Click here to rejoin family content. Since release of Secrets of Deara, I'm pausing on Shepherds of Truth while I try to get my marketing game in better order. I'm considering restructuring the emails to be once a month instead of every two weeks. Let me know your thoughts. (I know I have a couple of folks who love the family updates, or at least they have in the past.) How often do you like getting newsletters? Two a month has been good Switch to once a month Just send me info about sales...
16 days ago • 1 min read
Went with my wife and oldest daughter to college orientation in Arkansas. What a beautiful place! I'm not exactly the most sporty guy in the world (my school didn't offer quidditch), so I never really learned my own school's fight song, and now I have to learn another? But it was fun, and it's great to see my daughter so excited. (I mean, sure, she's excited that she's leaving us, so grain of salt and all that.) Another interesting bit—I’m leave for England the day this is going out. For...
30 days ago • 3 min read
Life is incredibly busy, but, generally speaking, it's also a lot of fun. With three teenage daughters, and now four cars, we've always got something in the shop, always have kids darting in and out of the house, always have exasperating moments of schedule conflicts. But those kids darting about are fun and funny, and the schedule conflicts are because everyone has their interesting stuffs. So yeah, bedlam, but I'm sure I'll miss it. And my wife and I still manage to sneak away for date...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
I showed my daughter and her friends how to use a miter saw and drill and set them loose for their school project. There’s still thirty fingers amongst them, so I’m declaring it a victory, whether they get an A or not I sent out the ARC ebook versions of Secrets. The paperback will take more time. Right now, only 11 people are signed up. That's the lowest I've ever had, which perhaps I should take as a sign. But this book is my favorite so far, and I think it is pretty solid with the rounds...
2 months ago • 1 min read
I haven’t divulged my marketing failures in a while, so I thought I’d provide an update. I mentioned before that I’ve stopped using Brian Cohen‘s strategies. I’m convinced they’re complete hogwash. Throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. I started using Matthew J. Holmes’s strategies. I began with Facebook ads, and more recently started doing Amazon ads. The strategies make a lot more sense, although I’ve still been unable to succeed with them. With Facebook, I moved from...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Due to a problem with internet magic failing, anyone who signed up for ARC of Secrets of Deara got lost. You should sign up again to be sure you're on the list. My apologies. Secrets of Deara is the third book in the Thaumatropic Roots series. May you get lost this week in another world. Follow me on Goodreads. Subscribe
2 months ago • 1 min read
Belated Happy Birthday to me! I'm 55 now, so 'bout time for a mid-life crisis, no? One-hundred and ten! From my youngest and my oldest… We have a lot of dark clouds hovering around us right now, so it was nice spending time with friends and relaxing a bit this weekend. Friday night, we played pool and listened to an 80s band with good friends. Saturday, my oldest had prom while my wife and I went to a fundraiser for a group that does surgeries for children born with congenital heart...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Treasure Falls in Colorado my daughters braving the slopes We took a family vacation to Colorado for the kids’ Spring Break. Probably the best story was that my wife, who tore her ACL on our last ski trip and only planned to ski one day, finished her practice run on the bunny slope and accidentally got on the lift that only leads to blue and black slopes. On the day with bitter winds and snow. She cried her way down, but made it in one piece, turning in her skis as soon as she reached the...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Crazy hectic. At the basketball banquet, my oldest daughter won a bball scholarship! I’m so proud of how hard she works. The coach shared an inspiring story of how, in my daughter’s sophomore year, the coach told my daughter she would be cut from the team in her junior year. My daughter buckled down and actually got pushed to varsity her junior year. Real fighting spirit. Meanwhile, I fought with a broken ice-maker, car repairs, and missing pieces to a bed we bought used from FB. 😭 I sent...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Whoa! March really snuck up on me. Not just because February is shorter, but rather life got busy. Starting a new role at a new company in the tech industry in your mid-fifties isn't a walk in the park. I'm on an emotional rollercoaster that goes from feeling like I know some specific thing better than most people, to dawning realizations that I have no idea how some other thing works and fear of when the new folks will realize how ignorant I am. Arrogance, fear, humility, once in a while...
4 months ago • 3 min read