Blog Post No. 714 My brother and I like to do a thing every once in a while we call a Day of Kings. It's nothing fancy or original, just a fun title for a day where we spend a bit of cash and do something special. We'll go to a concert, see a sporting event, have a nice meal, or take a trip to an amusement park.

Blog Post No. 713 It's another post about the day job, but, boy howdy, that's what's keeping me up at night right now. There isn't any one particular crisis and thankfully, some of the regular things that cause stress and strain like trying to get shifts covered haven't been an issue, but the sheer amount of emails is drowning me.

Blog Post No. 712 As someone who hasn't suffered from a lack of ideas for stories and generally writes with only a loose plot, I take it personally when I suffer from choice paralysis. Like, the last thing I need is to mention that sometimes the number of choices can be overwhelming and have someone tell me that if I plotted more, that wouldn't happen.

Blog Post No. 711 I think you'll agree (or maybe you're just better at being a human than I am) that there are certain things that you have to learn the hard way. You could have been told, shown, or read about but for some reason it doesn't sink in until you experience it yourself. Surely the thing that's nearly universal doesn't apply to me because I'm a special boy.

Blog Post No. 710 Would you consider Thursday the weekend? I technically don't especially since I regularly work on Saturdays. But last week, I had Saturday off, and I had an evening event on Thursday, so I'm going to count it because it's my post and I can do what I want. It also works for me to connect the two events that happened last week into one post so I have something to talk about and I can share the stuff that happened.

Blog Post No. 709 There was a period of time where I was listening to podcasts all the time. I would put a specific one on in the morning while I got ready for work, I'd listen to a different one to go for a walk, and others in bed trying to wind down at the end of the day. I don't really know why I stopped.

Blog Post No. 708 I don't want to do anything right now. It's probably partially due to how busy the last few weeks have been, but I don't even want to write this post. The only way I even managed to get as far as this first paragraph was because I finally thought of the topic (which is I'm tired and don't want to do anything) and that was enough momentum to at least start and as I've mentioned many times before, …

Blog Post No. 707 There's an interesting (and totally understandable) cycle that happens at my day job. The crux of it is that there's a lot of hurry-up and wait in my position. What tends to happen is a lot of inquires come in, or there are questions that need an answer from a supervisor, and it all gets backed up onto lists and charts, and then all at once, answers come, details are confirmed, decisions are made, and I have a bunch of things to finish now.

Blog Post No. 706 In a few weeks, August 27th to be exact, I'll be co-hosting a short story workshop with Christian. The workshop is being put on by Rose City Writers, and will be held at River Bookshop in Amherstburg. You can see it in my events list, so you know it's true. Did I mention that this workshop will be about…

Blog Post No. 705 I'm concerned that this is a thing now. I'm in a position at the day job where I get paid vacation, but I feel like it's impossible to actually use it. I'm trying to get better at leaving work at work, but there's a certain amount of chaos that happens when I'm not there, even over the weekend.

Blog Post No. 704 I have a whiteboard on my wall behind my desk. I got it a long time ago when I saw a friend using one for keeping track of projects in university and thought it would be helpful for me. It was for a bit, but I stopped updating it after a while. I picked it back up during lockdowns, hanging on the wall and filling in projects.

Blog Post No. 703 Welp. Here we are in the middle of July and I hit my first week where I just don't know what to write about. I have a couple of topics for posts coming up, but they relate to specific things, so I'm holding off on those until closer to the appropriate date. I was at Windsor FanCon last weekend, so I could just write about that, but my experience has shown me those posts don't do very well.

Blog Post No. 702 Putting on a facade or persona is nothing new. Without any research or knowledge, I assume we've been putting on faces in public since before there's been humans as we know it. There's our true self, scared and selfish, who we are with our families and friends, our public persona, and even who we pretend to be at work.

Blog Post No. 701 As a boy, the best time of the year was summer vacation. Like so many other kids, I counted down the minutes to recess, the days to the weekend, and the weeks to summer. As an adult, I'm able to look back a bit more fondly on grade school, but most of that is nostalgia for a simpler time and the…

Blog Post No. 700 It's the 700th post so you know what that means! It's totally just a normal week with a normal topic. This time, I'm excited to share a couple of events I've been invited to take part in over the next few months. My next event is Windsor FanCon on Saturday July 11th and Sunday July 12th, where I'll be sitting at a table with Christian.

Blog Post No. 699 As mentioned in last week's post, the hardest part of writing this weekly blog is coming up with a new idea every week. Initially, the struggle was to actually sit down and write the thing, but that was the point of this website in the first place. It was to see if I could figure out a way to write regularly, and now it's been almost 700 weeks and it's sometimes hard to come up with ideas.

