Month: June 2018

Ten Years On

It’s been a great two days at Fyrecon so far. I’ve done one presentation and five panels so far, with two more panels and another class tomorrow. Things are humming right along.

Tonight I’m decompressing in my living room, thinking back to where I was in 2008. I was on my own for the first time in earnest. Renting a bedroom in a rundown house in Provo, with intermittent utilities, friends out of town, a dating life that was deader than Nixon, and too many bills to pay for how much money I was making.

My happiness came from three things: reading, writing, and lifting weights with the only two guys I knew who didn’t go out to sell Comcast that summer.

Stuff broke. My car. My A/C. My hopes and dreams for grades and girlfriends. By summer’s end I would abandon my college track and embrace the working life whole-hog. I occasionally snuck out of the house to go for a run by myself, but mostly I juggled jobs while trying to make ends meet.

I worked for APX Alarm. Life was that rough.

In the spirit of counting one’s blessings, today I am really damn well off. And I need to keep that in mind when I start focusing too much on where I’m failing.

I haven’t yet passed that test at work. I spend most of the time driving the worst of the big trucks we have. I hate my dispatcher. Cash always seems to be short.

But.

I have Schaara. We have a house. We have two boys who are crazy, but we love them. I make a decent living and soon I will make an even better one. I’m presenting at writing conferences. I have readers! I have books out! I finally bench pressed 250 this year!

So here I sit, on my couch in my living room, listening to my generally quiet neighborhood, but for the passing cars every now and then, and the chirping crickets who are desperate to get it on.

My life is blessed, my prayers have been answered, and though my ambitions live on, I am content.

Despite setbacks, I will release a new book this year.

Ever since the launch of REBEL HEART in 2014, I have released a book every year. SUICIDE RUN came in 2015, PATRIOT’S GAME in 2016, and 2017 saw KILL THE BEAST and THE HERO NEXT DOOR come into the world.

2018 ended up being busier than I expected, and the projects that I wanted to finish won’t get off the ground in time. I have a book that is ideal for a Halloween launch, and I just won’t be done for this year. I also have about 8 or 9 straight months of illustrating for another book that’s already finished (but in need of edits.)

Still, I wanted to publish something this year. This week, I finally figured out what to do. The working title is THE FRIDAY FIGHTER.

For the last two years, I have launched a short story on Black Friday, satirizing the unofficial holiday, in which I have never participated. I really don’t care for the Black Friday brouhaha, and every year it gets crazier. That prompted the first story I did in 2016, which then necessitated a sequel in 2017.

For 2018, I will write a third story, one that wraps up nice and tight, and then of course illustrate it. Expect to see it early-to-mid November.

More details as we get closer. But yay! I will publish again in 2018.

Story time: I’m not as bold as I used to be.

One time, I called up a girl that I knew had a crush on me, and told her she shouldn’t marry a guy she had just gotten engaged to. It was the right thing to do and yet I would never do it again.

Last week, a friend gave me a motorcycle. Just up and gave it to me. Awesome. It took a little convincing for my wife to welcome it into our home, but she’s warming up to the idea.

Frankly I don’t blame her for being hesitant. She wasn’t in my life when I had my accident in 2009, but she’s heard the stories, seen the pictures, seen my scars get lighter over the years. She was with me when I went through PT in 2012 because I hadn’t gotten proper treatment three years prior. It lingers.

(And my accident wasn’t even that bad–hell, you could call it lucky, considering I was wearing board shorts, a T-shirt, and no helmet. But I digress.)

As I sat on my new Chinese steel horse in my garage, I thought back to the last time I owned a motorcycle, in 2007. I had bought it off of my older brother. It was the bike I learned to ride on, a ’92 Honda Nighthawk 250.

Great size for a novice rider. Plenty of power, but not so much that it would overwhelm you if you didn’t know what you were doing.

When I got that bike in 2007, my life was very different. I was 23, single, working full-time, in college part-time, still living at home and helping my mom with a few bills here and there. My parents’ divorce had just finalized and she was still on meds/chemo/radiation from her cancer treatments. I had a lot going on in my life and pretty much all of it was great, truth be told.

