirdly excited that it's almost bedtime now. I'm about to lay down and turn on a show and just relax and welcome the end of a good day.

Well, good day aside from that horrible Texas Rangers loss, but we won't discuss that.

I did my first coverage of Benbrook City Council today, that was fun. I've wanted to branch my council coverages out to neighboring cities for a while now and this was the first time I've done it. They have an amazing website that makes it super easy to watch the council meetings and it was a good experience. I liked it a lot and had fun, which is weird I guess. I suppose I've missed writing council coverages seeing as the primary one I cover here in my hometown hasn't met but three or four times in the past four or five months.

I'm giving up on the book I was reading. It was so poetically written, so magnanimously worded, so full of fearful fire and geared with grinding grit, packed to the gills with packing tape and gusto, as if it were a box begging to be shipped to the top of the world, feet tucked in and diving off of the cliffside with a scream escaping from pursed lips as they prepare to plunge into the depths below; certainly, with no hesitation. Seriously, the book was all like that. In a way it's a beautiful work of art but I've been struggling for two months to read it and I just can't ever stomach more than a few pages at a time. The guy is so obsessed with crafting these insanely complex sentences that it takes fifteen pages for a character to go from point a to point b. I'm sure there's someone out there who thinks it's a masterpiece, but I prefer more story in my stories.

Now I'm faced with the daunting task of choosing my next book from the hundreds I've yet to read. I'm leaning towards "Sandman Slim".

Alright, I guess I'll shut up now. I'm kind of wide awake, which worries me a bit. I'm hopeful that getting everything quieted down and getting in bed will help make me more tired. I hope the week is rolling along smoothly for all of you!

Simple Math

So it's not going to win me any maturity points in the great game of adulthood, but today was day one of putting myself on a strict bedtime and wakeup schedule. I've always been an erratic sleeper, usually going to bed between 2 and 3am and waking up around 10am. But lately it's slowly edged later and later, with some nights seeing me up until 4 and 5am and sleeping until 11 or even noon. I'm blessed with a pretty freewheeling job that rarely sees me needing to be up early, but the schedule was just messing with me bad. Sleeping that late makes me feel like a big portion of the day is lost and I just hate how it makes me feel. So last night I made the decision and enacted my one day turnaround plan. I couldn't fall asleep until around 5:30am but set my alarm for 9am and woke up. That's made today... interesting. There were bouts of staring off into space and nearly falling asleep, but for the most part I held it together and had a productive day. Now it's midnight, which is when I retreat into my room and start the bedtime countdown and get ready to shut down and head off to sleepyland. I'm weirdly looking forward to it and hope to establish a normal sleep routine for the first time in a long time.

One thing I did today was finish my Earth Day story for Hall Brothers Entertainment. It should be up at hallbrosentertainment.com in the morning, so be sure you check that out and let me know your thoughts. Earth Day was a strange holiday to use for inspiration but I'm really happy with the direction my brother and I took our stories in. It's so weird how enjoyable the holiday stories are. I have a deep love of writing them and I feel like they represent some of our best work over at the website.

You'd think I'd have more to talk about than that, but I really don't. I spent some time mulling over the differences between baseball and softball on a long drive the other evening, that was interesting. Baseball is played pretty quietly, with almost a sort of reverence given to the game unfolding out on the field. Softball on the other hand is rowdy and loud, with the players singing songs and playfully taunting the other team and such. In a way it's sort of a gender role reversal, if you think about it, because men are generally thought of us rowdier than women but that's not the case in the baseball/softball comparison. That's about all I got on that one.

Alright, officially tired and going to bed. I hope everybody is having a great start to their weeks!

My Apocalyptic Mind

Something pretty cool just happened to me that I wanted to share. First, I need to introduce the other person that was involved. A few weeks back I stopped by the local Wing Stop to order some food on my way home from covering a Baseball game. If you don't call your order in ahead it's usually a bit of a wait, so I ordered and then took a seat. The young man who took my order, he looked like he was around 20 or so, said he recognized me from the newspaper. We struck up a conversation about movies and talked about my movie reviews and my work in journalism. About ten minutes later the food was ready and off I went. It was a nice conversation with a cool stranger, which is always awesome.

