A very merry Christmas to everyone! 🎄 I hope you’re all celebrating it with loved ones. ❤️💚 ❤️💚 ❤️💚

You Have Been Loved by George Michael 🎵

Enjoying my first ever ride in a Tesla. 🤯😍 🚗⚡️

This might be the greatest YouTube video of all time. — Package Thief vs Glitter Bomb

Christie Stratos, an author I admire and who wrote the fantastic Anatomy of a Darkened Heart, gave a fun interview recently, which included an incredibly flattering surprise!

MR: You are an avid reader. What is your favorite underappreciated novel?

CS: It would have to be Haven Lost and the whole Dragon’s Brood series by Josh de Lioncourt. He is a brilliant fantasy author, and a lot more people should discover his work. It’s written just as well as any traditionally published fantasy author’s work, including excellent pacing, great twists on lore, in-depth character development, and loads of action. The first time I listened to one of his books on audio, I was blown away!

She’s a great author, and Anatomy of a Darkened Heart is absolutely worth your time if it sounds like something you’d enjoy. You will not be disappointed. I’m so flattered by this coming from such a talented writer.

Christmas is incomplete without Alvin and the Chipmunks, who are a fixture in my holiday music playlists. 🐿🎄

Song of the day – Kick Start by Lisa Loeb 🎵

While going through old emails, cerca 2006, one of the many things that strikes me is the lack of emoji. It just seems kind of wrong now. 😧

“I Have the power…and holiday spirit!”

Song of the day – You Make It Feel Like Christmas by Neil Diamond 🎄🎵

I posted about Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor the other day. I finished it last night, and it was fantastic. Highly recommend it. On to book 2! 📚

Currently reading Just One Damn Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor. It’s delightfully British, genuinely funny, and blends historical fiction and sci-fi wonderfully. Only discovered after starting that it is the first entry in a rather robust series. 📚

What should have been a simple task of putting lights on the turned into quite an adventure. 🎄❇️🎅

“There was always Christmas time to wipe the year away…” — December Song, George Michael 🎄🎵

Winter has come far too early this year. I do not approve. ❄️

Every year or two, I used to publish a list of podcasts that I was currently enjoying. I axed those posts when I moved my blog earlier this year, since they were pretty out of date. However, it is time to resurrect them with a new version. For some of the shows below, I’ve simply copied out what I wrote about them previously, but there are some new entries in the list as well. My tastes tend to be cyclical, so some shows come and go. Those below comprise a mix of ones which have stood the test of time for me, or are currently at the top of my must-listen priority list. I hope you can find something you’ll enjoy as well among these gems.

• The Accidental Tech Podcast Is a Technology Discussion Show Hosted by the Incomparable Marco Arment, John Siracusa, and Another Guy. (Just Kidding, We All Know Who You Are Now, Casey Liss).
• Upgrade is another Apple-centric podcast hosted by Jason Snell and Mike Hurley. It’s also a great listen.
• Automators digs deep into automation on various platforms, including macOS and iOS. It’s just too good! Even experienced users will learn a thing or two from this show, but its also a great place to start if you’re just becoming interested in automation.
• The History Chicks is simply the best history podcast out there—at least as far as I’m concerned, and I listen to quite a few of them. Each episode focuses on a different woman from any part of history, giving tons of context, background, and tidbits that will keep you coming back for more. I find history podcasts to be kind of addictive in the first place, and this is the best of that genre.
• Everything Is Alive is an interview-style show with one tremendous difference: all of the guests are inanimate objects. Seriously, it’s great. Go listen to it. Right now.
• 99 Percent Invisible explores the world of design, whether that’s architecture, clothing, musical instruments, coins, or anything else under the sun. It is fascinating.
• GrammarGirl provides tips and tricks for writing, not always restricted to just grammar. Mignon Fogarty has been doing this successfully since the early days of podcasting, and is there any wonder why? This show is a fantastic resource that she manages to keep both informative and entertaining.
• NPR Ask Me Another is a trivia game show for geeks by geeks, featuring the music of the talented Jonathan Coulton.
• Welcome to Night Vale is very, very hard to describe. Essentially, it is an ongoing story and audio drama set in the fictional desert community of Night Vale. The show’s hero is a host on the local radio station, and each episode largely takes place during his broadcasts. The show is both hilarious and creepy. Many have described it in a variety of ways, but I like to say that it seems like what might’ve been the brain child of Stephen King and the Onion. In fact, there’ve been a few Stephen King reference throughout the series thus far. It’s brilliant!

On episode 64 of MastersCast, we discuss the new She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series from Dreamworks. Beware of spoilers. For the honor of Grayskull! ⚔️

I’m three episodes into the new She-Ra series on Netflix. There are definitely elements I would have done differently, but on the whole I’m thoroughly enjoying it. ⚔️

My 7-year-old self makes a brief appearance in this great video about She-Ra. ⚔️

Song of the day – Mothers Pride by George Michael 🎵

Oh she knows

She takes his hand

And prays the child will understand

At the door they watch the men go by

In the clothes that daddy wore

Mothers pride

Baby Boy

His father’s eyes

He’s a soldier waiting for war

Time will come

He’ll hold a gun

His father’s son

Kind of appropriate for today. Song of the day – Blue (Armed with Love) by Wham! 🎵💙

It’s the 1st of November, so it’s time to break out the holiday tunes. 🎄 Song of the day – Last Christmas (Pudding Mix) by Wham! 🎵

Happy Halloween! To help you get into a spooky mood, here’s an eclectic Apple Music playlist I created of my favorite songs of the season. Haunted Hits 🎃🎵

On Halloween night, 2013, I sat down at my MacBook, determined to begin writing the novel that had been kicking around inside my brain for twenty years. I was streaming the Penn State Women’s Hockey game, handing out candy to costumed kids with my then girlfriend (now wife), and pounding away at chapter one.

That all seems like a very long time ago.

I’d promised myself that if I finished chapter one that night, I’d continue writing the rest of the book throughout the month of November as a NaNoWriMo project. As it turned out, I did finish chapter one. The next day I wrote chapter two, and by the end of November I had nearly sixty thousand words, fifteen chapters, and about one-third of what would become Haven Lost written in first draft. At the time, the book was tentatively titled Haven 21. (The first person who has read the book and can figure out the significance of that original title, get in touch via Twitter, Email, or Micro.blog and I’ll send you an autographed paperback. 😉)

Five years, two novels, and one short story later, it’s amazing how many stars aligned that first night, and how many of them would go on influencing the whole Dragon’s Brood Cycle. The Penn State Women’s Hockey team offered a ton of inspiration for Emily’s character; Halloween and related themes have played heavily into the story, particularly in volume 2; and I’m still using the lessons learned from my first NaNoWriMo experience—most importantly that I could, indeed, finish writing an entire novel.

To celebrate this milestone, Haven Lost and Harmony’s Song are both available for free on Kindle for the next few days, and Haven Divided is on sale as a Kindle Countdown Deal. If you haven’t given them a chance yet, now’s a great opportunity, and I hope you enjoy them.

I want to thank all the readers who have been so supportive of my work. It has been amazing, flattering, and wonderful to share these stories and characters with all of you. I couldn’t do what I do without you, and I am eternally grateful.

A safe and happy Halloween to you all, and a magical Samhain! 🖤🎃🕷🧡

Turns out™️ your Apple Watch activity rings go to hell when you get the flu for a few days. 😔