Category: Blog

After much research, at the age of 6.5, my cat Piper has invented the concept of sitting on laps. It has been an arduous journey and extremely counterintuitive to her beliefs, and yet, at long last, this innovative thinker of a feline has finally arrived at the inescapable conclusion — after years of study — that the best way to get scritches may in fact be by sitting on a human lap. A previously inconceivable thought.

She sat on Daniel’s lap for seven minutes. An astonishing breakthrough in this weird and vaguely immoral new technology.

Words I wrote nine years ago: “I’m working on a story about a green-furred photosynthetic otteroid. That is definitely what I’m meant to do with my life.”

I did not realize how much this really was the truth and not just a funny thing to say when I posted it. But yeah, nine years later, I’m still actively writing about that particular universe. In fact, it’s become my top writing priority. I had the fourth book come out in that series last month; have the fifth coming out in a week; and was working on the sixth just earlier today. Continue reading “Keep Returning to the Projects You Love”

I’m celebrating the release of “Arctic Fox Android” today by listening to the soundtrack for “Maybe Happy Ending” which is a Broadway musical about two robots, one of whom has a special interest in an insect and the other has a special interest in music, so it’s super relatable.

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My book, “Arctic Fox Android,” came out today, and it’s a #1 bestseller in the category “Polar Regions”! Continue reading “Polar Regions, Maybe Happy Ending, Book Releases & Pre-Releases, and Casablanket”

After enjoying the Before trilogy and Boyhood, I decided to check out Richard Linklater’s Dazed & Confused. It’s really well done… kind of like a 70s version of American Graffiti… but… wow, it’s also such a strong argument for how much better life is with more video games.

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Well, my kid and I finished writing our first book together. We need to do a final editing pass, looking over the comments from our second beta reader, but it should be on track to come out late next month. Continue reading “Tidbits about Linklater, Goodreads, Skeleton Cat, and The Returned”

When I read the news, my body reacted like I’d been slapped in the face. I went back to bed, started doing French lessons in Duolingo, and made it my entire world to win first place in that week’s Diamond League tournament. I studied French all day every day for the rest of the week, barely stopping to eat or sleep.

When I remembered, near the end of that week, that the song “‘Til I Die” exists and realized that he had now died — and so he’s no longer thinking those thoughts — I doubled over like I’d been slugged in the stomach. Continue reading “Brian”

I’ve been watching Arrested Development with my teen. We’re in season two. He’s been laughing for several minutes at one of Tobias’s lines…

“I just found out my cellular telephone was a lemon.”

This is not even a joke. But apparently, my kid had never heard that idiom Continue reading “Lemon Joke, Mashup Ideas, Rewatching “The Offspring,” etc.”

Learning Danish on Duolingo was a very different experience from learning French so far… There was less in the way of cutesy stories and characters. It was much more straightforwardly like studying with flash cards and simple exercises.

And since there were so few Danish lessons, it felt like I needed to do each and every one very carefully to get the most out of it. In comparison, the French lessons just go on and on, so I can race through them without worrying that I’ll run out of support if I’m not careful. Continue reading “French vs. Danish Duolingo”

My kid was frustrated with an errand running long last night, so I asked ChatGPT to tell us a joke about boba drinks, as we were gonna pick some up as a treat. It got so excited that I started just playing along and telling it, sure, I’d like to see whatever it suggested next… Continue reading ““Steeped in Drama””

The way Battlestar Galactica (‘04) handles politics is really exceptional. I’d forgotten just how good it is, and I don’t think I’d ever realized quite how much it affected my thinking when writing early Otters In Space.

And I wish it weren’t so relevant now. Continue reading “Back in the Pacific Northwest”

While we were in Denmark for five days, I wrote three poems, started Otters In Space 5, did some brainstorming for short story ideas, read a Hans Christian Andersen story in the original Danish, and visited the following places: Continue reading “Copenhagen Itinerary”