Happy Birthday, Eldest!

Today is my eldest, my heart's, seventeenth birthday. Here is a conversation we had yesterday, via text:

I love this kid so much. Happy Birthday, sweetheart!

Optimism

First off - how bout them Seahawks?

Now, anyway, we took the kidlets to the Braves vs. Nationals on Saturday afternoon, and in spite of a dismal beginning, it turned out to be the best baseball game I've ever seen live.

We'd originally planned on going on Sunday, because it was a one o'clock game, and kids are allowed to run the bases after. My nephew, Bryce, started playing baseball this year, and would have loved to run the bases. But that was a big game, so MLB moved it to 8PM, and we had to change our plans.

We got a great deal on club level seats, which is pretty awesome, because they're great seats, but in spite of that, the game looked like it would be pretty disappointing at first. The main reason I wanted to go was to have one final chance to see Chipper Jones play at Turner Field. If you know anything about baseball, you know that Chipper is a first-ballot hall of famer, and possibly the best switch-hitter to ever play the game. So when we got to our seats, and I saw that not only was Tommy Hanson pitching, but Chipper wasn't starting, I was prepared to be furious.

Then, things got worse when we went down 4-0 by the top of the second. It looked like it was going to be a long, hard day. But I stayed optimistic, and kept an open mind, knowing the kids would enjoy themselves regardless, as long as they got cotton candy and ice cream (which they did), so I was pleasantly surprised when Freddy Freeman and Jason Heyward tied the game up by the sixth, and then Chipper came into the game.

The stands went wild as he stepped to the plate:

And my nephew started choppin':

Sadly, no hit for Chipper, but he did walk, and was on base as a hit batsman (Andrelton Simmons - welcome back!) drove in the eventual winning run. Here is in a powwow at third, while the Washington manager was getting tossed from the game at first:

Then, eventually, it was 5-4 in the top of the ninth, and we got to see my favorite Brave come in for the save:

I wish I could've gotten a better photo, but I only had my phone, so in case you cant' tell, that's Craig Kimbrel, the best young closer in the game.

He let one hitter on base with a single to left, but otherwise struck out the side, and put a perfect ending on what turned out to be a great day.

Here are a few other photos:

Mom and the kids.

That's how I wanna spend my 95th birthday.

Club-level seats, even the kids love em!

So that's it. How was your weekend? I've got some queries coming up soon, and then some tours and guest posts, so hopefully I'm going to be able to get back into the swing of blogging. I hope you all will start coming back to read. Anyway, have as good a Monday as you can!

The Kindness Project: Giving

Too often kindness is relegated to a random act performed only when we’re feeling good. But an even greater kindness (to ourselves and others) occurs when we reach out even when we aren't feeling entirely whole . It’s not easy, and no one is perfect. But we’ve decided it’s not impossible to brighten the world one smile, one kind word, one blog post at a time. To that end, a few of us writers have established The Kindness Project, starting with a series of inspirational posts.

Today I just want to highlight something I heard about on the radio. I know, it's kind of a cop-out in comparison to some of the other Kindness Project posts I've done, but I've been slammed at work lately, and even being on a hiatus from blogging hasn't helped much.

So anyway, I was listening to NPR on the way in this morning, as I am wont to do, and I heard this story, about literary giant Larry McMurtry, author of Terms of Endearment and Lonesome Dove, among others, who is holding an auction for 300,000 rare and used books.

His bookstore, Booked Up, is apparently a sprawling operation that takes up four buildings in his tiny town of Archer City, Texas. It's home to around half a million books, the majority of which will soon be going up for auction. In the interview, he said that he was concerned about his legacy, but wanted to unload some of the books because his son and his grandson are not book people.

This got me thinking about family, legacies, and giving. My dad died four years ago this October, and when my sisters and I went through his house, there was a lot of stuff to decide about. A lot of paintings, a lot of records, and a lot of books. Not nearly as many as Mr. McMurtry, of course, but a lot. We still have not had time to go through it all.

