I'm Finally Writing Again!

It's fiction, but this is a little different. I am writing and drawing a comic strip. I put the first strip below, but check out the website for updated comics: 

BILLY & V24. 

It's a comic about a boy and his robot.

Click on it to make it bigger!

Computer Use | A Memoir Essay

The first time I can remember using a personal computer, was in kindergarten. I was at my friend Austin's house, and he had a Macintosh. This was 1988, so it was something like a Macintosh classic. The computer had a rectangular shape, with the monitor mounted inside the casing; and it was all in that single rectangular unit. 

His monitor only displayed in black and white. I recall how incredible I thought it was that he could remember all the names of the folders he had to open to get to the game we wanted to play. The program we opened was a downhill skiing game. We probably only had to click on the hard drive, applications, the game's folder, and then the game icon; but to me that was a lot to recollect just to play a game.

Some years later, around fourth grade or so, my dad bought an IBM with windows 3.0. At the time this computer was top of the line; it even had a cd rom drive! I messed around on that bad boy a lot, and pretty soon I was quite good at getting around on it. I was even well acquainted with dos. My sixth grade year we picked up a computer with windows 95 on it. I dove straight into that operating system. This was also the same year that I took a typing class in school. In the class there were no letters on the keys, so you had to learn. You would follow the diagrams on the screen and go through the programs, learning where to put your hands and where all the keys were. This helped my typing skills tremendously. Now instead of using one finger to find each key, I could type quickly and easily without having to look at the keyboard. This was a big developmental step in my computing skills.

I also remember for the first time using Ctrl + C to copy, and Ctrl + V to paste. We sometimes would have to type the same paragraph several times for our class work. It was funny, the Ctrl keys had been fixed so you shouldn't have been able to use them, but if you pushed very hard on them they would click. So my friends and I would only type the paragraph once and then copy and paste it as many times as were required. I remember being in awe of these shortcut keys. I had no idea you could press certain keys together on the keyboard, or even that you could copy and paste. I was excited and amazed about this on only simple computers with only a black screen and a green display of text. I liked computers at an early age. Writing this I find it funny that I can look back and remember being amazed at green letters on a black screen; and now I'm going into the 3D computer industry as a career. I now produce 3D graphics that were unthinkable back when I was in sixth grade learning to type. It is something to think about.

During high school my family picked up a Compaq Presario, with Windows 98 and a Pentium I processor. I had fun with that. They now have a Sony Vio with Windows XP. It always has problems with spyware and is very difficult to use for navigating the internet even with a cable modem. It gets slowed down and constantly has pop-ups. I even have my own computer now with an amazing graphics card that helps the 3D programs I use run smoothly. As a little boy I never could have dreamed of having my own computer.

For pc use, that is all of my list; but it's not where my computer career ended. The first time I was able to use a Macintosh again, since kindergarten, was my freshman year when I took a sixth period creative writing class. Many times we would use the computer lab, and after class two buddies and I would stay and teach ourselves HyperCard on the school's Macs. I thought that program was awesome, and I was finally learning how to use a Mac.

My senior year I took a class called Technical Navigation. In this class we learned, with iMacs and G3s, how to use Adobe Pagemill, Photoshop, and Illustrator; along with some Power Point. I was able to learn all the shortcuts and nuances of the Macintosh operating system. Now when I wanted to close a window, open a new document, or save, I just had to press "apple" and then w, o, or s. I then learned that these same shortcut keys existed in my pc.

My navigational skills at that time became much faster than before. I think that using the shortcut keys also forced me to have more of an awareness of what I was doing while navigating on the screen. Rather than looking at the menu bar and it's following pull down, thinking about it and having all my available options right in front of me, I had to know exactly what I wanted to do. I had to push the one button on the keyboard that I knew would carry out the command I wanted it to. I hope to learn exponentially, and become better and better at using computers in the future.

These same shortcut key skills have carried over greatly into the programs I use for school and what I will use in the 3D industry. In every video editing or photo manipulating or 3D software I have used, I've found that learning and using as many shortcut keys as I can greatly increases my efficiency and speed. Also, I can get rid of several menus that appear above, below, and on the sides of the screen. This gives me more work area on the screen; more real estate. By using shortcuts I can work faster than someone else, and have more space to work with for my eyes. It's a win win situation.