I had a lot of really great friends, too. And if I may be so bold, I was even kind of popular with the ladies in the circles where I ran. I went on a lot of dates but didn’t bother getting serious with anyone, since I planned to go to school out of state later on.

This particular story centers on a girl, we’ll call her Michelle, who I’d known for a year or so, friend-of-a-friend situation. Our mutual friend had dropped a hint or two that Michelle was into me, which I thought was pretty cool, even though I didn’t see us getting together. Major confidence builder, knowing that a girl likes you.

A few things about Michelle: she worked hard and supported herself, even at the young age of 21. She had to. She had a daughter. The daughter’s father was in the picture, but not with Michelle. It happens. No judgment from me, I’d dated girls with kids before.

Still, I knew I wasn’t going to get involved with Michelle, and I had to be careful when groups of us hung out, because I didn’t want to give her the impression I would go after her. Our lives weren’t on the same path.

Then she started showing up to group hangouts with another guy, and there was talk of an engagement on the horizon. I thought that was cool, good for her. She wanted to be married and have a family, all that stuff, and it looked like it was finally happening!

This is where the boldness comes in.

After a few hangouts with the group, and some observations I made, I got the feeling this wouldn’t end well for Michelle. The guy wasn’t necessarily bad news, he was just…well, there’s “settling for what you want,” and then there’s something three floors beneath that, and that’s what Michelle was going to anchor herself to for the rest of her life.

As I went about my life, working, studying, going to school, it kept swimming around in my head. Michelle is going to marry a deadbeat guy. Her life is hard enough without attaching herself to this, and maybe she thinks it will fix her problems, but it won’t.

I prayed about it, I thought over it, and got it into my head that I needed to tell her she shouldn’t do it.

I tried to talk myself out of it, to analyze the consequences and stuff, of what it might do to her if I said that to her. In the end I weighed the cost and the outcome, and decided it was better if I said something to her, if it would have a positive effect on her.

So one day, after I left work and rode my old motorcycle to school (heeeeeey it finally came into the story), I stopped in the parking lot, shut it off, and started to head inside. Then I stopped. I took my helmet off, locked it to the bike, and called up our Mutual Friend to get Michelle’s number.

Mutual Friend knew what I was up to, and had my back. So I called Michelle. I still don’t remember everything I said, only that I prefaced it with a lot of things, and it boiled down to “You might think you want this, but you can do a lot better for yourself, and it would be better for you to find that.”

It didn’t scare me to say that, it just made me really nervous, and I was worried even then that I had done the wrong thing.

Fortunately, to my relief, Michelle was grateful that I had called, and even better, she told me she had already broken off the engagement. She knew she was walking into the wrong situation, even though she really wanted to be married. Big sigh.

We still hung out in groups, and things were great after that. We even went to see Stardust that summer, and had a good time of it. It made me glad to see that she had taken control of her life and her daughter’s life, and to this day she is still an excellent mother, providing for her family mostly on her own.

The point of this story, as I think back to it now, is that I doubt I would be that bold today. And I mean even if I wasn’t a married man with my own kids. I just wouldn’t jump into a peer’s business like that, knowing they might get the wrong idea about my intentions.

I wonder why it is. Maybe cynicism? Maybe I have enough of my own problems? Is it self-interest? Do I lack sufficient altruism? It could be a degree of apathy. As I’ve gotten older, I know that I care less and less for my fellow man in the abstract.

I’ll help a stranger, I’ll help a friend, and yet I find myself remaining distant from a lot of, I don’t know, emotional complications. I find myself thinking that people should reap their own consequences, and they should, but shouldn’t I also care a little more? Reach out more? Give good advice, even if someone won’t like it?

You think that you get smarter as you get older. Me, well, I’ve gotten more information, but I think the last ten years have added to my confusion, not my wisdom. Hell if I know.

