Stories and Treks

My older brother and I shared a room growing up, and for many years we had this poster of the USS Enterprise hanging on our wall.

Neither of us were huge Trekkies, (or Trekkers) although I seem to remember my brother watching a fair share of TNG as he got older. But before that, we were little boys and it was a cool spaceship with a ton of really neat detail. That’s all that really mattered. After watching a few of the Star Trek films and finding out who Kirk and Spock and the rest of the crew were, I found even more enjoyment staring at the poster. Not only that, I was inspired by it.

And that’s what great stories and characters can do. That’s why there are millions of Trekkies and Star Wars and Batman fans. Millions of Dr. Who and Firefly and Sherlock fans. It’s because these mythologies have characters that we love and hate, characters we’re able to lose ourselves and our normal lives in, characters that change our lives.

And that’s why we see these characters popping up again and again. That’s why there have been 500 James Bond films. It’s why we’re getting a new Superman movie next month. These characters resonate.

So think about it as you’re crafting your story and characters. Are your characters worth caring about? Would anyone cry if they died? Does it break your heart when something horrible happens to them? Are you elated and inspired when they overcome their hardships and obstacles?

If you answered “no” to any of the above questions, chances are your characters aren’t quite where they need to be. I don’t have a silver bullet answer for what to do or how to fix them if they’re falling short. But the best characters not only have pieces of us in them, they allow us to project our hopes and dreams and fears onto them. It’s not easy to create a Katniss Everdeen or James Tiberius Kirk or Luke Skywalker, but it’s possible.

This past weekend I saw Star Trek Into Darkness, (which was fantastic) and got this cool Star Trek poster by Mark Englert. (it even glows in the dark)

As soon as I saw it, I knew what I was going to do with it. My two boys share a bedroom, and I hung it where they both can see if from their beds, next to the Batman and Star Wars pictures. They’re a little young for Star Trek, but they’re not too young to be inspired. And as they read Harry Potter and watch The Avengers I want them to have favorite characters and go through the love and hurt and joy and pain those characters go through.

If you ask me, that’s why we read and watch stories.

And why we tell them too.

If Ever I Stray

I was racking my brain all weekend trying to come up with a post for today. But I got nothing. I headed into work this morning, thinking maybe inspiration would strike. But after working most of the day, I’m still coming up empty. Possibly because I just turned in a new revision to my agent this weekend, and my mind is catching up on some needed rest. Whatever the reason, I’m drawing a blank.

So I thought I’d turn the time over to Frank Turner for some words of inspiration:

Love is free and life is cheap
As long as I’ve got me a place to sleep
Clothes on my back and some food to eat
I can’t ask for anything more

I think this holds true for wherever you are in life. It’s easy to get caught up in the negative things and forget how much we really have. I can honestly say I couldn’t ask for anything more in my life, and I hope you can say the same. Keep smiling, keep living, and keep creating!

I Don’t Care if I Never Get Back

Baseball is a lot like life. It’s a day-to-day existence, full of ups and downs. You make the most of your opportunities in baseball as you do in life. – Ernie Harwell

I don’t know if I have much to add to that. Because it’s absolutely true. Once again, baseball season has started, and once again I’m super excited for it. Both those handsome little men above are going to be playing T-ball this year, so we picked up the equipment we needed and started practicing in the back yard. I can’t really explain how happy it made me. I’m excited for my boys to play. To win and lose, to achieve and fail. I’m excited for the lessons they’ll learn, and I hope they’re able to apply those lessons to other areas of their lives. I’m excited for the endless possibilities of another season, and the endless possibilities of our lives.

Play ball!

You Are a Writer

Raise your hand if you’re an aspiring writer.

I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. You’re not an aspiring writer. You are a writer.

What does aspire mean? “To seek to attain or accomplish a particular goal. From Latin aspirare, literally, to breathe upon.”

I see you over there, in the corner, breathing onto your laptop.

“Shhh…I’m aspiring over here.”

No you’re not. You’re writing.

If you have, at one point, put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and written something – a poem, a short story, a screenplay, the first chapter to the next great American novel, you are, in fact, a writer.

Now, if you haven’t, if you’re still just breathing on the paper, but not putting anything on it, then, I guess, technically you’re an aspiring writer. But that’s okay. The great thing about writing is all you need is that pen and paper or that keyboard. There should be very little, if anything, physically holding you back.