One thing that I really like about working on computers is how fast time goes by when working on them. I can sit down and 3D model for hours. 3D modeling is making or constructing objects in 3D space on the computer. It is similar to sculpting in real life, but instead of moving clay around to form shapes resembling things, you move around points in 3D space. These points connect with each other to form surfaces.

I have sometimes gone without eating a meal because I simply forget or don't realize I am hungry for several hours because I will get so enthralled in what I am working on. I have even skipped both lunch and dinner a few times, which is even for me hard to believe, because of work on the computer. When I work at the labs in the North campus the security guard will poke his head in the door and tell me it will soon be time to leave. That is when I will realize that it's almost 11:30, and time to go. It is during these times that I just don't know where the time has gone. This is something I am happy about, because I will be doing it for a living someday.

In the video game industry, which I hope to get into, you hear of projects nearing there deadlines and employees getting asked to work crazy hours; staying very late to get the work done. This is something I already do at times. I would much rather have a job with longer hours which went by quickly than a job with only 40 hours a week in which each hour of every day seemed to drag by.

If we did not have computers today of coarse the world would be ok, as it always has been with out computers. But now that I work on them so much I find it hard to imagine a world without computers. I see them everywhere and in several different things being used for several different applications. For storing data alone, if that were their only purpose; even then they would be incredibly useful. This is because in one small computer you can store a warehouse full of information. They also make that information extremely easy to navigate through and find specifics with.

To think that now some actors have a computer generated model doing their stunt scenes for them in movies is amazing. I love computers, and I also love art and storytelling. I hope to use computers for these two things. Making art and telling stories in a highly visual way. I can only imagine what the future holds for the level of realism a computer will be able to generate; considering where we are right now. But I hope that there will always be someone out there not always trying to make it look perfectly real, but instead goofy and/or artistic.

---

This was an assignment for my creative writing class at the Art Institute of Seattle. I probably wrote it around 2004. It's really interesting to read it now. I'm pretty sure I thought we were at the cutting edge of where technology could go, and now to get these words into this blog post I took a picture of them with my phone from a printed page, which I was then able to copy the text from the photo and paste it into a document. I still had to fix the formatting, but still it's crazy how technology has continued to develop.

My First Story

659 words. That is how many words I managed to write at my parent's old IBM computer in high school. I knew I wanted to write a story about someone on a quest to find the greatest sword ever made. I couldn't have even told you at the time that I was attempting to write a fantasy story. I didn't even know that word or what "genre" meant. I just knew I liked stories and wanted to try my hand at my own. It wasn't until finished college that I started to actually pursue writing, and even that was after I got married and quit the heavy metal band I was in. I wanted to have something to continue my creative output into. Unlike being in a band, which required a lot of time practicing, I could write on my own whenever I had time to. And so, I started to write. If you click on the BOOKS tab above you can see I have written some books. A search on eBook retail websites will show you I've written a couple dozen short stories as well. I had the idea today, wouldn't it be fun to finish what I started all those years ago? Now that I've learned a thing or two about story structure and have gotten a lot of words down on the page. Maybe now I could tackle this story. It would be a Young Adult fantasy adventure. My original title was simple: "The Swordsman." I doubt I would stick to that if I ever end up publishing it but there it is. It smacks of "The Three Musketeers" which I remember getting from the Library and reading one summer. That's where I picked up the word Zounds. So here it is in all of it's terrible glory:

---

Splat! A drop of rain was sliced into several pieces by his perky aggressive hair. It welcomed grease and always reached for the sky. It was easily pleaded, for who it rode upon was constantly on the move, sweating up a fight, or escaping death once more. The clothes of which he wears, with reasons, are replete with lush forest shades, and a worn look. They are tattered from much good use, and carry little stories with each rip or tear. His eyes are resplendent, and yet wise. With his current sword grasping his left hip, he walks always briskly (that is, when he's not running of course). His forest flavored eyes are constantly mimicking the ways of his body, jumping around and dodging from place to place.

“Zounds, there he is!” shouted a castle guard.

“He mustn't get away!” yelled another.

He raced down the dark lonely alley, jumped off a wall, and kicked himself the other direction to just catch the top of a gate. Quickly he jumped over to the other side, set down a long plain sac, and drew his sword. 

