Strike It Up...

...for Autism Acceptance! Autism Empowerment is holding its first annual Bowl-A-Thon fundraiser, and everyone is invited!

It will be held on Sunday, April 24th, from 12pm-5pm at Husted's Hazel Dell Lanes here in Vancouver. To ensure that we reserve enough lanes, we ask that you please register in advance, which you can do at this link. Simply click on the big ol' green "Get Tickets" button, and the rest will be self-explanatory! There will be prizes, awards, and a whole lot of fun. So what are you waiting for? Go to the registration page now!

Major Book Three Status Update

Last week I promised you a "major Book Three status update," so here it is: it's done!

Well, the first draft of it is, anyway (insert disappointed cat face here). Seems that as I was pursuing my strategy of full-speed-ahead writing-without-stopping, I ended up breezing through big sections of the story without really fleshing them out, and as a result, I found myself at the end of my outline at around 50,000 words. There are some presently hilarious parts in Acts II and III where Joel and company find themselves in a huge jam one moment, and then - presto! - they're bailed out of it faster than you can say "deus ex machina."

The good news, though, is that completing this step represents major progress. No, really, it does! Because this draft, as incomplete as it is, has now made certain things clear enough that I've been able to go back and expand my original outline into full-blown detailed chapter summaries - a lot of which sounds much better than what I've already written. So now, armed with that, I can go back and (deep breath) start the joyous process of rewriting and revision. Still on track for a 2017 release...

Stay tuned for more updates!

READCON Recap, SPS In The Studio, And More!

READCON was epic! I had a really great time. Torin wore his Joel Suzuki costume, Melody wore her Toriel costume (which she won 3rd place in the costume contest with!), and everything was so much fun.

The 12th Doctor (or 13th?) meets Joel Suzuki

I was especially happy and honored to meet Peter, who reportedly had read both Book One and Book Two in just a few days. Peter also reads physics textbooks for fun! Such an awesome dude. I tried my best to keep up with him in a conversation about the recent confirmation of Einstein's theory about gravitational waves, but he was just too smart for me.

Me and Peter

Super big mahalos go out to Paul Warner, Shahala Middle School, Autism Empowerment, and my friends Davetta Price and Stacey Stein for setting this all up. Not to mention everyone who came out and supported some really great causes (namely, the Shahala Middle School library and the aforementioned Autism Empowerment.) I really hope I get a chance to do this again. If you want to see more pictures from the event, check out the Spectraland Saga's Facebook page here!

This weekend, my band Second Player Score will be returning to the studio to record three more songs. Can't wait! We've been boot-camping really hard, so we feel pretty ready to lay these tracks down. The songs that we'll be doing are "Origin Story," "Head Of Sin," and "Drink The Poison." Along with the five others that we've recorded already, and the three more that we'll be doing this summer, these songs will make up our second album, tentatively titled Nobody's Hero, which is slated for release in the fall.

It's been a while since I've done a video game update, so just to let you know what's up...I'm still grinding away at Xenoblade Chronicles X. I got to the end of the story part of the game (spoilers ahead, turn back now) and realized that I'm nowhere near the level of strength I need to be at to properly finish it off, so I've gone back into grind mode - completing missions, leveling up, etc. I figure that I need to have level 50 skells to beat the final boss (I've glimpsed a few sites that say that maybe even that's not enough, but seriously, I don't want to know), so it's gonna be a while. In the meantime, Twilight Princess for the Wii U came out, so yikes! Naturally, that game has gone straight into rotation, so it may be even longer before I actually "finish" (I don't know if anybody ever really "finishes") Xenoblade.

Just a quick note about Gravity Falls: from an emotional fanboy standpoint, I'm sad that it's over, but from a practical writer's standpoint, I'm glad that they decided to go out on a high note when the show was really reaching its peak. Kind of like The Police. The show was - and is - a major source of bonding for me and my daughter (we still quote lines from it to each other all the time), and for that, it'll always have a special place in...whoa, sappiness alert! Yeah, um, so, if you haven't seen it yet, be sure to check it out! (I'm sure they'll be releasing the whole series on DVD/Blu-Ray soon).

