Big year.

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Today's my birthday! It's been a very chill day. A little excursion to Pacific Grill (thanks to my sister for watching Hannah while we went!) and some hanging about the place. I spent some time on a new side project I'm working on (more on that later). I watched some good TV. I played with Hannah. All in all, a pretty nice day. And really, a pretty nice last year. What a year between May 22, 2011, and today. I ran for office, got elected (ahem, retained), published The Marinara Murders, wrote 62,000 words in a sci-fi novel (that is Read more…

The new STAR Center in South Tacoma

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South Tacoma has a new community center! It’s a great space, thousands of square feet, of unique opportunities. Workout areas, dance areas, kids areas, event space, and even this cool demonstration kitchen which can be used for classes, parties, and competitions. The grand opening was yesterday and a flash mob took the opportunity to break out in dance after the ribbon cutting. What a great new facility for Tacoma.

I’ve been pirated! And I think I’m pretty ok with that.

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In November, I participated on two panels with the Tacoma Arts Symposium. One of them was about social media/technology for artists. We had a lot of good questions from the audience, but a significant amount of them were about the audience member’s fear of piracy. People were afraid that if they started blogging their pictures or putting there ideas online, that they would be stolen. I came down pretty hard on the other side. I said something to the effect of piracy being a validation that you had actually produced something of value. That your art was actually good. That Read more…

Long time no post

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Well, it's been just over two weeks since we welcomed Hannah into the world. It's been a crazy joyful sleep-deprived time. We're all healthy and happy. We enjoyed the beautiful weather these past few days and got out to Wright Park and the Ruston Way Waterfront. It feels good to get out, and Hannah sleeps through the whole thing, so it's pretty chill. Amid all the time caring for Hannah, recovering from caring for Hannah, and working, my writing has taken a definite backseat. It's very difficult to find time to do it. And when I do, it looks something Read more…

A new dad with a blog is a dangerous thing

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So … this weekend Mary gave birth to our first child, a beautiful baby girl named Hannah. It's been a crazy few days. Not much sleep, a lot of diapers, and plenty of new experiences. We were admitted to the hospital Saturday night, Hannah was delivered Sunday morning, we were discharged Tuesday, and are just now finishing our first 48 hours in our own home (and it feels fabulous!). So! The exciting part … Pictures! I think most of these are pretty self-explanatory. But the view of Tacoma is from our window in the post-partum room (we faced the other Read more…

About that Beautyman short story …

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About two months ago I posted about a short story I’d finished in my mystery series. I still like it, but I think I’m going to hold off publishing it. Why? Because I think it’s better as a novel. A member of my writing group made a suggestion, and it really got me thinking. I think I like it a lot better as a full-length novel than as a 30 page short story. Unfortunately, that means it’s going to take longer to come out. I’m working hard on my sci-fi novel–it’s already 56,000 words, about as long as The Saints Read more…

Kindle highlights

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There's a feature on the Kindle that I rarely use: highlighting lines of text so you can find them later. I can count only a few times I've found this to be helpful. But! As an author, it turns out that it can be enormously encouraging. The Little Book of Gold, my fundraising guide for small nonprofits, has spent almost four months on the Kindle best-selling list for nonprofits. Crazy! One of the features of Amazon is that they will show you commonly highlighted passages in a book. That means that I (and anyone else) can see what people find Read more…

Some belated pictures from my trip to DC

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It’s been almost two full weeks since my trip to DC. I thought I should share some of the more interesting pictures from the trip. Here is the Washington Monument, reflected in the (under construction) Reflecting Pool. This is from the steps of the Supreme Court looking back at the Capitol and all the protestors and media out front. It was a real circus. I have visited Arlington National Cemetery twice now. I find it a truly solemn place. Here is the door of the USS Maine memorial. And the rows of tombstones under the cherry blossoms. And just for Read more…