“Take this in return you undeserving pitiful swordsmen; you have my sorrow for your great lack of skill. Tell the king this sword I have throne to you is of equal value, just not quality.” 

Or so I hope, he thought. 

“I guess they don't make royal guard standards as high as I remember.”

The guards just tried to ignore him, even though they knew he easily got the best of them. They were all trying to get the gate open faster, but with little luck. It was but a small side gate rarely used, and rather rusty no less. The long brown sac was quickly snatched, and taken away. The guards, knowing they had failed, simply gave up with the gate, and watched the stealthy figure disappear into darkness. Then they heard a strange sound, perhaps a whistle being blown, and then the trotting of a horse. Yet all of this was out of sight, for the darkness had already set in long ago; just as was planned by this mysterious crafty swordsman.

“Was not that the man who goes any and everywhere in search of the greatest sword ever built?” said a guard breaking the silence. 

“Could be, let me have a look at that there…” 

The guard's face turned to stone.

“It had to be! For look upon the sword he left behind!”

He gazed upon the long missing sword of the Vanchester Castle. "This sword tis from a very far away land! Lord Byron shant be as mad at us with this, but we still have it coming to us."

Slowing the pace through Everglade Meadow he threw down the sac revealing a majestic sword of almost perfect weight, balance, and length.

This one better be superior to the last one, not that I had to go to any trouble to get it, he thought.

Having his sword he continued on his way towards the nearest forest his eyes met. He knew not of where he was going, or why he was going that way. He only knew that he was going somewhere, and that somewhere was a place to test out his new sword to see if it was good enough. If it wasn't an adequate sword then he would search word of an even greater sword, and then head that way as he liked.

As of now, he had wandered into a cheery forest. As he roamed through he found a small trail far off from the beaten path he was presently following. He only cared for an adventure at the end of the way, therefore, he began to follow the smaller harder to ensue trail. After a matter of ten minutes he saw the trail begin to broaden, and finally the musty appearance of an old shanty came into view.

---

Copyright Dan Absalonson © 2022

I Wrote a Little Fiction

Here's the funny story behind all of this. One of my awesome co-workers got the idea to Photoshop out Waldo from a Where's Waldo image and then place it in the breakroom. Everyone will be looking for Waldo in the image, but he's not there! I thought it was an amazing and hilarious idea and it totally worked. Then I wrote next to the picture a list of people who had "found him" so people would look even harder. All this time a great company photo of all the employees together, which I won't post out of respect for my co-worker's privacy, was on the board next to this sans Waldo image. One of my co-workers photoshopped Waldo IN to that photo and put that on the board in place of the original. I love all of this. All that to say this all lead to a goofy idea I had to write a little note in first person from the perspective of Waldo leaving the first image and coming into our company photo. So now that you have the context here it is, the only fiction I've written in a couple years ever since I started pursuing becoming a pastor. Click on it to view it at a larger more readable size, I've also pasted the text below.

I managed to make it off of the ship. It wasn't easy but I couldn't stand it anymore; that feeling of eyes always watching and somehow searching for me and me alone among the packed crowd. I can't describe how I know that's true but I do. Anyways, now I stand comfortably in a place where no one is expecting to find me. Instead of rubbing shoulders with firemen and giraffes I casually blend in behind the small crowd. This place is warm and inviting. The smiles seem genuine. I think the people like being here and care about the work they are doing together to make the customer successful. I will stay here for as long as I can in hopes the eyes do not find their way to me here as well.

My friend at work didn't know I wrote it yet and commented that it was dark. I attribute that to a podcast another co-worker recommended to me called The Magnus Archives, a horror fiction podcast with an amazing premise that gets all the better as the meta narrative takes over.

In their own words:

The Magnus Archives is a weekly horror fiction anthology podcast examining what lurks in the archives of the Magnus Institute, an organization dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird. Join new head archivist Jonathan Sims as he attempts to bring a seemingly neglected collection of supernatural statements up to date, converting them to audio and supplementing them with follow-up work from his small but dedicated team.

Individually, they are unsettling. Together they begin to form a picture that is truly horrifying because as they look into the depths of the archives, something starts to look back…

That's also the only fiction I've been listening to lately but I wouldn't trade it for the time I'm spending getting an amazing education from Western Seminary for my Masters in Biblical and Theological Studies.

