Have You Met... Monday (#4): Jenny Dantes

Today's post is for the fabulous Jenny Dantes! Ever meet those people in some random fashion and just realize that they're incredible, like in the first two seconds? Jenny is one of those people. If you've EVER met her, you know what I'm talking about. Also, she knows her sake - that alone is worth taking the time to get to know her. But, as the game show voice says, that's not all!

Jenny is an artist, whose focus is on nerdy pop culture. I'm a fan of nerdy pop culture in general, and in Jenny's case, she pretty much covers all my favorites. So, yes, I'm automatically a fan of her work anyway.

Go check her Inferno Creations Etsy site out if you're not local to the Pacific Northwest (or even if you are), and or also go check out her FaceBook page to see her schedule of appearances at local markets and more deets about the Amazing Dantes! 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I can't even remember the first time I was asked that question. I know I can't remember it, because my mom wrote about it in my baby book. I was clearly pretty young, but she asked me about it, because I guess that's what you do to your kids as a way to figure out exactly how grown up they already are. Sort of a mental calibration similar in concept to marking off their growth progress on the wall with little tick marks.

"Walk? Check. Toilet trained? Check. Tie shoes? Check. Knows what they want to be when they grow up? Hmm... okay, still working on that one."

My father was a fireman. He's retired now, but I remember him coming home from his 24-hour shifts, looking so much more exhausted than I thought I'd ever be personally capable. He was always (and remains) my own personal superhero, and he was a fireman for many years. It was his job. It became his career.

It was a wildly different world, then - after your education, you eventually found your way into a job, which you often pursued until the day you retired. Many people had that one job for a lifetime. Me, I've had several jobs - two of which have lasted nine and 12 years, respectively. Writing, on the other hand, has been something I've pursued since I was much, much younger. Well back before I even realized people would actually pay you to write down your stories.

I'd thought back then it was going to be comic books - and perhaps someday it still could be. But I've told stories in a variety of mediums - music, acting, drawing and so on. But writing, well, it just stuck. Sometimes, that's just how it works, I suppose.

All the same, I don't feel so much like I've grown up as much as I've just grown. I'm older, but still learning, still figuring these things out, still a bit impatient, still somehow managing to find silver linings in every cloud. And I'm all right with that. It's an adventure, this life of ours. Might as well spend every available moment soaking it in.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what I told my mother when she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, it's simple.

I wanted to be Spider Man.

Have You Met...? Monday (# 3): Sonya Lea

... Sonya Lea? 

When you're any kind of artist, every so often you come across someone who is so faithful and meticulously skilled at their craft that you have no choice but to at least momentarily ask yourself what the hell you're doing trying to call yourself an artist. Sonya was that person to me. She's absolutely, simply, and non-hyperbolically a fantastic writer, and, in addition to that, a wonderful person. Her focus currently is in screenplays, but her writing in all mediums is... well, is breathtaking a hyperbole? Probably. But it still fits, so I'm standing by it.

We crossed paths a few years ago, and I was introduced to her story, which I won't share here so much as direct you to her site so you can learn about it from her own words. Simply put, Sonya does with words what a ballet dancer does with the laws of gravity. For you fellow writers out there, you are no doubt familiar with the old advice of "write what you know" - well, Sonya has taken that to a fantastic level, having culled the depth and breadth of her own deeply personal adventures and challenges into brilliant and living writings.

Also, she's involved with a fantastic crowdsourced project that you should look into. It wraps up on June 19th, so waste no moment more! Go! Go!

Free! Free, I tell you!

So, one of the great things about having digital books as an available format is that they don't take up any space in a warehouse and cost next to nothing to distribute. And that gives authors a wonderful option of being able to practically give the darn things away as a promotional thing.

So this weekend - in light of it being father's day tomorrow and being about a week plus change from one of my many birthdays (I only have one each year, but I've still had a few of them so far), I've offered a couple of my books as FREE this weekend.

First up is Hollow, a short story from the "Into the Dust" collection I created with Miss Marvel herself, Kiri Callaghan. It's part of our Dark Fantasy Peter Pan series - this one is about Faeries. Yeah, that's right. Faeries. What are you still doing here? Click the darned thing!