He died suddenly, and while he did have a will, it didn't specify what he wanted done with any particular items, so we've put most of it in storage until we have time to decide what to do with it. Someday I hope to have time to decide what I want to keep, and what I can give away, assuming someone somewhere wants it.

When I first heard about this auction, I was saddened and amazed (he's not giving the books away for free or anything, but still), but then I remembered my dad's stuff, and recalled what a burden it can be.

I don't know if I really have a point, but you should check out that story, it's pretty interesting. And here are the rest of today's Kindness Project posts:

The Kindness Project: Forgiveness

Too often kindness is relegated to a random act performed only when we’re feeling good. But an even greater kindness (to ourselves and others) occurs when we reach out even when we aren't feeling entirely whole . It’s not easy, and no one is perfect. But we’ve decided it’s not impossible to brighten the world one smile, one kind word, one blog post at a time. To that end, a few of us writers have established The Kindness Project, starting with a series of inspirational posts.

If you read this blog a lot, you know that my kid sister got married last week. It was a lovely wedding, and for the most part, a wonderful time. What I didn't tell you is that it was the first time I'd seen my aunt and uncle, and one of my cousins, in twenty years.

I'm not going to go into all the details why, but if you know me well, you can probably guess. Anyway, the point is, it was a difficult reunion for me to face. I stressed about it for months before the trip - pretty much ever since I heard the wedding was going to happen.

The last time I saw these people, I was basically a boy. A lot had changed since then, but the same feelings remained. The same feelings many young people feel toward people in positions of authority over them, whether they are their natural parents or not. Sure, I was much more rebellious than most teenagers, but I had plenty of reason to feel the way I felt.

However, justified or not, my feelings and old resentments, were not going to serve the purpose of the trip: to celebrate my sister's union with the person she'd decided to spend her life with. In other words: it wasn't about me.

So I sent my aunt and uncle an email ahead of time, asking them for forgiveness, and implying I forgave them, without mentioning any specific grievances. I didn't expect a reply, and I didn't get one, but what I did get, which was a nice surprise, was a hug from each of them, when I happened to answer the door at the rental house, when they arrived in town the day before the wedding.

We're not best friends again or anything, but we did agree to start writing to each other, and I hope that things will go well. Even if we didn't always see eye to eye back in the day, there's no denying what they did for my sister, so I made sure to thank them for that when I gave my toast after dinner.

Even if forgiveness isn't going to make a huge difference to the people you need to forgive, sometimes forgiving yourself, or even acknowledging that you need to seek forgiveness, can lift a heavy burden from your shoulders. Letting go can be extremely liberating. I highly recommend it.

NOTE: On another kindness related point, Natalie Aguirre is interviewing one of the kindest bloggers I know today on Literary Rambles. Please stop by, and say hello to Lenny Lee!

I'm Back

So ... my sister got married. That's us in the photo. Mostly this will be a post of photos. This is where we were:

And this is the building where we had the dance (inside):

I'm not going to go a whole lot more into the wedding, because my family, and my personal, life aren't really the point of this blog.

More to the point of this blog, I met up with a bunch of awesome writers and bloggers on Sunday night at the Cambridge Common Restaurant. Here's the proof:

This is all of us, including my daughter, Middle Grade Madi, who is a HUGE fan of Anna Staniszewski. Anna brought Madi some awesome swag, and we're all looking forward to her next book!

And all of us without my kid, for privacy purposes.

Madi with one of her favorite authors!

Anna, trying her damndest to be as funny as me.

Heather Kelly and I, which reminds how sad I was Jon Arntson (no link, because he's re-focusing) couldn't come.

Me and Kristen Wixted. Woot! I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't even know Kristen lived in the area, until she commented on Sarah's blog, but I'm so glad she came, because she's just as cool as she looks.

Sarah Fine and I. This is a terrible photo. Just look at the next one instead.