Fast forward to today. In the newest issue of the newspaper I wrote a column about a website that has me freaked out. The title of the column is "the Future Freaks me out" and is about this website that gets super detailed laying out all of the things that they predict will happen in the world. Disasters, crisis, all sorts of freaky stuff. I've always struggled with having a fear of the future, of apocalyptic things happening in the world. I'm a Christian and I know that we're supposed to trust in God and that the Bible says those who believe in him are going to have a good ending, but it's still an area I've had a lot of struggles in.

So anyways, tonight I spent the evening at my family's house. I left around 11 pm and decided at the last moment to go to the gas station to grab a Dr. Pepper. I get there and was sort of lost in thought as I walk up and I notice someone is holding the door for me. I look up and it's the guy from Wing Stop. We exchange hellos and that's about it and I go in and he goes in. He checks out before me but when I walk outside he's standing there waiting for me. I say hey again and ask if he just got off work since he was wearing his work shirt. He then says "I read your article today." We talk a bit about it, and I mentioned that yeah, I was really freaked out by some of the predictions and what the future holds. Then he says "I'm a Christian, and as soon as I read the article I just felt God speaking to me and laying it on my heart that I needed to talk to you about it." He then goes on to, very politely mind you and not at all in a preachy or disapproving manner, quote the Bible about how God doesn't want us to have a spirit of fear and stuff like that. He then admits that the only reason he waited for me was because it was just so amazing that after feeling so strongly that God wanted him to encourage me about fearing the future it was crazy that we'd run into one another that very night. We shook hands and I thanked him and mentioned how awesome it was that this had happened, and we were on our separate ways.

The whole thing was just so amazing though. I'm a pretty logical person, so I can tell you that the odds of running into this one guy at random like that are pretty slim, especially considering how many 24 hour gas stations there happen to be in our immediate area. It was just such a cool and uplifting reminder that God cares. He used this amazing young man who I've only ever met once, laid a message upon his heart, and then directed both of our paths to end up at the same exact place at the same exact time that very night. And the thing is, I've been in his shoes before, and he seems like a shy type of person like me, so I know how hard it is, even when you've got this spirit of the Lord sort of urging you forward, to step up and actually follow through with a conversation like that.

Anyways, it may not seem like anything special to some people and that's okay, but to me it was just such a blessing and a much needed reminder that I need to keep God on my mind and rely on him for all things.

Contention

Today was a great day. It's been a while since I did any actual personal blogging, and I'm not really sure why that is. My days have been pretty full lately and by the end of them I haven't really been in a blogging mood. Whereas I once felt like blogging was my way of sharing my feelings with the world, over the past year my relationships with people around me have strengthened and I find less of a need for the emotional outlet of blogging. But, there are also wonderful people in my life that I don't see very often, or internet friends that I unfortunately don't live close enough to see ever, and the way in which we can all keep up with one another is through our blogs. But if I never blog personally, then the relationship can turn a little impersonal, and thus be weakened.

All that said, today was a great day. It was one of those days so gloriously not special that it became special. The kind of a day that reminds you that true beauty and joy and contentment isn't always super glamorous, and is often found in things like a chat with a friend, a trip to the store with your family, or an evening spent among family cooking dinner, joking, and playing games. My three nephews are like happiness batteries, being around them just recharges my joy and enthusiasm for life. I feel lighter after I've been around them, because being around them reminds me of what's most important in this world. My whole family does that, just reminds me what joy is and how lucky I truly am. They inspire me and make me want to do more in life, to keep working towards my goals and to never stop believing in myself. And yes, I got all of this over a six hour visit and a homemade taco dinner. It's nice to be this easily moved!

So, that's all super sappy, but oh well. What else am I doing these days? Writing, of course, working. Things at Hall Brothers Entertainment are going awesome. Sales of Undiscovered, our latest book, have just completely blown us away and exceeded what we thought we would be able to do this early in our company's life, so that's been amazing. We're only 5 copies away from a pretty awesome milestone, so if you haven't picked it up yet you'd be doing me a personal favor if you did so now (click here to check it out!). Scrolls, our second episodic fiction series, is going really well. I'm particularly proud of this creation, it's probably my favorite thing I've ever created and written, and it's great to see more and more readers showing up as it starts spiraling towards its season one finale'. My brother and I have also embarked on a secret project for HBE that we're not telling anyone about, so that's been fun too. It'll be quite some time before it comes around, but when it does I think it's going to be something special.

Anything else? I guess not! I hope you're all doing awesome and that you have a great weekend!