Been Quiet Around Here, So Here's Some News!

I am a pastoral intern at my church. I've been using my free time to write papers and read non-fiction books on the bible and the church. All of this is super exciting to me! It does mean I haven't been creating any new fiction as of late, but I do have plans to write a book during NaNoWriMo this year so look for more news on that. In the meantime if you're really curious about what I've been up to I have been posting stuff on Christianity on my new blog Dan's Bible Notes.

For a taste of that future book I plan to write during NaNoWriMo here's the first bit of it pasted in below. Not sure if I'll end up using this but it was a great start to get some words on the page for this new book. I don't know what to call it. It's about:

a kid who discovers he has the power of flight. The government also discovers this and employs him as a secret agent to work for them to help them get certain objects that are hard to get for big adults who can't fly to and squeeze in tight spaces. 

Also scroll to the bottom or check out my Instagram for some of my #Inktober drawings.

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I Can Fly (working title) © Dan Absalonson

My name is Bridge Travers and I live with my grandma in a house that smells like cabbage. Dang, that was a terrible start. Let me try again. My name is Bridge Travers and I am a kid secret agent who can fly. Okay, so both of those things are true, but focus on the flying secret agent part because that's way better.

Grandma Rose is cool and all, but she still thinks I should be stuck in school all day. I know she wants what's best for me but come on! Would you rather go to school or on a secret mission for the government? She just doesn't get it.

She's been taking care of me ever since my parents died in a car accident when I was two. They left me with grandma and went out on a date never to return. So I pretty much think of Grandma Rose as my mom. She's a sweet old lady who always wears sweaters, dresses, pearl necklaces and earrings, and huge glasses. Her skin is all wrinkly and she's a little slow at getting around but she takes great care of me. Her cooking is the best and she can still drive, not that I need her to drive me around anymore with my power.

It took a lot of convincing for Grandma Rose to let me take the job from the government, but Agent Winters can be very cajoling. That's a big word I know. I means like to talk someone into something. I just learned it from Agent Fredrickson. Anyways, once grams was convinced Winters made a deal with principal Wally, that's really his last name, to keep up appearances at my old school so it seems like I'm just a normal boy who goes to sixth grade and like plays four square or whatever. I still have to learn all the stuff I would at school, but now I do that in a government building with my tutor named Agent Fredrickson. Yeah the one who is big on vocab. He's pretty cool. Not a lot of personality, but a nice enough guy and a good teacher.

So what do I spend most of my days doing when I should be at school? Working for the government on secret missions to recover lost artifacts and magical items they don't wan't the world to know about. I know what you're thinking, I'm just a kid. I can't be a secret agent, right? Well I am just a kid, but a kid who can fly.

It all started when I was on my way home from getting an awesome birthday balloon for my grandma from the grocery store a few blocks from our house. I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking because I was watching the balloon float above me and I tripped. My foot slipped right off the edge of the curb and I accidentally let go of the balloon. I was so upset. I was just looking up at it, staring hard wishing so bad that I could somehow just reach up high enough and get it back. That's when I noticed that somehow the balloon was getting closer. Before I knew it I was tons of feet up in the air off the ground grabbing the string of the balloon. I didn't get back down to the ground in the most graceful way but I did it without breaking anything or popping the balloon.

The next day after school a man in a nice suit showed up at our door asking for me. His name is Agent Winters. He's actually a really cool guy. He's bald but has plenty of his hair above his lip in his thick red mustache. He's my boss and he treats me with respect and never lets me get into too much danger when I'm on missions. While my grandma went into the kitchen to make coffee for our guest the man informed me that they had seen me flying on a nearby camera. He asked me if I wanted to keep going to school like a normal kid, or if I wanted to work for him and learn how to use my flying abilities better with special training so I could go on missions that only someone like me could pull off.

"It will be your job to secure special objects for us," he said.

It turns out I can get into a lot of places no one else can without using noisy equipment or vehicles.

As he passed me a piece of paper I signed it right away. He smiled and tucked it into his inside jacket pocket just as my grandma was coming out with coffee.