The other is none other than Reaper's Return , a full novel I first wrote which started the whole Steampunk series, Chronicles of Aesirium. In this book, we first meet Rom, learn about Oldtown-Against-the-Wall and we discover some of the issues facing this small down of exiles in a world where they're just trying to survive. I can't help but look fondly on this book; it's where I first got to share that world with everyone, and most importantly, where I got introduce you all to Rom, Kari, Cousins and Mulligan. Oh, and it's the first appearance of Favo Carr himself, that rogue and charming bastard. If ever there were a nerfherder, that man was it. 

So, anyway, I know it's my birthday coming up, but I got you a little something. I know I shouldn't have, but that's probably why I did it. Enjoy!

Have You Met.... ? Monday #2: Emma Michaels

Have you met.... Emma Michaels? First off, she's awesome. And not just "awesome", but, like awesome awesome. Like awesome on caffeine. In a microwave. Bluetoothed. With a fricking Einstein-Rosen wormhole. 

And in case that verbiage seems a bit...um... effusive?... then allow me to point out that she's not just an author and cover artist (and doesn't just play one on TV), but she's a bona fide student of aeronautics and aerospace engineering. So, you know, like rocket science and stuff. ROCKET SCIENCE. Seriously. Pretty damn impressive.

Also, her books are wonderful. Take, for example, Owlet. "Somewhere between falling and flying… there is a girl." COME ON. Awesome. It's a fantastic story about a girl who discovers that the world she has always known is not the life she is actually a part of. Emma did a wonderful thing, by building a story up from her own experiences with having asthma into a story where what might have otherwise been seen as a weakness, becomes the means by which she discovers the truth. Weakness becoming strength... what a perfect analogy for youth, I think. 

Emma got into writing the old-fashioned way - - by working her butt off. By being nice to people. By helping contribute to the industry she dreamed of being a part of, and not just hoping one day to be discovered. Hard work, people. Take note. 

Emma is one of my Steampunk friends - which has a very special space in my heart anyway, but she's also a rampant Whovian and a friend to Studio Ghibli movies. So, you know, if you didn't already realize how awesome she is, now you have no excuse.

Go check her books out at www.emmamichaels.com and support this fantastic and really wonderful storyteller. You'll be so glad you did. And, obviously, she will be too. ;)

Check back here next monday for our next "Have You Met...?" - and feel free to make recommendations below for people you think everyone else should meet!

Back to the Well

It's weird to believe it's already June. I know, there are a lot of reasons to point to - but it's definitely weird in that I completed my last book in February, and aside from a bunch of short stories, I haven't worked on a new novel since then. Four months, yikes.

Well, the new outline is completed and I've just done the first chapter + point five and I'm right back in that mindset that floods me with creative satisfaction. In short, good lord, I love writing.

There've been a few things that had been on my mind lately, mostly from watching the news and reading the internet. Things like Climate Change, gun violence, and corporate megalomania, mostly. You know, things that we could probably totally fix but we just somehow cannot manage to do so... and then I looked back into the story I'm writing. Which is about the world, resting on the edge of a blade, and only one dead man being at the center of that all-important final (?) moment.

So there I go, huh? Of course I'm worked up. Of course I'm filled with anxiety and frustration at a world that, for all intents and purposes, seems content to let things get worse and worse without lifting a finger to change it. We find ourselves rooted to the old ways without doing more than idly dreaming that there could be a way to make things better.

Of course, cosmos. I know. That's why I write books. For the stories. For the imagination. And also, for the possibility that people can dream bigger.

So I go back to the well. One bucket at a time, we nourish the fields. And one day, the good food will grow. Sounds a bit preachy, huh? Well, they're also fun stories. I promise: layers.

Thankfully, some of those old struggles and tales are immortal. Heroic quests from the dawn of time. Folklore, urban legends - even the classic old books dating back to ancient Greece, the Middle East, Asia - the big quests always start with an idea... and a single step.

Back to work for now. Thanks for reading!