Yes. This one. Sarah was the writer I looked forward to meeting most. Not for any weird reasons you might be considering. Mainly, because she has a book coming out soon that looks like it's right up my alley, but also because we correspond a lot, I've looked up to her for a few years, and it's very exciting to see someone you've known since (almost) the beginning, achieving their dreams.

Other than all that nonsense, it was a wonderful trip (in spite of one travel day of horror), and I'm extremely happy for both my family, and for all my writer friends who have great news occurring in their careers. I'll get on some queries tomorrow, but for now, I need to write.

My Very Un-Fairy Tale Life, by Anna Staniszewski

A few weeks ago writer blogger Heather Kelly asked me to participate in an ARC blog tour for Anna Staniszewski's debut novel, My Very Un-Fairy Tale Life.

When I first saw the cover, I thought to myself: this looks pretty funny, but probably not the kind of book I would run out to buy on release day (being a dude, I like explosions, sword-fights, car-chases, lightsabers, that kind of thing). But also being a writer, and a writer who blogs, I really do care a lot about helping each other out, so I figured what's the worst that could happen?

Sure I could have received the book, read it, hated it, and then felt really awkward about telling Anna and Heather that I just couldn't take part in the tour. But I should have known I wouldn't have to worry about any of that.

The day the package showed up at my house (we get a lot of books sent to us) my 10 year old daughter, Madison, wanted to know what was in it. When I opened it, and saw what it was, I told her the story of the ARC tour, and explained how such things work.

When she saw the cover she started freaking out. "Daddy, daddy, please let me read it? Please, please, please?" I may be paraphrasing here, but the point is my kid was not going to let me end the conversation without agreeing to let her read the book first.

So I did. It was clear that the cover was doing its job, and I figured if the book was marketed toward this kind of audience, why not let Madison in on the tour? The book is about 12-year-old Jenny, anyway, so it's a MG novel that is just right for my daughter's reading level.

I could go on about how exciting this all was, but I should probably get to the interview I conducted with Madison before this post goes on any longer.

When we first opened the package the book came in, you saw the cover, and immediately asked me if you could read it first. What was it about the cover that made you want to read the book?

It was the opposite of a fairytale (which are usually pretty boring, snore).

Did the book live up to what you expected it would be like, based on what you liked about the cover?

Yes, it was funny, and not as old fashioned as normal fairytales.

Who was your favorite character, and what did you like best about them?

Jenny, because she says the funny (and cheesy) things that could come out of a movie.

Without giving away any spoilers, what was your favorite part of the book?

Where the friends figured out Jenny was lying.

Have you read any books that were similar to this book? If so which ones, and how would you compare them?

Not really, I can’t think of any books like this one.

I saw you doing some writing in your notebook the day you finished this book. Did it inspire you to write a story of your own?

Yes, because it was fun to read.

Do you notice any themes in this story? If so, what did you think of them?

No I didn’t notice any themes in this story. [Editor's note: that's a tough question for a 10-year-old without giving her a chance to discuss the book with other readers, come on, dad]

Regarding the main character, what did she stand for, what was she trying to accomplish? And did you find yourself rooting for her?

She wanted to get being an adventurer over with, but once she did she wanted to get it back. And yes, I found myself rooting for her.

Old picture, I know, but too adorable not to use.

Finally, would you recommend this book to your friends, and what kinds of kids do you think would like it?

Yes, fiction-liking kids of any grade, up to like 8th.

Okay, so that's it for the interview. Brief, I know, but she's only ten.

Now, I will add that I haven't read the book myself yet (Madison just finished it on Sunday), but I have read the first chapter, which you can read too, here, and while it's still not really a book for overweight, hairy dads in their mid 30s, it is really hilarious.

I suggest you give it a look yourself. You can find Anna's blog here, and her website, here. Here are some other places you can find Anna and her book:

Twitter
Facebook
Goodreads
RSS
Watch the trailer

And that's it for today. Any questions?

iPad and the Young Mind

So I went and bought an iPad on Monday night. We'd been saving for it for a few weeks, and I decided I needed one when I finalized my plans to visit WFC in San Diego next month, and meet up with wonderful writers and author friends like Simon C. Larter, Shannon Whitney Messenger, Carolina Valdez Miller, Sara Ann McClung, and Andrew Smith.

