June has been quite a busy month for me as a writer. I finished the rough draft of my first novel at the first half of the month. I finished my vampire novella after two years of on-and-off work, wrote four new short stories, and tossed everything into a short story collection at the second half [...]
When the news that Michael Jackson had died broke yesterday, my initial response was in this tweet. “Who wants to bet that Michael Jackson’s death will push the Iranian election out of the U.S. news?” Less than 24 hours later, the U.S. news media is saturated with stories about Michael Jackson. The good, the bad, and the [...]
My family gathered today for an early birthday party for my great-nephew, Travis, who will turn two in July, and a Father’s Day celebration. As Travis had learned how to run before walking, he already started in on being a Terrible Two to the dismay of his parents. Since his mother and three of her coworkers [...]
You know when a technology company has gone mainstream is when “Weird Al” Yankovic makes a signature song from the company’s main product. Below is the music video parodying Craigslist with music inspired by The Doors and a very 1960′s psychedelic background. Previous songs included “White & Nerdy” (Segway), “It’s All About The Pentiums” (Intel), and “eBay” (eBay). The next obvious [...]
A new graphic novel by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, “A Drifting Life,” is a semi-fictional autobiography of the post-World War 2 manga scene, and perhaps the thickest (856 pages) I have ever read. Bracketed between the end of World War II in 1945 and the Peace Treaty in 1960, this story is about Hiroshi Katsumi learning to become a manga artist, [...]
I spent all day yesterday entering the remaining hand written pages of my finished rough draft for my first novel into the computer. A second chance to clean up some passages, straighten out a few dead ends, add notes for the next draft, and discover what some of my minor characters been holding back from [...]
One year, one week, and 700 pages later, the rough draft of my first novel is finished. I was crying when I wrote the final scene. When I started out so long ago to write a novel based on my misadventures as a video game tester when I worked at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, two owners, multiple [...]
According to the Los Angeles Times, and since this is California, a new word has been added to the English language. Never heard of funemployment? Here’s Urban Dictionary’s definition: “The condition of a person who takes advantage of being out of a job to have the time of their life. I spent all day Tuesday at the [...]
I had a pleasant surprise this afternoon when I received an email that my short story, “The World’s Best Coffee,” is slated for publication in The MacGuffin (Fall 2009 or Winter 2010). The hard part was restraining myself from stripping down to my undies and running around the neighborhood like Homer Simpson. (My brother did that one [...]