Now, you might say that I’m stupid for that whole breathing thing. You might be thinking “I really AM an aspiring writer. I want to write the next Harry Potter or Twilight or On the Road or Catcher in the Rye.”

And that’s great. It’s great to have those goals. But let’s go back to the definition of aspire. To seek to accomplish a particular goal. You are an aspiring best-selling author, which is something altogether different.

It means you’re serious about this whole writing thing. It means that you’re not just going to mess around, but that you’re going to take your craft and make it into something people will pay you money to read.

And that’s awesome. You need to have goals, whatever they may be. But that’s just it, The goals are the finish line, and you’re never going to reach them if you don’t pick up that pen.

So just write.

Some of you might be rolling your eyes and saying “Ok, we get it, can you move on to the next visual?”

The answer is yes.

This is me and my two sons at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con. The lady we’re with is comic book writer Gail Simone, who has written tons of comics, including characters such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Deadpool, etc. (My kids are obviously impressed) And this is right before I turned to her and asked if she had any advice for an aspiring comic book writer.

I’m pretty sure I even used those exact words.

I’m not even going to make an excuse for myself. The point is, the second you make that effort and start writing, You’ve changed into a writer, so don’t sell yourself short.

The reason I’m spending so much time on this is I’ve heard so many times from friends. “Oh, that’s cool you wrote a book. I wish I could.” Like it’s some magical fairytale thing that I somehow managed to do and that they’d never be able to.

But it’s not magic, it’s just a matter of working hard.

So stop aspiring. Start writing. And if you’ve already started, keep writing.

I promise it’s not as scary as it sounds.

Happy New(ish) Year!

2013 already? Almost February already? Holy cow. Well, happy new year everyone! I’m sorry for this being my first appearance here in a while. Work and writing and life have been pretty busy lately. We have about seven weeks to finish up the movie Epic, which is what I’m currently working on. I’m really excited about it, and you can check out the trailer here.

As far as writing is concerned, I’m just finishing up a pretty major revision on my MG fantasy book. It feels like I’ve been revising this book forever and I’m pretty sick of the process, but I have to admit it keeps getting better. So I’m definitely glad I did it, it just wasn’t tons of fun. But that’s the life, right? So hopefully this will be the version my agent feels is ready to go out into the world. Fingers crossed!

At the beginning of the year, you know, exactly four weeks ago, I did a quick check to see how I did on my 2012 revisions. Overall I did all right. Still didn’t hit some things I really wanted to, but if felt like I put up a pretty good fight.

So I’m sitting at the (almost) beginning of another year, and I’m trying to come up with new goals for this year. I don’t know if it’s a copout or not, but I’m thinking about just keeping the goals I didn’t hit from last year.

Honestly, right now I’m pretty happy with life. I have an amazing family, great job, and I’m able to write and do side projects. There’s always room for growth and progress, and I want to keep striving for those. But right now I really just want to enjoy life, enjoy each day for what it is. I want to enjoy the little moments and not always be hoping and wishing and waiting for things.

Because hey, I’m alive for another day, and that’s pretty cool. All the best to you and yours this coming year!

My Stupid Book

Writing a book is a little bit like having a child.

I can’t really comment on whether or not it’s like actually giving birth, since I’m not equipped to make that comparison. And as hard as writing a book is, after watching my wife go through four pregnancies and c-sections, I’d say writing a book is, in fact, very tame. (p.s. My wife is amazing)

But, being a father, I think I’m qualified to make the case of books as children. You spend hours agonizing over decisions and choices and tiny little things that might have huge repercussions. You stay up late with them, you clean up their messes, you strive to make them the best they can be.

Sometimes they reward you for it and you experience emotional highs like never before.

Sometimes they throw up on you at two in the morning.

But at the end of the day, they’re your creation, and you love them.

Your parents and family and friends will adore them too. They’ll see past whatever flaws they might have and praise the good. At least they should. You need to have that support system, both as a parent and an author. But then things get trickier, because at some point, you send them out into the world, hoping that you’ve prepared them as well as you can for what’s to come.

And here’s the hard part. Your kids and your book are going to be judged.

They’re going to be judged on how well they perform, how well they can exist in the outside world, and so on and so forth. And those judgements are going to be a reflection of you, of your skills, of your abilities, of how well you did your job.

I’ve heard authors say they never read reviews. While it might be noble to refrain from reading them, it’s not really for me. When a movie I’ve worked on comes out, I religiously check Rotten Tomatoes to find out what people think. I don’t read all the reviews, but enough to get an idea of what worked and what didn’t. The same with my book.