I won't get into the things that are cool about it, or the things that it ought to be able to do, but can't, because those would be long posts all on their own. I will, hopefully briefly, discuss how cool this thing is for kids.

My daughter Madison and I played a game of scrabble on it against each other last night. She has an iPod touch she's had for a while, that she paid for by saving up her allowance, and that allowed us each to play our tiles from our own device, so that we weren't too obviously revealing our letters to each other.

Now, I have to say, in some ways I'm a bit of a Luddite. I don't believe in kids walking around with headphones constantly in their ears, shutting out the world around them, eyes glued to the screen of some device like little LCD versions of The Mirror of Erised, but the potential for interesting educational opportunities with a device like the iPad is off the charts.

The coolest thing about it is how it excites my child. When she came into my room last night (I didn't have time to set it up after buying it on Monday) and saw me installing some apps on it, her eyes lit up, and she bounded onto the bed with me.

My kid never hangs out with me in my room. She's 10. I had the horrible Braves game on the TV, which she would normally never suffer through. But she spent the next few hours hanging out with me, talking to me about the iPad, and showing me cool things like how to organize my apps into folders so I don't have 5 pages of apps. Then we played some games. Like Scrabble, pictured above.

I'm not going to go on about this any longer, but I see a very high cool factor when it comes to technology and young minds. I think if we leverage these devices properly to our children, we can help them focus on the benefits, without turning them into backlit LCD zombies.

What do you guys think? Do your kids have e-readers? Smart Phones? Other tech?

A First PROPER DragonCon Post

I know. I wrote about it yesterday, but that was just a segue into trying to trick you people into reading my Project Mayhem post. Not that you should need to be tricked, it's an awesome blog.

I only say tricked because I was chomping at the bit to post these photos, but I couldn't because I'd agreed to cover for a friend, and PM is a FAR more professionally slated blog than this dirty little corner of the World (US) Wide (Thin) Web (Net).

Anyway. Here's a tease. This is the worst photo my shitty camera captured at the Dragon-Non-Con (maybe):

Admittedly, this photo does have one thing going for it: The LOVELY Cole Gibsen taking up the spotlight. Also, it has an excuse: My oldest, Kylie, hit the button on my POS camera.

To be noted: That's my littlest, Madison, on my right (your left) with the panda hat/robe/hakama, and that's Kylie's BFF, Michaela, on my left (your right). I have no idea what I'm looking at, but I promise it's not a passing Princess Leia's cleavage. At least not at this particular moment.

One more thing: God I'm a huge human being. I know the evidence from my meeting with Joe may have suggested otherwise, but it was obviously false.

NOTE TO SELF: Don't write posts the night before anymore. You were probably drunk.

Okay, now it's morning, so hopefully I'll leave all that surliness and poor humor behind. Here's a better picture of a similar situation:

I don't know what has Madison grinning so broadly, but at least it's obvious she's having a blast.

Here's one I took:

Boy, my camera sucks. Oh well. You probably can't tell, but Kylie is wearing her cat eye/demon eye colored contacts. That was her way of dressing up. You can see what I'm talking about in this post.

That's it for photos for today. I'll share some of the awesome costumes with you guys tomorrow and maybe Thursday.

I talked a little bit more about Cole, what a great friend she is, and how nice it was to meet her in my Project Mayhem post yesterday, and I linked you to all her important stuff, but there was one more thing I forgot to mention that I wanted you guys to read, if you have time.

I used to do these successful query letter guest posts on my blog when I was first getting started, and Cole was one of my very first guests. You can read that post, here: KATANA.

The Rest of the Crap I Did in Seattle

I'm just going to try to wrap the rest of it up in this last post. I'm helping a friend with a query tomorrow and Friday, and then perhaps we'll get into other things next week. We'll see.

