The fifth (annual) writing retreat has been booked. In April, the chosen Texas State Park is…Daingerfield State Park. My wife and I went camping at Daingerfield State Park the last weekend in October…and we loved it! In many ways, it felt like being up north — more like Wisconsin than East Texas. With access to […]
Carving Out Time
I hear it a lot: I just need to carve out some time to write… I hear it at work, from friends, and read about it online. The concept is simple: I have all these things to do, and to tackle them all means I’ll have time carved out to do the thing I really […]
The Effort Is Worth It
It’s a five-day weekend for me, which means yesterday was the beginning of my little break. I took it easy and got some reading done. One of the things I read was this interview with Colson Whitehead. Whitehead is one of those people I’ve followed for years without ever really reading. And that needs to […]
A Year Without Lumberjacks
Yesterday, Not about Lumberjacks turned one year old. It started with a story about a dog who eats everything in sight: “Gutterball.” As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I ended up writing more new stories in the first year of the show than I planned. And the way those new stories developed has surprised me quite a […]
The Speed of Creativity
I work for a large software company. Recently, email was sent out that we could take “creativity” courses through one of our training sites. I went to check out one of the classes. I took the pre-test, a 4-question quiz to test how “creative” we already are. I missed half of them. Apparently I’m not […]
Is That All There Is
Last night the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. I was born less than three miles from Wrigley Field. The north side of Chicago is Cubs territory, through and through. Even people who don’t particularly like sports on the north side (yes, a handful of people like that do exist), still believed that every year […]
A Kick in the Ass
Not only did I recently interview Mark Hosack, but I spent a nice evening hanging out with him during a recent trip to Los Angeles. It was my first time in California, so Mark showed me Marina del Rey, Venice, and Santa Monica. At our stop in Marina del Rey, we grabbed a cappuccino and […]
Writing on the Road
I recently did a podcast about business travel because I, and the friend I do the podcast with, have each recently traveled for work. A recent trip brought him to New Orleans, and I spent a week in Los Angeles. I know many people who live for business travel. Hell, I work for a large […]
The Ways Stories Change
I recently released a story on Not About Lumberjacks called “Purvis.” It’s described like this: In 1984, a Dungeon Master struggles with keeping the few friendships he has together, all while dealing with a vicious bully. When Dungeons and Dragons is your only reprieve from the cruelties of life, the game becomes much more than […]
[Another] Interview with Mark Hosack
Mark Hosack is a busy guy. When he’s not busy helping raise three young daughters, he’s writing screenplays, directing movies, editing movies and trailers, and scouting locations for commercial shoots (in fact, this interview was done while he was on location shooting a commercial for a major restaurant known for their breakfasts). So why not […]
The Right Kind of Lazy
Friday mornings mean the arrival of Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletter — one of the few I subscribe to. This week, he linked to this piece by Cal Newport. If you don’t feel like following the link, it’s an article about how some people deemed big in their fields are/were also seen as a bit lazy. […]
Writing’s Effect on Others
I finished a story for the next episode of Not About Lumberjacks on Wednesday. My wife read it yesterday and came back to the office to tell me she finished it. She liked it quite a bit, which is always good. (Especially because I wasn’t sure how this one would sit with her.) And then […]
Year Seven
Seven years ago, I was working for an aviation consulting firm. I was regularly traveling to Oregon, helping a client take over my job. (I also traveled to Washington and Georgia (for two months) with that job.) On December 17th of that year — shortly before Christmas — I was laid off after the company […]
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