Criticism is good, to a certain degree. Not only does it keep you humble and grounded, it can help reveal problems with what you’ve created that can be avoided in the future. No one has ever written a perfect book, or raised a perfect child, and having the flaws pointed out can help in your next endeavor.

When my book came out, the reviews were generally pretty good. Like I said, family and friends were very supportive. And people I didn’t even know seemed to respond well to it also.

Then one day, I got my first one star review on Goodreads. Since it’s short, I’ll quote it here:

“Probably the stupidest book I have ever read. Just stupid.”

I went through a lot of different emotions when I got that review. I was mad, annoyed, frustrated, hurt, and many other adjectives. I considered responding to the review, then figured it would be a bad idea. After I’d cooled off a bit, I decided to just write a short note saying something along the lines of “Thanks for reading. Sorry you didn’t enjoy it.” But when I clicked to make a comment, Goodreads showed this warning:

“Goodreads has found that it is not in an author’s best interest to engage with someone over a negative review. Please think twice before commenting on this review.”

Fair enough. I decided to simply hit the “like” button on the review and leave it at that.

As time has passed and I’ve thought about it more, I’m glad I didn’t say anything to the reviewer. I’m also glad I “liked” the review. For those reasons listed above, I’m actually thankful for the criticism. Not only does it compel me to work harder on my next book, it serves as a reminder that not everyone is going to love my work, no matter how good I think it is. And really, that’s fine. It’s just a book, and I’m glad the person took the time to read it.

That’s all we as authors and parents can really ask for. Give our creations a chance. Let them show you what they can do. Hopefully you’ll find something of redeeming value in them. If not, we’ll simply move on. No harm, no foul.

But fair warning:  If you ever call my kid stupid I might punch you in the face

Thankful

Is it cliche to write a Thanksgiving blog post about being thankful? Of course it is. But I’d feel like a huge jerk if I didn’t express how I feel. Over three weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, including the area of Connecticut where I live. We were without power, water, and heat for almost four days. Now, that’s not at all easy to do, especially with four kids under the age of 7. But we made it work. We all slept on the floor of the den in sleeping bags. We ran around and played outside, we generally had fun. And honestly, it was a good experience. It was cool for us to be without those things. It really made us appreciate what we had. On that fourth night, we came back from Target, and as we were driving up our street, saw that our neighbors had electricity. We held our breath, not wanting to get too excited in case our power wasn’t back on yet. But it was! We ran inside, turned on all the lights, and enjoyed being able to see each other at night without the aid of flashlights. We still slept on the den floor that night. But it was a much more peaceful sleep. We were warm, we knew the power was on if we needed anything, we knew we could flush the toilet anytime we wanted. I remember how thankful I felt laying there, as the kids drifted off to sleep.

I just didn’t realize how thankful I should be.

As we started to get connected to the world again, we saw the devastation Sandy had wreaked across New York and New Jersey. It looked awful. Houses were flooded or completely swept away. People had lost everything.

But it still didn’t really hit me until this last weekend. On Sunday my church chartered a couple school buses and drove down to an area of Queens known as the Rockaways. It’s a little peninsula of Long Island, and as such, is almost completely surrounded by water. On one side, the Lower Bay, on the other, the vast expanse known as the Atlantic Ocean. With absolutely nothing to break up the hurricane, the Rockaways were slammed hard by Sandy. We went down there to help wherever we could, and it turns out they needed help everywhere. Power was still out. Homes were destroyed, ruined cars lined the streets. Six hours later, after mucking out and hauling mud from basements and breaking up concrete and sweeping and all sorts of related activities, we were back on the buses, heading home to our warm, well-lit homes.

That’s probably when it hit me.

I have so much to be grateful for. I have a wonderful family I love. I have a job that allows me to be creative and also keep my family fed and clothed and sheltered. If that’s all I had I should be considered lucky. But I have so much more to be grateful for. And thanks to the Rockaways trip, I have an even greater perspective of that. Just as it’s kind of silly to have one day set aside each year to profess your love for your sweetheart, it’s equally silly to only have one day set aside for giving thanks. But I’m glad we have the one official day at least. I just hope we’re thankful the rest of the days too. And hopefully I never forget. Hopefully if I ever think to complain about traffic, or taking the trash out, or some other minor thing, I’ll think back to the people who lost everything, and I’ll be a little more thankful for what I have.