Blog Post No. 697 Music is one of the topics I write about often on this site. It's a part of my life in small but consistent ways. Like most people, I listen to the radio/music in the car, but also if I'm alone at the day job, when I get ready in the morning or at night, and especially when I'm writing.

Blog Post No. 696 The first time I sat down to write a story, I thought it would be easy and I'd be so good at it. I had a vivid imagination and I was always coming up with ideas and making up stories in my mind. It was a shock when writing turned out to be actual work and the first stuff I tried to write was terrible.

Blog Post No. 695 For a while, I've really been stuck on posts about work, looking back on jobs, working alone, working at night, etc. I'm not sure why I have the obsession, but there are sensations from some of those situations that are right at the edge of my memory and I keep reaching for them. I know some of that has to do with working a job with little to no responsibility.

Blog Post No. 694 Welcome to what I've decided will be another annual post. I have now been in my current fulltime day-job for three years. That may not seem like much, but it's my 15th year in the building. The reason these posts have graduated to annual status is because of how much time and energy this job demands. The stakes aren't high.

Blog Post No. 693 I honestly don't remember when I last started writing a novel. I could dig into the posts and probably find a rough start date for the Invasion Novel, but I don't really feel like doing that. The Invasion Novel was the last book that I finished. It was rejected from a few agents and I decided that the opening wasn't strong enough, so I plan to eventually go back and chop up the first 3 or 4 chapters and make it more punchy.

Blog Post No. 692 This past Sunday, I was in Sarnia for the 10th annual Sarnia Pop Culture Show. I love going to the event because it's the perfect mix of out of town, but a reasonable drive. I've been a few time and there are always cool people, and it's a well organized event. Plus, I have sold pretty well there in the past!

Blog Post No. 691 A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about all the training I've had to do lately.  Writing the post and spending time in rooms doing the actual training got me thinking about school. I've been out of school now as long as I was in school, which is a weird thing to think about. Even more weird is the thought that, in some ways, I miss it.

Blog Post No. 690 Not long after I started trying to take writing seriously and the original writing crew founded Adventure Worlds, we talked about renting a place nearby to go on a writing retreat. It was in 2014 that we started to talk about it and I'm pretty sure it wasn't long after that we booked a place because the…

Blog Post No. 689 My yearly schedule of events (as limited as it currently may be) seems to follow a pattern. I'll have one or two events in the spring, maybe something local with friends and likely a nearby convention I've been to before. Then there might be something in the summer, but usually that's a slower time for everyone, and if I'm lucky, I'll have another couple of events in the fall or winter.

Blog Post No. 688 Back in March of 2020, days before the world shut down (six-years-ago now) my brother and I went across the border to see my favourite band play in Detroit. In a few weeks from now, that band is coming back on a tour for their new album, and I won't be going.

Blog Post No. 687 As part of my day job, I'm required to take part in specific training sessions and be officially qualified in specific jobs. Some of them are pretty standard for the type of place where I work, some are required because of my position, and one is a strange training to have, but specifically has to do with one aspect of the building where I work that I can't seem to ever escape.

Blog Post No. 686 I'm confident in saying that I'm not alone in being just so tired all the time. Everyone has things in their lives that make them tired, frustrated, and burnt-out. Those things usually hinder sleep when they require more sleep to make better. Adults might suffer more, but even kids have their worries. I'm also confident that right now, everyone is more tired than normal.

Blog Post No. 685 I've been on a big kick buying physical media. It started years ago when records started to make a comeback and I bought a cheap turntable and some albums from my favourite bands. I don't buy quite so many records now since they've gotten so expensive, but I did end up buying a turntable that matches the old, 90s…

Blog Post No. 684 As a creature of habit and a troll who lives under the bridge of routine, I tend to struggle when there are too many shakeups. You can read my post from two weeks ago to get a sense of how off the rails I get when even a website changes the way I write these posts. I'm not opposed to change, but I was considering what it was about routine that I find comforting and beneficial and the idea of ritual came to mind.

Blog Post No. 683 When it comes to writing, my focus continues to be getting short stories published. As of the writing of this post, I remain at 2. (You can see more info about them here). Of course, the central aspect is writing and editing short stories, but you can have a million stories sitting in a folder on a computer.

Blog Post No. 682 I don't think it would be a surprise to anyone that I struggle with change. I don't hate change and sometimes (given the circumstances) I'm desperate for change, but for some things, I just want to be able to do the thing I do and not have to learn new things when the reason for change is arguably not worth the stress and hassle that cascades beyond the thing that changed in the first place.

Blog Post No. 681 We're right in the middle of winter and boy it's been a cold one. We've had a pretty good amount of snow, too. At least for the area where I live in southern Ontario. Thankfully, we're more than half-way through the dreaded daylight saving dark evenings. It's not totally dark as midnight by 6pm anymore, but that doesn't help us with the cold or the snow.