---

So there it is! A taste of what's to come in my next novel. I also have one that's been fully written for over a year that I need to finish illustrating. Also I'm doing #Inktober. Here's a few drawings from that:

View this post on Instagram

#Inktober #Prompt1 #Poisonous #Mushrooms #Mushroom #PilotG402 #drawing #art #inking #sketch #inktober2018

A post shared by Dan Absalonson (@dandantheartman_author) on Oct 1, 2018 at 8:02pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

#Inktober #Prompt2 #Tranquil . I was going to draw a fish but then remembered how peacefully these guys glide through water. . #Stingray #Ocean #inktober2018 #drawing #PilotG402

A post shared by Dan Absalonson (@dandantheartman_author) on Oct 2, 2018 at 8:33am PDT

View this post on Instagram

#Inktober #Prompt5 #Chicken #drawing #PilotG402 #inktober2018 #rooster

A post shared by Dan Absalonson (@dandantheartman_author) on Oct 5, 2018 at 9:11am PDT

That's it! Thanks for stopping by!

Going to Siggraph

Next week I'll be in Canada at an amazing CG conference. It will be awesome! I'm expecting to be incredibly inspired as an artist and to take lots of notes. 

What is Siggraph you ask? Great question! I'll let them tell you:

SIGGRAPH is the world's largest conference on computer graphics. It takes place once a year in a city somewhere in the U.S. or Canada, and is attended by tens of thousands of computer graphics professionals. SIGGRAPH is one of the most highly respected venues for the presentation of new computer graphics technology and research. [source]

I'm going to stay at the conference as long as possible to get as much information and inspiration as possible but the show doesn't last all day so I'm also hoping for a little downtime to do the following:

1. Finish outlining the next book I'm going to write.
1. For more on that check out my blog post: I'm Writing a New Book, and it's a New Kind of Book!
2. Get some running in.
3. Get some reading in.
4. Finish writing my book of Haikus called "Explore (108 Haikus)"
5. Hang out with my co-workers and get to know them better

It should be an awesome trip! I'm really going to miss my family. Being away from them will be really hard. My coworker went a few years ago and said it was amazing. So much to see. So many top piers from the 3D industry to learn from and meet. It should be an incredible experience. I'll let you know how it went and hopefully soon I'll have news to share about my haiku book being available for purchase. The cover is already done! Should be a fun little paperback for trips, night stands, coffee tables, and book shelves. Thanks for stopping by!

I was gone & I was on The Writing Crusade podcast again!

I've been away from home for almost 2 weeks, but while I was gone something for you to listen to was published! Episode 12 of The Writing Crusade with Indiana Jim! I'm his co-host now and we talked about:

In this episode, I tell Dan all about The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. Almost all of us commit acts of self-sabotage when we experience new levels of success, love, joy or creativity. How do we overcome our limiting beliefs and spend our time where we are truly unique and gifted? The lessons from the book are especially relevant to writers. Most of all I want to inspire you to make the big leap in your life and writing career.

Go have a listen, it was a fun time as always talking about writing with Jim. In other news, where was I for the last 2 weeks? At a kids church summer camp with my whole family, and then we went to Glacier Montana with two other families. It's been a super fun very exhausting couple of weeks! Pics below:

#GlacierNationalPark was so beautiful.

A post shared by Dan Absalonson (@dandantheartman_author) on Jun 29, 2018 at 7:35am PDT

Had an epic time at @riverviewbiblecamp this week. The whole family went. My wife and I were counselors. We all slept a ton once we got back.

A post shared by Dan Absalonson (@dandantheartman_author) on Jun 23, 2018 at 10:53pm PDT

I'm Writing a New Book, and it's a New Kind of Book!

I have discovered a new kind of book, and it's the kind I'm going to start writing next! Scroll to the bottom to see what may be part of the first chapter someday. Here's the story of how I came to write this "new to me" type of book. My oldest son just turned 10. Last Christmas I gave him the first Harry Potter book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. He devoured it and then the entire series before the next Christmas rolled around! It succeeded at making him a huge reader. Everything he's read since then pales in comparison. He's still enjoyed a ton of other books but none were ever as good as Harry Potter until now...