People are still struggling to get back on their feet. If you can afford to spare anything, here’s a list of places you can donate time and money to. Happy Thanksgiving!

Hard Work and Inspiration

Full disclosure: I’m not a huge White Stripes fan. I like a few of their songs, but I never got super into them. But a friend recently passed this video on to me, and not only does it give me extra appreciation for their music, it gives me a lot of respect for singer(/songwriter/guitarist/etc) Jack White.

He talks about dreaming of being able to record an album, dreaming of being able to play on stage. Once he finally achieved those things, he could have probably had a long, lucrative career coasting along, making so-so music and relying on his earlier hits to make up for later mediocrity.  Instead, he came up with a unique way of keeping the hunger there, of keeping the immediacy. He limits himself. He makes things hard to do when performing live. Little things that no musician of his stature should have to endure, he endures. And he does it to keep things raw and fresh and real.

So…this all relates to writing, right? I think it does. I’m going through a revision right now, and I’m coming to realize sometimes I just coast by. I write something that’s adequate and move on because it would be too hard to stretch and try to go down a certain road. But when I do that I end up leaving so much behind that could be better.

Doing hard things makes us better, and working hard makes us better.

As Jack says, “Inspiration and work ethic ride right next to each other…Not every day of your life are you gonna wake up and the clouds are gonna part and rays from heaven are gonna come down and you’re gonna write a song from it. I mean sometimes you just get in there and just force yourself to work and maybe something good will come out.”

Good will come of it, but we have to push ourselves. It’s the difference between telling an adequate story and an exceptional story.

Which one do you want to tell?

Catching Up

Hey folks! I know it’s been a while since my last post. The last month has been a pretty crazy one for me. My family had been living in Southern California for the last 5 1/2 years, and for the most part, we loved it. What we didn’t love was the lack of job security. So when a really good job offer from Blue Sky Studios (They do the Ice Age movies) came in, we jumped at it. The only problem? It was literally on the other side of the country in Greenwich, CT, 2802 miles away. But it was a great opportunity, so we rented a truck, piled all our junk in it, and hit the road. (I’m purposefully glossing over the packing process, which was awful.)

I’ve driven cross-country a few times, and loved it. But I’d never done it with four kids under the age of seven. Thank goodness for dvd players and Disney. Speaking of which, on one of our last California days, we hit up Disneyland one last time and grabbed a plush Perry the Platypus, and decided he was going to be our traveling buddy.

I highly recommend driving across this amazing country. There are a million things to see, and even things like the open expanses of Kansas can be breathtaking. But again, maybe don’t do it with little kids and a moving truck. (All said and done, the kids did great, though.)

After five long days on the road, we finally pulled into our new home in Connecticut. It was hot and humid, trees blocked the horizon in every direction, and there were spiders everywhere. I know I wasn’t alone when I thought we should just turn around and head back.

But one word that kept coming up when we told our friends and family about the move, was “adventure.” “This is going to be such a fun adventure” they’d tell us. And you know what? They were right. Getting lost and adjusting to new things and leaving our comfort zones and seeing my kids’ faces when they saw fireflies for the first time. This is an adventure. And what’s life for if not to have adventures?

A great American hero, Neil Armstrong, passed away this last weekend. As I was reading about his life, one quote of his really stuck out to me. He said, “I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.” Great words to live by, and ones I hope I can follow. I don’t want to miss out on adventures because I’ve become complacent, even if it means leaving behind everything I know. The clock is ticking, and so are our hearts. Let the adventure begin!

Song of the Week – The Lumineers

The songs that remind me of my wife are my favorites. I heard this song for the first time last week, but it’s already on the list.

And I love the video too.

“I belong with you, you belong with me. You’re my sweetheart.”

It Takes Work

Look at that picture again.

Good.

Why are you still here?

Well, since you are, I’ll elaborate a little on what Batman is telling you.

In the last five years I’ve been able to accomplish some of my bigger personal goals. I worked on a comic book movie. I worked on a Disney animated film. I wrote a book that got published.

I’m not trying to brag, I’m trying to illustrate a point.

A few people have told me they wish they could do some of those things.

Guess what? They can. There’s no secret to it, just like there’s no secret to any success in life. You work hard, you hustle, and you try to be in the right place at the right time.

Sometimes you win.

Sometimes you lose.

It’s hard.

It’s supposed to be.

I’m not telling you I never procrastinate. I do. I’ve probably wasted hours looking at baby English bulldogs.

I mean seriously, how adorable are these little guys?

