Happy Holidays to all! If you don’t celebrate, hopefully you at least get some time off. I’m writing this during my last prep period of the year. I managed to kick out 5000 words the other day so figure I can take the time for another post.

First order of business: upcoming publications. On December 26 a short story of mine will hit the internet on Spillwords.com. I’ll probably do another post then to remind you all. 🙂 It’s a Christmas story about a divorced dad trying to connect with his daughter during their first Christmas with just the two of them. There’s kookiness, drama, heartbreak, and that warmhearted feeling you get this time of year. And bananas. Somehow, there are bananas.

I also just signed up to be on the editorial staff of Water-Stone Review, so I’ll have a healthy bit of reading to do over the next few weeks. I’m expecting a wide gamut of genres and themes, so hopefully it’ll be a fun time.

On a non-writing note, I’ve decided to apply for the next season of LegoMasters. That translates to Fall 2025 because of filming schedules. I need to build five sets of my own design for the application, so I just finished sorting the 90000 Lego pieces I’ve accrued since childhood and am partway into the first build (and already running out of the right color of pieces).

Don’t judge yet! It’s not done! If all goes according to plan it’ll balance perfectly on the beak, like those toys from when we were younger. But instead of being three inches across and made from one piece of plastic, it’ll be over a foot wide and made from hundreds. Given my piece limitation, it might not look the prettiest, but the goal is creating that perfect balance. I can do pretty on a different build.

I have faced some other distractions these last couple of weeks, though I like to think them the good kind of distractions. I had an idea for an educational chemistry game for middle and high school and developed that a bit. I fortunately have subbed a few chem classes during that period and was able to get very positive input from chem teachers, so yay!

I’ve also been thinking a lot about AI’s role in brainstorming and story creation. I obviously don’t want it to generate anything, but I think it could be very useful in organizing thoughts and characters and stories and a whole lot more I won’t delve too far into. Based on what research I’ve done, I don’t think AI is sophisticated enough to do what I want, but in a few years…

I’ll close out with the acknowledgement that I tend to bite off more than I can chew. AWP is coming up in just over a month, and I’m a going to send the first five pages out to agents as part of their Writer to Agent program. But that means I have just over a month to get this story into ship shape. While also building Lego. And working. And designing that game. And prepping for a new baby. And running a D&D campaign.

It’s a good thing I don’t have any hair, else I’d probably be pulling it out.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year. Enjoy your time with loved ones and remember that diets don’t count on holidays.