First I have an announcement: the winner of Tawna Fenske's Making Waves is Heather M. Gardner. She got 4000 points, so it was basically a mathematically forgone conclusion. I have your email address, Heather, so I'll be in touch about your snail mail address. Thanks for playing, everyone.

Okay. So, back to Seattle. We did lots of different things, some of it very touristy like visiting the Space Needle and touring Pike Place Market, and other stuff more personal, like visiting my cousin in beautiful Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula (it's not far from Port Angeles for you Twilight lovers).

So here are some more photos, in random order:

The girls and I in front of the Market.

This photo pisses me off because Mount Rainier was prominent and majestic, hovering behind the city to the right, but you can't see it at all in this photo.

Madison with a silver statue man outside the market.

Madison in front of the Post Alley wall of ABC gum. Disgusting. In case you haven't figured it out yet, Kylie is shy like her dad, and Madison is a ham sandwich.

Madison playing giant chess in Occidental Park, against a street person. I didn't give her any help, and she lost, but you can learn just as much from losing as you can from winning, sometimes more. Right, Ted?

Tree huggers.

That's the Chief Seattle fireboat, but more importantly this is what it looks like outside Ivar's where you give your french fries to the gulls. I thought Andrew would like this, because he likes gulls.

Funny story: the day we were walking to the monorail, I literally saw a gull trying to bomb Kelly. I told her to watch out, she jumped back, and the bird shit seriously would have hit her if I hadn't saved the day. I'm her hero.

Once There Were Birds.

This is a sculpture outside the Science Museum.

This one's a little blurry, but I helped Madison make this shirt with bubble paint for when we finally went to see Harry Potter.

This is basically the view from my dad's house. Looking at this really makes me hate Georgia.

Finally a decent photo of Mount Rainier.

What a beautiful city.

This thing is called the Fremont Troll. You can't see it, but it has a Volkswagen in its hand.

This is a plaque outside the elevator to the grid inside the Seattle Opera House. Marcus Rush was my dad. Rest in peace, pop.

This is this really weird but kind of awesome old fort in Port Townsend. You would think it was from World War II, what with the war in the pacific and everything, but it was built around 1911. I don't know who we were scared of then, but it makes for a cool place to explore.

And that's it. Is that enough photos for you guys? Sorry the post is so long, but I wanted to squeeze the rest in, so we could move on to other things ... like, oh I don't know, talking about writing.

Anyway. Have a great Wednesday, all!

Japanese Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum

Okay. Finally back to Things I Did on Vacation in Seattle with my Family. Is that title too long? Who cares. It's all about the photos anyway.

If you don't know this by now, I consider myself an Asian-o-phile. My writing includes several things I find awesome about Asian culture, like martial-arts, calligraphy, religion, mysticism, and so forth. I don't know exactly where that love comes from, but it's been there as long as I can remember.

My daughter Kylie is the same, except she is really fascinated by Japan, in particular. She's already taught herself to speak some Japanese, and even write the simplified form (Hiragana and Katakana, as opposed to Kanji, which is the more complicated writing most of us are familiar with).

Anyway, the point is, one of the most beautiful places we visited while in Seattle was the Japanese Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum. They have a real Tea House, which was unfortunately closed when we visited, and a pond that is filled with some of the largest Koi I have ever seen.

Here are some photos:

These lanterns are either iron or stone, I can't remember. They're absolutely beautiful at night, though.

Here come the Koi.

For some reason I couldn't capture one with his mouth wide open. They look really funny if you can.

This lantern was a gift from Seattle's sister city, Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It weighs three and a half tons, and is hand carved out of granite. It is nearly 200 years old.

That's my daughter, Madison, pouting on the grass. We had a bit of a meltdown that day because we'd been doing so much walking.

Those are turtles, sunning themselves on the rocks. Madison would not believe us that they were real because they literally did not move for hours.

Our camera is shite, and none of us are great photographers, but these pictures turned out okay, don't you think?

If you'd like to know more about the Japanese Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum, please visit the website.