Ending with the beginning and beginning with the ending

Something strange occurred to me last week that really probably should've occurred to me sooner. There's an odd crossing of worlds in my life. I write pretty constantly, either at my day job as a journalist or at my other job as a creative writer. But here's the thing that occurred to me. These two styles of writing are in direct conflict with one another in one very fundamental way.

Okay, here's the example. The City Council here in my hometown has been in turmoil for months and they've ended up in district court over it. I've been covering it every step of the way, and last week I wrote up a story about the latest court date. My opening paragraph went something like this:

The ongoing issues of the local City Council have spilled over into District Court for the second time of 2011 as the Judge denied the motion that would see the three removed council members reinstated.

After convening at 9:00 am, the Judge allowed each side to...

And so on and so forth. The important thing to note is the end of the first paragraph, in which I completely and totally spoil the ending of the story. I've been a journalist for five years now and it never occurred to me that I was doing this. But for some reason, the wall has come down and now the creative writer inside of me has become aware that this is happening, and boy is he mad. Seriously, how can you spoil the ending?! IT'S THE BEST PART! If I was using my creative writing skills, the opening paragraph would've been something like this:

The judge studied the documents in front of him for a solid minute, seemingly unaware of the full courtroom waiting for him to begin the proceedings. Finally, mercifully, he looked up and addressed the tense participants.

"You all know why we're here," the judge said solemnly.

The defendant instinctively reached for the glass of water in front of him but paused, not wanting to appear nervous. His lawyer had no such hang-up and drank generously, doing whatever he must to avoid eye contact with the judge. Things were no less tense for the plaintiffs and hand wringing had begun in earnest. The court reporter cracked his knuckles and took a deep breath.

"Let's do this thing," he muttered to himself.

The judge smirked, having overheard his trusty court reporter. He let his eyes dance across all gathered in his courtroom, took a deep breath of his own, and then spoke once more.

"Let's dispense some justice."

That would be my beginning and the shocking ruling would be saved for where it rightfully belongs. Maybe I should just start writing all of my news stories this way and see what my editors say. I could revolutionize the business! Or be fired!

Anyways, just thought that was an odd thing to just now realize after half a decade on the job. Of course, now that I've realized it I can't unrealize it and so I think about it a lot now. But what's a man to do other than begin with the end when needed?

I Believe Nothing

As part of my day job I talk to a lot of people. The news involves all kinds of people from all kinds of walks of life, so in order to do a good job reporting it I have to go out and get to know those people. While it was difficult for me to get over some of my shyness in the beginning of this job, getting out and meeting so many different folks has become one of my favorite parts of my journalism work.

But it also brings me to an interesting dilemma. Covering city politics, even in a small town, means knowing a lot of people who dislike a lot of other people. I hear rumors almost daily about who said what and who did what and who hates who and so on and so forth. Lately, I've been wondering what to do about it. You can't believe everything you hear. I understand that, and have always lived by that rule. Just because Jimbo tells me that Trevor is a jerk doesn't mean that Trevor is actually a jerk. I know that, I understand it, so no problem, right?

Here's where I'm having issues. Jimbo tells me that Trevor is a jerk, Barney tells me that Trevor is a racist, and Sally tells me that Trevor tried to assault her. Then, Trevor tells me that Jimbo tried to run him over with his car, that Barney is a Nazi, and that Sally is having an affair with Jimbo. Then someone else tells me that Jimbo and Trevor are actually friends who are stirring up trouble so everyone is too distracted to learn about their plot to steal all of the city funds, and that Sally is secretly married to Barney even though publicly they pretend to hate one another. Then I receive an email telling me that Jimbo, Trevor and Sally are childhood friends who split apart once they all learned they were adopted and that Barney's father was the evil doctor who had adopted them and then beat them.

You call that crazy, I call it my Tuesday. And it's led me to this simple, yet powerful realization. I believe nothing. I'm at a point where I've simply overloaded on rumors and speculations about people. Maybe none of it's true, maybe some of it's true, maybe all of it's true, but my new policy is that I believe none of it. If Trevor really is a jerky racist who tries to assault women, I either need hard proof or I need to learn it myself by talking to him.

But here's the final issue this creates. If you can't believe what anyone says, how do you learn about people? Do I really have to go and talk to Jimbo, Trevor, Barney and Sally in order to learn who each of them are? And how do I know that whatever they tell me is the truth, and they're not just lying to cover up their jerkish racism attitudes?

There you have it. If we boil all of this down what do we get? A reporter who needs a break from covering politics!