My 10 year old likes this series as much as Harry Potter?! That’s saying something. #BookRecommendations #books

A post shared by Dan Absalonson (@dandantheartman_author) on May 10, 2018 at 8:08am PDT

After finishing this book, which is the third of four in the series, he told me he liked it as much as Harry Potter. That got my attention. Here's a link to the first one in the series: Shiloh (The Shiloh Quartet). I checked out the series online and saw that Wikipedia called it a "children's novel" instead of a chapter book. I asked my son if it had any illustrations. It did not. You see after reading a ton of awesome chapter books I bought for my son I fell in love with them and wrote my own. Cool! Where is this chapter book you wrote? I want to buy it! Great question. I did indeed finish it. Even cleaned it up and handed it to Beta Readers and got good feedback on it. The thing is, I'm illustrating it. It's going well and I'm really pleased with the illustrations I've done so far, but they're taking me forever! So in the meantime a book I finished is sitting and waiting. Chapter books all have illustrations, which is something I love about them, but this new "children's novel" I've stumbled upon does not have illustrations. It's about 1/3 to twice as long as a chapter book too, which is an awesome length! My novella Sword and Urn is the length of a children's novel.

So, I still have yet to flesh out the outline, but I pecked out what might someday resemble part of the first chapter, and here it is. Enjoy:

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"I Can Fly" (Kid Secret Agent Adventures Book 1) © Dan Absalonson 2018

My name is Bucky Travers and I live with my grandma in a house that smells like cabbage. Dang, that was a terrible start. Let me try again. My name is Bucky Travers and I am a kid secret agent. Okay, so both of those things are true, but focus on the secret agent part because that's way better. Grandma Rose is cool and all, but she thinks I just go to school all day. She's been taking care of me ever since my parents died in a car accident when I was two. I pretty much think of her as my mom.

She's a sweet old lady who always wears sweaters, dresses, pearl earrings, a pearl necklace, and huge glasses. Her skin is all wrinkly and she's a little slow at getting around but she takes great care of me. Her cooking is the best and she can still drive, not that I need her to drive me around anymore.

My grandma Rose doesn't know about the deal the government made with my principle to keep up appearances that I'm just a normal boy who goes to sixth grade and plays kickball and stuff. I still have to learn all the stuff I would at school, but now I do that in a government building with a Tudor named Agent Fredrickson. He's pretty cool. Not a lot of personality, but a nice enough guy and very good at teaching.

So what do I spend most of my days doing when I should be at school? Working for the government on secret missions to recover lost artifacts and magical items they don't wan't the world to know about. I know what you're thinking, I'm just a kid. I can't be a secret agent, right? Well I am just a kid, but a kid who can fly.

It all started when I was on my way home from getting an awesome birthday balloon for my grandma from the grocery store a few blocks from our house. I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking because I was watching the balloon float above me and I tripped. My foot slipped right off the edge of the curb and I accidentally let go of the balloon. I was so upset. I was just looking up at it, staring hard wishing so bad that I could somehow just reach up high enough and get it back. That's when I noticed that somehow the balloon was getting closer. Before I knew it I was tons of feet up in the air off the ground grabbing the string of the balloon. I didn't get back down to the ground in the most graceful way but I did it without breaking anything or popping the balloon.

The next day after school a man in a nice suit showed up at our door asking for me. His name is Agent Winters. He's actually a really cool guy he's bald but has plenty of his hair above his lip in his thick red mustache. He's my boss and he treats me with respect and never lets me get into too much danger when I'm on missions. While my grandma went into the kitchen to make coffee for our guest the man informed me that they had seen me flying on a nearby camera. He asked me if I wanted to keep going to school like a normal kid, or if I wanted to work for him and learn how to use my flying abilities better with special training so I could go on missions that only someone like me could pull off.

"It will be your job to secure special objects for us," he said.

It turns out I can get into a lot of places no one else can without using noisy equipment or vehicles.

As he passed me a piece of paper I signed it right away. He smiled and tucked it into his inside jacket pocket just as my grandma was coming out with coffee.

The Man From Snowy River | A Haiku

I love writing Haikus. They're super short little poems. I love that they force you to constrain your words into so few syllables. It may seem like an oxymoron, but constraints actually make art thrive. It's true. Check out this cool article sometime called Proof That Constraints Can Actually Make You More Creative. I started writing a themed book of Haikus, but I'm also going to start writing some that I'll just share here on my blog. Here's the first of many more to come. If you want more Haikus check out my book in progress called "Explore (108 Haikus)" free to read on Wattpad. Leave me a comment on there and let me know what you think.

