Mason lost interest in trick-or-treating this year. He went through all the motions Halloween night, knocking on doors and collecting candy, but told me afterwards that next year, if it’s all the same to me, he would rather stay home and just hand out candy to kids. I remember the last year I went trick-or-treating. I was slightly older than Mason — fifteen years old and in tenth grade. My friend Louis and I both owned motorcycles and lived within a mile of one another so we could often be seen riding around town together. by then I was working… (read more)

Halloween snuck up on me this year. I truly love Halloween, from the traditions all the way to the decorations. It’s really not Halloween until I start drinking out of this cup. One thing we did last week for Halloween was go to Krispy Kreme and get some Ghostbusters-themed donuts. Morgan and I ran into the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man there. It was very scary. At 9:30 p.m. on the night before Halloween, Morgan told us she needed a “Lorax” t-shirt for school on Friday. Susan dug out a t-shirt and I got out the paints and I whipped this… (read more)

I’m starting to get deja vu every year at Yukon’s Czech Festival. Except for the years I was out of town for work, I’ve attended pretty much every Czech Day Parade since the early 80s and I have to tell you, they doesn’t change much. After I got home from this year’s parade I decided to compare some of my pictures with ones I’ve taken at previous parades. Here’s a picture I took this past Saturday of the cannon they fire off each year to mark the beginning of the parade: …and here’s a picture I took in 2007: Here’s… (read more)

Every year for the past ten years (at least) I’ve talked about watching 31 horror movies in October (one a night). Every year I come up with a reason not to do it. I can’t come up with a reason not to do it this year, so I’m going to try it. To add a twist to things, for the first 26 days of October I’ll be working my way through the alphabet. If you have movie suggestions you can leave them here or on Facebook — no guarantees, but I’ll consider them. I’m not sure what I’ll do for… (read more)

I spent quite a bit of last week contacting literary agents in hope of finding one interested in representing our new book Gastric Steps. Here’s how that went. I suppose first I should explain why I would want or need to connect with a literary agent in the first place. If you want to have your book published by a real publishing company (as opposed to self-publishing), you pretty much need to have an agent. I self-published both Commodork and Invading Spaces and while I don’t regret the decision, I feel like Gastric Steps appeals to a wider audience than… (read more)

I have a folder on my computer called “Ideas for Books” that contains… well, ideas for books in it. Some of the books are fiction and some are non-fiction. Some of the files contain little more than a couple of sentences with a general idea about a book; some of the others have complete outlines, and a few have entire chapters written. I jump back and forth between the various books until one really grabs my interest. Then I write as much and as fast as I can on it before something else grabs my attention and drags me away.… (read more)