Coming next week - a major Book Three status update!

READCON is Tonight!

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I'm going to be the special guest author at READCON, Shahala Middle School's annual sci-fi/fantasy family night for the whole community. And it's tonight, from 6-8pm! Here's a short video to help get you pumped up for it:

It's free to attend, and there will be a ton of fun stuff going on, like prizes, giveaways, contests, a book fair, crafts, the Portland Superheroes Coalition, the Star Wars 501st Legion, and more. Whew!

Costumes are optional, but wear 'em if you got 'em! I'll be rocking the 12th Doctor ensemble that I wore for Book 2's launch party at the TARDIS Room (hey, I gotta get my money's worth), and my daughter is planning to go as Toriel from the game Undertale. I'm hoping I can talk my son into going as Joel Suzuki...

Sales from the book fair and donations will go to help out the Shahala library as well as Autism Empowerment, and if you eat dinner at the nearby Wendy's between 4-8pm, a portion of your sales will also go to help those two awesome causes.

Shahala Middle School is located at 601 SE 192nd Ave., Vancouver WA 98683, so if you're in the area, be sure to come and check it out!

Movie Roundup, Speed Run Edition

I've been doing a pretty good job of catching up with my movie-watching lately, if I do say so myself. For me, watching movies is not only fun, but it gives me inspiration for my writing as well, so I consider it part entertainment, part work/research (although, unfortunately, I don't think I can write off my ticket and rental expenses as tax deductions).

Here are my thoughts about some of the ones I've seen since I saw The Force Awakens (four times!) last December. Disclaimer: these are not really reviews, they're just my bullet point observations and reactions. Also, there will be spoilers (you'll notice that I talk about the endings a lot)!

Deadpool

Really enjoyed this one. It was pretty much what I was expecting. Yeah, the plot was mostly vanilla-stock, but it was dressed up in vintage Deadpool-style bloody syrup and bullet sprinkles, which gave it its own flavor. I'm pretty sure that's what the writers and director were going for. Wished it could have gone on a little longer. Ryan Reynolds was born to play this character. Although, I must say that I kind of like the version of Deadpool in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon just a little bit better, with how he alternates between the high crazy voice and the low menacing one. Oh, and since this is a family-friendly blog, I will add that this movie is obviously not family-friendly.

Kung Fu Panda 3

Now here's a family-friendly one for ya. It wasn't quite as good as the first two installments of the KFP series, but it was pretty close. Lots of fun, solid story, awesome visuals. The ending was epic, which made me wonder how they're going to top that in the fourth installment.

Inside Out

Okay, so I saw Deadpool and KFP3 in the theater. Now we're moving on to the "I'm finally getting around to watching these" portion of the post. This was another kid-friendly one that I had heard a lot of good things about, so one day I just rented it at home. And it didn't disappoint. I especially liked the ending, where they showed what was going on inside of a cat's head. So very much on point. But yeah, bravo, Pixar.

Ender's Game

I actually liked this movie version better than the book, except for the ending, which I thought could have been played for a little more drama. The Battle Room looked pretty much exactly like how I had envisioned it, which was cool.

Spectre

You know, I don't remember much about this one. Some great scenery, lots of action...I miss Judi Dench as M. The ending sure seemed like they were giving Daniel Craig a happy, ride-into-the-sunset sendoff, which made me think that the rumors of him retiring from the role may be true. If he does, I wonder who the next Bond will be? And where will they go with the franchise now that the supposed overall-umbrella-evil-organization-that-was-controlling-everything-mwuahahaha has been defeated?

Coming up in the next roundup, probably: Captain America: Civil War, X-Men: Apocalypse, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (what's with all the colons?), and more!

Author Visit, Readcon, H&G Show, Book Three Status Update, Oh My!

Lots going on! Let's get to it, shall we?