So here is my Haiku about a beloved movie I watched over and over again as a child:

The Man From Snowy River

Snowy River Jim
Rode a horse like no other
Down really steep hills

Happy New Year! A Little Update

"So Dan, in a recent post you were all like: 'I'm going to try and publish 6 books in 2018!' How's that going?"

I'm glad you asked. So far I've made a little bit of progress editing my manuscript "Haunted House Flipper" from feeback I recieved from my first Beta Reader. Once I've made all the small changes from his suggestions it's off to a bunch more beta readers.

Other than that I'm currently using my writing time to read and make notes on his manuscript. He's written a cool fantasy novel that I'm making my way through. I'm excited to see what comes of it. He's a smart guy and a good writer.

In other news I've started dieting and running in 2018. I ran 1 mile on the first and 2 miles today! The rest of my family is running too which is so cool and fun!

Second #run of 2018. A very cool 2 miler over ice, snow, and some dry concrete. Can you tell the first mile had uphill and the second back down? #running #AmRunning #TrainingForBloomsday

A post shared by Dan Absalonson (@dandantheartman_author) on Jan 2, 2018 at 6:44am PST

That's it for now - Well, there is also some other really exciting news about a new project I'm going to be involved in, but we'll save that announcement for when I have something about it to share. So stay tuned, and as always, thanks for stopping by!

I'm ALMOST Ready for Beta Readers!

I'm so close to finishing my third pass through my manuscript to clean it up for Beta Readers to give it a go and give me their feedback. As I reread it I'm very happy with the story. I've been laughing out loud and really enjoying it so hopefully that means others will too! I got a little more done this morning after posting this last night so...

I'm actually in chapter 47 now! 

I'm sure this weekend I'll get it all done and by Monday I'll be emailing people to give it a read. I'm also going to make physical paperback advanced reader copies to hand out to people who don't like reading eBooks. So that will be fun! I'll be a sure to post a pic of that when it comes in the mail. Exciting times! I'm so close to publishing my first full length novel!!!!!

On chapter 43 of 50 doing my last clean up pass before I give my novel to #BetaReaders. 79% of the way there! #AmWriting #AmRevising

A post shared by Dan Absalonson (@dandantheartman_author) on Oct 27, 2017 at 11:30pm PDT

Writing Update and NaNoWriMo

Here's where I'm at:

1. I wrote a novel.
2. During the writing process some things changed.
3. I went back through to revise the story.
4. Now I'm halfway through one last pass to clean up the manuscript.

Once that's done it's off to Beta Readers! I won't be hitting my goal of having it ready to publish on Halloween, but I will get it up for sale THIS YEAR!

Will I be doing NaNoWriMo? I don't think so. But you should! It's so fun that I hesitate to say I won't, but I really should be finishing my illustrations for the chapter book I wrote called The Case of the Missing Snowman. The book is done, I just need to finish the illustrations. So I'll probably be working on getting that one done in November so it can be available at Christmas time.

That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by!

I'm almost done revising my novel "Haunted House Flipper!"

I'm revising chapter 46 of 50 in my novel! I'm getting so close to being ready to pass it off to #BetaReaders. I want to get this thing published before #Halloween! #HauntedHouseFlipper

A post shared by Dan Absalonson (@dandantheartman_author) on Oct 1, 2017 at 7:13am PDT

More Hiking and Revising My Novel Through the Smoke

Smoke has covered our town like a blanket. This weekend we went to the Wenatchee area to do a couple hikes over the Labor Day Weekend and get some delicious food in Leavenworth. We had to turn around halfway up toward one of the hikes because the smoke was so bad. We re-routed and found a different hike in the opposite direction away from the smoke and had fun swimming in a lake there. Now back at home our kids can't go outside for recess and I can smell smoke in my cube at work. It's really bad. Man I hope some rain comes soon...

On a lighter note the revising of my novel is coming along. In my last blog post about it I was in chapter 31 and now I'm revising chapter 38! Oops I just realized I haven't been updating the progress meter. Okay, fixed! Only 11 chapters to go and then I can write the last chapter. I didn't write the last chapter yet because when I got to the end of my first draft I changed the mentor character into also being the love interest. So as I've gone through my first revision pass I've been changing the gender of that character and when I get to the last chapter I'm hoping to have a better idea of where their relationship stands. I have everything resolved in the second to last chapter except that. So when I get through chapter 49 I'll be all caught up and I'll be able to write the last chapter. Then the story will be done!

