I tried to upgrade to the latest WordPress and have been unable to get into my admin area to post since then. I found a workaround, but the site may look a little weird until I can clean up. Thanks for your patience!

The ill member of my wife’s family isn’t doing better, so I’m a bachelor tonight. MY wife and kids went to see the sick family member, but I have to stay in town because of some work interviews this week. Hope your 4th went better!

One of my wife’s aunts is in the hospital in seriously bad shape, so I’ll be a bachelor for a few days while she and the kids go down there to see that side of the family. We’ll see in the next couple of days whether it’s an extended stay or not.

There are so many things I need to spend money on – food, shelter, children’s health, wife’s health – but I think that this is the real reason I need the money.

Probably no writing going on tonight, because it’s a gaming night. Playing Pathfinder, which is pretty fun, although I’d still prefer Fudge.

So, I’m about 15-20 thousand words from finishing a young adult fantasy novel (although I don’t actually think of it as such), and about 50 thousand from finishing a mainstream novel about a fundamentalist Christian woman encountering the world of atheism. Naturally, I’ve been putting all my effort into the one that’ll take more work to finish, but I like the story and the characters. There’s also the spellcaster FBI agent work I’ve also got about 40K words left to go on. And the other 11 or so projects waiting in the wings. Argh. I need to set some priorities.

I’ve just joined Goodreads in an effort to be more social and connect with readers who will hopefully turn into friends and then (fingers crossed) fans. So, I’m rebooting here and will be adding some widgets to where you can buy Warp and Before/After, both of which I’ve now got available as ebooks from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and even my old standby of Lulu. I’m also trying to get organized to finish some of the 14(!) projects that have been sitting in limbo over the last couple of years while I’ve been in a job that has been sapping every bit of my spare time. So, if you’ve been thinking of cutting this site out of your reading list because of the lack of updates, I’m finally back!

This is a hard weekend, with me working Saturday & Sunday, so I’m letting myself slide on getting in a page a day on writing. Also, you may have noticed no podcast yet – although I still have a couple of days for that. I’ll try not to let anything else do the slip & slide as we go forward…

It seems lazy to just post a link to someone else’s brilliant insight, but I SO AGREE with this…

I’ve been keeping close to goal on my fiction, and posting nada about it. Time to show an excerpt from what I’m currently working on – a sort of Harry Potter meets Harry Dresden urban fantasy:

Losing a dimension, gaining it back plus one extra, then losing two and getting one back is a little stressful, but hopping was thankfully over quickly no matter where you went in the world. Bill appeared back in his natural form within sight of the airport and let out a sigh. “Why didn’t they put the airport closer to the ley line?” He stretched out his legs and back, then walked wearily the ten blocks to the airport’s entrance.
He pulled out his cell phone and called Milam’s number once he was inside the main building. “I’m just now picking up my bags,” Milam said. “Where are you at?”
“On my way to the car rentals. Meet me there.” Bill hung up and went over to the Hertz counter, where a young woman smiled at him. “Hi,” he said, pulling out his wallet. “I need a car for the next week or so.” He showed her his badge and gave her his government credit card.
“Working on a case?”
The young woman wasn’t looking at him, just making small talk, but he was always wary of people he didn’t know getting too much information. “Just some research.”
“Will you be taking the car out of Seattle?”
“Yes, we’ll be going into the Selkirk Mountains.”
“More than one driver?”
“My partner, Arthur Milam, will also be driving.”
“I’ll add him on here.” She typed for a few seconds. “Would you like an economy car or something a little larger?”
“Something comfortable. We’ll be in it a lot.”
“Of course, sir.” She clicked a few items off with her mouse, and swiped his credit card through a reader. In a moment, she was holding the printout of their contract and going over the details with him. After he signed, she gave him his copies and filed her own. “Have a safe trip to the Selkirks, sir.” She looked back at her computer, then back at him, her brows scrunched together. “The Selkirks. Isn’t that where that reservation is?”
“Yes, I believe so,” Bill said, stiffly, folding his papers and stuffing them into his jacket pocket.
“Avoid them,” she said conspiratorially. “Inbred bunch of loonies, if you ask me.” She caught a glimpse of his wand as he abashedly tried to retreat from her counter, and her mouth dropped open. Turning beet-red, she mumbled, “Sorry. Drive safe.”
“I will,” he muttered, hurrying away and trying to ignore her whispered conversation with her coworker. He was going to head to the parking lot, but remembered that he had to wait for Milam. Uncomfortably, he stopped within view of the counter and looked around for his partner.
He was acutely aware of every glance and pointed finger from the Hertz people. He had the urge to whip out his wand and do something vile to them, but that was the sort of thing the FBI frowned on, so he fought it. Instead, he clenched his right fist tightly and seethed inwardly.

My baby joins The System

That’s my oldest in front of the list of her classmates. She had her first day of kindergarten today. We dropped her off at class, then came back to eat lunch with her. I was fairly unemotional about it until this moment:

Posing in line for daddy

She was returning to class after lunch, and my heart just broke. The future reached out and grabbed me, showing me her first friends, her first disappointments, her first bullies, her first brush with mean people, and I fought tears the entire way out of the building. Once they’re in school, you have no control over what happens to them most of the day. You can’t intervene if someone’s mean to them. You’re not there if they get hurt. You only learn about it afterwards. You have to let go, and hope that what you have given them is enough.

Sure, she’s only in kindergarten, but I had to let go of her today, and it makes me a little sad. I hope tomorrow is easier.

Fabulous!

You will not believe some of these moments…

So, we have a DS9 episode playing, “The Muse”, and there was a line about artists – they create because they want to be remembered. I wrote something like that once, about how art is how we touch immortality. The only other thing we can do that gives us our chance to extend life beyond ourselves is have children, and kids, much as I love mine, are something we have only the merest control over.

Art, though, can be controlled. With the internet, you don’t even have to have the filter of editors, museums, collectors and what not to get in the way of your vision. Writers and painters, especially, are liberated by this medium, as we can see by the huge number of blogs and webcomics that saturate the web. Since the internet is forever, we share in its permanence.

These words live as long as the servers exist to transmit them. Therefore, as I stated on my birthday, I am forever.

I’ve kept up with the other goals, so I’m thinking a podcast needs to show up mighty quick to maintain my momentum. The big problem I have with audio recording right now is the 5 year old and 8 month old girls who love to help daddy with his audio recordings. There’s always 4 in the morning, I guess…