A Short Little Post for my Birthday (2020)

Blog No. 394

This year the stars have aligned and this post is coming out on my birthday. Like today. It’s my birthday. Right now (as long as you are reading this on the day it was released). Not that birthdays are all that big a deal. I suppose I’m at the age where only the milestone years are really celebrated (and my first big milestone is next year). I can’t remember when the switch happened, but birthdays haven’t really meant that much to me for many years. For a while I was content to just think of them as a normal day, but my mom pointed out how it’s as much her day as it is mine, and that makes a lot of sense, so I got a little more into celebrating them again. I suppose it’s nice to have a day a year that’s all about you. Where being selfish is okay (to a point). I’m lucky enough to have a close core family and some fantastic friends, so I get my moments to feel special throughout the year when they are thoughtful, kind, and supportive. Not to say celebrating isn’t nice too.

Of course, the pandemic is still ongoing (not that you would know with so many people not observing the proper isolation protocols). My birthday will be spent alone. Maybe I’ll play some games with my brother. Maybe I’ll just sleep most of the day away. There’s been a weird feeling hovering over my for the last few years that may be the extent of my mid-life crisis. Some things that were meaningful to me in my youth don’t exist anymore. It’s acute over my birthday since some of my best birthday memories were the co-birthdays I had with my friend Arvin at places like the Loop. Now he’s living in Toronto with his wife and kids and the Loop doesn’t exist anymore. It’s nothing more than nostalgia. We’re both doing well now, even if our youthful dreams didn’t pan out the way we thought, we’re working towards our current dreams. I’m inching closer to an ending for the Invasion Novel. I hope I can get there. (The endings are always more work for some reason).

Anyway. It’s my birthday and if you feel like doing something nice for me, you can do a review of any of my books that you’ve read. Goodreads or Amazon are good places for that. The Goodreads links are actually on the right side of this page. No obligation and feel free to be honest. Stay safe out there, and be vigilant!

Home Delivery

Blog No. 387

I’ve now been home for more than a month and officially off of the day job for fifteen days. Since then, the third book in my Synthetic Albatross series, Broadcast Wasteland, came out. I’ve been doing other writing and layout since the release, but I wrote about that last week. You don’t need to read about it again, especially since there really is nothing new to say. What is new, is that copies of Broadcast came in, I let them sit for the requited number of days to quarantine them, and I’ve spent two days driving around the city, dropping them in people’s mailboxes. I should say, parts of days. Really, no more than three hours, but long enough that I could convince myself that I’ve done enough work for the day and I can slack off for the rest of it.

Cyberpunk Novella

Blog No. 283

The Thinking Machine is here! You can get it right now at Anchor Coffee House on Huron Church, Anchor Bakery and Espresso Bar on Lincoln, at Biblioasis, or in person, from me. I still have a bunch of events (one a week from now until the end of May) so there are a bunch of chances to get your hands on a copy. And believe me, when you see it, you are going to want to pick one up and hold it. I’m going to do a whole behind the scenes at some point in the future, but for now, the idea to have a pocket sized novella seems to have worked. Everyone’s reaction so far has been exactly what I hoped for. Plus, Anchor letting me sell the book at both their locations is beyond what I’d hoped for. Between the two, that’s a pretty big part of the city covered. Also, since I wrote it there, it seems fitting that you can buy it there.

An Update Worth Sharing

Blog No. 278

I find myself in the rare position where I have more than one thing to talk about and I didn’t have to scramble to find a topic this week. As it turns out, if I tantalize people with the idea of images of me looking like a dork, they all want to see them. Last week, I didn’t have those images, but now I do. If you are just reading the teaser, you have to click on the whole article to see the pictures. I buried them further down. That’s called strategy. The image you see up here is actually from the Chapter’s signing I did with Christian over the weekend. Turns out that when the sun is shining at it’s St. Patrick’s Day, the mall isn’t very busy.