Blog Post No. 680 One of the earliest post I made on this site was about how I don't like wearing pants. I'm not sure when the change happened, but at some point in the last 15 or so years, I stopped minding. I wouldn't say I'm a convert and love pants, but they don't bother me anymore. I say that as an awkward introduction to a story about how I just bought new pants for work.

Blog Post No.  679 I think I'm on a bit of a loop with topics about night, solitude, perspective. It's been stuck in my head for a while. I hope I'm at least approaching the topics in different ways, or my personal perspective on the subject is evolving, so the posts are all somewhat interesting. If not, it's my website, so you can deal with it.

Blog Post No. 678 In general, I've always enjoyed organization. I wasn't always good at it, but I appreciated it. I sometimes need to motivate myself to get started with cleaning (or most things) but it doesn't take much to get me to sort, categorize, or coordinate. In fact, I often will start to clean and end up spending too much time going through things.

Blog Post No. 677 2025 is in the books and I think we're all glad that train wreck is finally over. While there are always good moments and I have some things to celebrate, more than anything, it was an exhausting slog. I'm sick of politics and worn to the nub from the day job. Thankfully, I managed to relax a bit over the holiday, so now that I'm back to the regular day job routine, I can hopefully survive to the next vacation.

Blog Post No. 676 As I've motioned previously in posts around the New Year, I've never been one for resolutions. I don't want to take away the fun for others, but it's just not my thing. I think I should kind of always be thinking about the ways I can improve myself and my situation and there is no time like the present to make the change.

Blog Post No. 675 To those who celebrate, Merry Christmas. To those who don't, I hope you're having a good day off or, if you're stuck at work, it's not too tough a day. My family celebrates Christmas, so that's what I'm doing today. Spending time with family, doing the modern holiday thing with food and gifts. It's a time I look forward to because I have so many fond memories from childhood and I enjoy spending time with my family.

Blog Post No. 674 Now that we're all suffering through 5pm sunsets and evenings as dark as night, I've been trying to keep my spirits up and not fall into the melancholy mode of distracting myself by watching television shows I've seen too many times before. In my search for a spark in the dark, I've remembered playing in the evenings as a kid.

Blog Post No. 673 Maybe the title should be bad at time management, but I think you get the idea. My family holiday celebration is in two weeks and I am not prepared! I knew it was coming. I started thinking about it in October and again in November. I left things too long, assumed I'd have more time, convinced myself I'd have more energy.

Blog Post No. 672 I've been making more of an effort this year to keep in touch with friends. Especially friends who live in my area. I still want to keep in touch with friends who live elsewhere, but with local friends, I get to also push myself to leave the house for more than just the day job or getting groceries.

Blog Post No. 671 I'm still at two short stories published, but both of the books I'm in are available to purchase, so let's take a look at them, and my stories in them! Mostly because both books look awesome and I'm stoked I have a) any stories published, and b) stories published in such cool anthologies with other great stories!

Blog Post No. 670 Something happened. I'm struggling to explain it. I don't know why or how, but this website (the one you're on right now) was attacked by a flood of bots. On an average week, I get anywhere from 20-70 people coming to my website and a smaller percentage of that actually clicks on any given page or post to read what's there.

Blog Post No. 669 We're screaming towards the end of the year at a speed I can't really get my head around. It's mid-way through November and while I have so much to do, I also have some days off at the day-job that if I don't take, I will lose. And that's not an option! I still find it strange to not only get days off, but that they're paid days.

Blog Post no. 668 I have a long list of daily tasks at the day job. Each week I start with a full list broken into what is most important each day and check them off as I go. I have to return deposits, check the schedules, return emails (so many emails) confirm bookings, manage maintenance inquires, complete health and safety, and so on.

Blog Post No. 667 I can't remember the first story I ever thought up. One of the earliest stories I wrote was in, I think, grade three. It was about a kid who believed in Santa in a world that didn't. I read the story at a radio show event in 2017. Anyway, I would make up stories as a kid, usually inserting myself into tv shows or movies I liked.

Blog Post No. 666 Before I get into this week's post, I'd like to acknowledge the happenstance of the 666th post happening so close to Halloween. If only I were capable of planning something that far ahead. What I'd really like to explore, however, is some of the things I've picked up in the last few years with writing and submitting my…

Blog Post No. 665 When I was a child, there were about a dozen television stations over the air and many more on cable (but I didn't have cable so that didn't matter). The big networks were still the number one game in town, so if there was a popular show, most people would watch it and talk about it the next day.

Blog Post No. 664 At the day job, I have two whiteboard wall calendars. One is for the current month, the other is for the next month. I live my work life through those calendars. Scheduling, booking, programs, tech shifts, I can see what's on the books and where we have holes at a glance. Out of all my procedures and systems, it is the single most useful tool I have.