Maybe if a friend was going to make a damaging decision like that, I would still say something. I hope I would. Guess we’ll know when it happens.

I just know that there was a time when I would have done it without question. Even if I had to talk myself into it.

I’m getting older, there’s no stopping that. But I can decide if I get better or worse as a friend. Food for thought.

Characters First: Why “Incredibles 2” was a worthy addition to the first one.

It’s always scary when they make a sequel to a really great movie. If the first one was 100% great, the second one would only need to hit 90% for you to feel like it didn’t live up.

Fortunately, Pixar has enough cultural capital for people to give them credit in the sequel department.

DreamWorks, for example, sequeled the hell out of the Shrek franchise, and none of them were all that great. The How To Train Your Dragon series started strong, but the sequel wasn’t able to recapture all the magic, and the 500 spinoff shows have watered down the product. Still, the third looks promising.

Incredibles, though, knows what it’s about. Yes, there are superheroes, and societal issues, and Big Questions, but those are just dressing on the plate. At its core, it’s a family story.

Bob is the husband/father who hates his job and longs for the glory days when he felt more valuable to the world. Now he tries to fill that void by figuring out how to be the dad his kids need him to be.

Helen struggles with the opposite problem–trusting her husband to run a tight ship like she does at home, while also accepting the responsibility of being The Main Superhero who will usher in a new era.

Violet isn’t just the girl with invisibility powers; she wants more adult responsibilities, and a relationship with a boy. The fact that she has powers and has to hide them makes that really hard to manage.

Dash is trying to keep up with a changing curriculum at school, and idolizes his dad, hoping to live up to his standard of heroism someday.

And Jack-Jack…oh man. That baby. Anyone who has had a baby boy in their house knows what’s up. Even without any dialogue, and limited cognition, he imposes his will on the world around him. Jack-Jack steals the show.

I could go on and on about the brilliant angles and aspects of this, but really, you just need to see it and you probably will. The 14-year wait, while unconventional, was worth it, and your patience is rewarded.

I would rather have to wait a decade and a half and have them get it right anyway.

5 Things I learned from a social media absence (#2 will SHOCK you!)

A week ago, President Russell M. Nelson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints challenged the youth to go 7 days without social media. I decided to join in because I am an assistant youth advisor in my local Church ward.

Here is what I learned from those 7 days without constant social connection.

5: It was harder than I want to admit it was.

Granted, our lives are generally digital these days, but I’ve only owned a smartphone for five years, and I wish I was disciplined enough to not feel like I was going through withdrawals by avoiding Facebook or Twitter. That should be a warning to me.

4: Most of what I consume on social media is pointless.

We tell ourselves we are staying connected and informed…but about what? And at what price? How often are we really just filling ourselves with negativity and anxiety?

3: My immediate surroundings are more important than a digital environment.

It’s one of those things you know, but don’t realize that you were ignoring it until you actively address it.

2: The sting of a championship loss by your hometown’s first-ever pro sports team doesn’t suck as bad if you don’t wallow in it.

Up yours, Washington Capitals.

Really 2: Most of what I post is only interesting to me.

And I think my tweets and posts are just me assuming that my thoughts and observations are interesting to others. Instead of putting them online, I started writing them down privately. Hey, that used to be called a journal!

1: You do a lot of productive things when you don’t waste time online.

I packed food for work each night. I got out of bed on time. I hit the gym in the morning. And even though my kids ruined my scale with bath water, I can tell I lost a little more weight.

Were those the things President Nelson wanted me to learn with his challenge? Probably not, but I bet he suspected a lot of us would figure it out.

The real takeaway is that social media can be good if you actively make it so…but if you coast, and if you don’t prioritize, it becomes so much idle noise. Noise that distracts me from my commitments to my family and to God.

Even though I wasnt perfect in my fast (I did check it from time to time near the end, though I didn’t post anything), it helped me see what I want to do with it going forward.

If you didn’t participate in it this last week, try it sometime. Go without something that you are hooked on. See how you can better yourself without it.

Then get back to work.