At that point I'll listen through the story one more time on my phone and hopefully catch any last little typos. Then when I hit the last chapter I'll revise that - then it's off to beta readers! I'm so excited about this because this will be the first time I write a novel without having to do rewrites. If it's good enough after I get feedback, it will also be the first full length novel I publish. That is very exciting and I think it will be good enough!

So this is what the process will be for this novel:

1. Write the rough draft
2. Go through the finished manuscript and revise it
3. Do one last pass listening to the book
4. Hand it off to Beta Readers
5. Make edits based on their feedback
6. Hand the polished manuscript off to an editor or two
7. Make one final polish from their notes
8. Publication!

All three novels I've written before this needed huge rewrites after I finished them. One of those I have rewritten several times and I still don't think it's good enough to publish. The other two I never touched and they remain trunked in their first draft form. I'm really excited that my planning and outlining has spared me from that on this story. I hope to replicate this with every novel I write moving forward. So, that's what I'm up to. My goal is to get this bad boy published by October so I can sell it around Halloween. It is called "Haunted House Flipper" after all :) Thanks for stopping by!

We're Back From the Hiking Trip!

We're back from vacation! It was really fun. We hiked over 30 miles last week. My wife is an amazing planner and we saw some beautiful places. So many waterfalls! If you would like to see all of the waterfalls we did, just pop on over to my Instagram and see the beauty for yourself. I put one of my favorite pics below, but you should really check out my Instagram because it was hard to choose. There is so much natural beauty out there, like that opening picture of the lake I took last night. We had a fun last lake day with family and friends yesterday. The kids start school next week! Where has summer gone?!

As for my revising, that's going pretty well. I'm currently revising chapter 31 of 50 and I think when we left on our trip I was revising somewhere in the low twenties. Once I finish my revision pass this book is off to beta readers. I'll get their feedback, make some more changes and then pass the manuscript off to an editor or two, make one last editing pass from their notes and then publish the thing! It will be my first published full length novel. I'm really excited about it. I need to get it for sale by October so it will be ready to go around Halloween. It's called "Haunted House Flipper," so that would be the perfect time to release it! After that I'm hoping to release my fist ever chapter book called "The Case of the Missing Snowman" around Christmas. That's what I've been up to. Thanks for stopping by!

Revising "Haunted House Flipper" Update

So I've been using my writing time to read a friend's first novel. I'm getting close to finishing it. The story keeps getting better and I'm really enjoying being a beta reader for him. He'll be a great resource beta reading for me when I finish revising my novel. A beta reader is someone who reads your book for you before it's published to give you feedback on it. They're a great resource! I'm always looking for more! About that novel of mine and it's revision...

I revised chapter 11 of 50 a few days ago and that's the last time I made progress on it. It was a really busy weekend filled with hiking, playing guitar and singing for 2nd - 6th graders at church on Sunday morning, and a fun Father's Day lunch at the lake. My wife took that sweet photo below. She helped me get the kids up some huge rocks. The view from the top was awesome! It was a fun hike. I really need to get cracking on my revision though so I can pass my book off to beta readers and get feedback on it. That will be really exciting. Handing your story off to people for the first time is always a little nerve racking, but I'm excited about it! You'll never get better if you don't let other people read your stories and learn what they liked or didn't like. Hopefully I'll be reporting back soon that I've revised a ton more chapters and I'm close to finishing the revision.

If all goes well this will be the first full length novel I've written that I will publish. It will be the first novel that I won't have to go back and hack into a whole bunch to fix. Thanks to my outlining process I think the story works well and will not need huge story edits. That's my hope anyway. If people like it and don't have feedback about the story not working I think "Haunted House Flipper" will be my first full length novel that I'll publish.

It's been a long road getting here with 3 other novels written that I'll probably never publish without a full rewrite. With that said - getting my first novel published is really the beginning of this long writing journey I'm on. Once I have 5 to 10 of them published, then I think I'll finally be on my way. I'm still driving toward the freeway hoping I didn't forget to pack anything. I did all I could to prepare though, and I'm ready to start my trip. Let's do this! Okay, I think I ran that metaphor into the ground :) Thanks for stopping by!