But I’ve also been able to buckle down and get things done.

Because I had dreams and goals and didn’t just sit there wishing they’d come true.

I wanted them, and I worked for them.

Comic book artist/writer Faith Erin Hicks tweeted something a while back that really stuck with me.

She said, “What did you do this weekend to get closer to your goal of working in comics?”

Substitute “working in comics” with “writing a book” or whatever your goal is, and then think about it.

What did you do?

And more importantly, what are you going to do now?

It’s not going to fall in your lap.

You have to work for it.

But you can do it.

I believe in you.

And so does Batman.

Reaching “The End”

I’ve been on a pretty tight deadline the past few weeks, but finally Sunday morning, at 2:23 AM, I wrote two glorious words at the bottom of my Word document:

The End.

This is pretty much how I felt:

Followed by a good dose of this after I woke up later that day.

This is only my second time doing it, but finishing a book is a pretty awesome experience. (and don’t bring up revisions. I’m still on a high, okay?)  It’s so cool to be able to get to those last few paragraphs and realize it’s actually going to happen, that this story bouncing around in my head is finally going to be completely written down.

I know the hard parts are far from over. Even after I’ve made it as good as I can, it still might not find a home at a publisher. That’s how things go in this industry.

And even if it does get published, it might not sell well. It might get panned by Kirkus. Who knows?

But I’m not worried about any of that right now. I hope anyone who has ever finished writing a book takes the time to enjoy the accomplishment, because it really is a big one.

Whatever the future holds for you and your story, you wrote a book. That’s pretty darn cool, and you totally deserve one of these.

There will be plenty of time to plan for and worry about the future of this book, and I’m also excited for that part of the process. For right now though, I’m going to celebrate and enjoy the fact that this little story I’ve created has actually made it into the real world.

Right after I do this.
 

Song of the Week – Florence + the Machine

I was back home in Utah for the day last Saturday (more on that later). It had been a few years since I’d been there, and it was great to see my old stomping grounds. One of the best things was seeing the mountains I grew up with. As I drove down the freeway toward home, this song came on the radio. I had heard it a few times and really liked it, but something about being back where I grew up and driving to the house I’d lived in for the first 19 years of my life, made it stand out even more. I’ve been listening to it pretty much nonstop since then. I hope you like it too.

“I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart”

At Last!

Wow. The day is finally here. Almost four years after I started writing it, my book OLDSOUL was released today. I wrote a little about how I was feeling on the ADR3NALIN3 blog yesterday. It’s a pretty surreal feeling, to say the least. I just wanted to take a minute and thank my wife and kids for supporting me in this. There were a lot of late nights and busy days getting to this point, and I can’t say how much I appreciate them. I’m also grateful for all of the support I received from others. I’m truly blessed to have all that I have. I could never have gotten here without my family and friends.

Thank you.

The Old Ballgame

People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. ~Rogers Hornsby

It’s a little ridiculous how excited I am, but BASEBALL is finally here! I love baseball season anyway, but this year I’m especially excited. Part of it is due to my team, the Angels, making some huge offseason acquisitions that will most certainly help them this season. But I’m mainly excited for another reason. We’ve been taking our kids to baseball games pretty much since they were born. My boys are now 6 and 5, and toward the end of last season they started to get more into it. At the last game we went to I even brought scorecards so they could keep track of what was happening on the field. I don’t know if it’s the time of year, or if they’re just feeding off some subconscious energy, but the past few weeks my boys have been asking us when they’re going to go to another Angels game. And I couldn’t be more happy.

As I’ve talked about in posts for the last couple years, (here and here) baseball means much more to me than just a game. Although not perfect, it stands for many things I believe in, and I know my kids can grow and learn and become good people as a result of paying attention to the game. I recently came across this video of an incident that happened in 1976.

I don’t know why those two men were trying to burn the American flag, but I can’t help but be inspired by Rick Monday’s actions. He saw something he didn’t approve of happening, and he took action. There’s a saying in baseball that no matter how good you are, you’re going to win a third of the time, and you’re going to lose a third of the time, and it’s what you do with the other third that matters. Just like in baseball, we’re all going to have good experiences and bad ones. Good days and horrible ones. It’s what we do with them that matters. We decide how to act when put in those situations. We can stand by and watch or we can take action and stand up for what we believe in. I hope my kids can learn that, and I’m perfectly fine if they learn it from watching baseball.

Play ball!

PS. It’s just darn exciting.