On Tuesday, I had the honor of doing an author visit at Shahala Middle School, which happens to be both my son's alma mater as well as where my daughter is currently a student. To sum it up: I had a really great time.

Thanks Tony

There were about a hundred seventh graders in attendance, and they were all very attentive and asked some really great questions. I spent about ninety minutes answering them and talking about not only the Spectraland Saga, but also about reading, writing, and autism in general. It was so much fun. Much mahalos go out to Shahala's librarian, Paul Warner, as well as to all of the teachers and students for having me and making me feel more than welcome. Check out the Spectraland Saga's Facebook page for more photos!

This author visit was a precursor to READCON, which is Shahala's sci-fi/fantasy family night for the whole community. It's like if Comic-Con was being held in a middle school library. That event will take place on March 10 from 6-8pm, and the Portland Superheroes Coalition (with a real Iron Man suit, I have been told) and the Star Wars 501st Legion will be in attendance, along with yours truly. The event is free to attend, and there will be a ton of fun stuff going on, including prizes, contests, a book fair, and more. Book sales and donations will go to support both the library and Autism Empowerment. And, if you have dinner at the nearby Wendy's from 4-8pm that night, a portion of your sales will also benefit these two great causes! So if you're in the Portland/Vancouver area and want to attend a fun, free con, be sure to come on down.

Tomorrow, I'll be doing my biannual appearance at the Portland Home and Garden Show from 6-8pm. I always have a great time doing this, as I get to hang out with my awesome indie author friends from the Northwest Independent Writers Association! Again, if you're in the Portland/Vancouver area - and especially if you're a homeowner looking for stuff for your house, along with some great books - I highly recommend coming down to check it out. I'll be offering my usual discounted live show special of ten bucks for Book One, twelve bucks for Book Two, or twenty dollars for both, so this is your chance to take advantage of that!

And finally, the monthly Book Three Status Update: as of today, I am proud to announce that I am up to 44,000 words, which is ahead of my planned schedule and 11,000 words more than where I was at the time of last month's status update. Rolling right along...

Time Warp

Last week, in my letter to Joel and Felicity, I made a reference to the fact that the two of them are occasionally involved in some funny time travel business. This is because, as readers of Book One and Book Two know, there is a difference between how time passes here on Earth and how it passes in Spectraland.

Okay, so in general, time goes by much faster in Spectraland than it does here. There are, however, as they would say in Doctor Who, a few wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey ways that Wavemakers can mess around with the time difference so that it's not a straight minute-for-week correlation, or what have you. If you've read the books, then you know what I'm talking about.

And frankly, sometimes I feel like some Wavemaker somewhere is secretly messing around with how time passes here on Earth, making it go by faster than it's supposed to. Ever get that impression? Like, for example, when I was writing that letter to Joel and Felicity last week, it stunned me to discover that the last time Joel and I did an Annoying Zelda Mini-Game post was back in March of 2015 (I even made a comment in that post about how "time sure flies around here".)

That got me wondering, what else have I done that feels like it just took place yesterday, but in fact happened a relatively long time ago? This is when maintaining a blog, or a journal, or whatever, definitely comes in handy. Here are some of my favorites:

- Our household cats, Boots and Mittens, moved in just recently. Right? Actually, it was in December of 2014. That's a lot of litter boxes that we've changed already.

- My band, Second Player Score, performed at the benefit concert Rock For Autism. I get reminded of this whenever I look at our Reverbnation site. It feels like we just did that, but actually, it was all the way back in August of 2012.

- I was just explaining to one of my friends the other day about why there are seven planned books in the Spectraland Saga, and I remembered that I wrote a blog post about that a few weeks ago. Wait, no, it wasn't a few weeks ago, it was almost three years ago.

I could go on and on like this, but I think you get the idea. So I guess either - as the old saying goes - time flies when you're having fun, or, more likely, a Wavemaker (Fireflower? Joel? Felicity?) is trying to get Earth's time to match up with Spectraland's time for whatever reason. Maybe they're somehow taking advantage of the recent discovery of Einstein's gravitational waves? Hmm...