Life is Short, Choose Wisely - and Use Spellcheck
Taking Down URS RETRO Website
For many years, I have maintained several websites. All of them focused on my various hobbies. I had a few outdoor websites; one focused on overlanding, another on solo bushcraft and canoe tripping. There have been websites dedicated to discussing retro gaming and retro computer systems. There was a website that promoted the tabletop games I made. And others that were angled towards other hobbies and side hustles (coffee distributor, aerial mapping with drones, etc…).
Well, I am taking them all down! Read More
Starting My Own Press
Darn it. I went and did it. I said I didn’t care. I told myself it’s just a hobby… you know, for fun. Amuse family and friends, that sort of thing.
Yeah, right. Read More
The Future of Writing and Using AI
I have been reading many negative remarks about writers using AI, and most seem to stem from people using AI to create full-on stories and then selling them. Out of curiosity, I searched for a handful of such novels and gave them a personal once-over. Easily, I would say that most of them sucked. One of the five was actually pretty good.
AI authorship is not going away. It will become more common with every passing year. While right now it is mostly frowned upon, I believe that in a generation the tides will turn, and it will be the norm. Personally, I am not fighting it. As a dude from the Midwest that writes for fun, I have started to embrace using AI. And here is how I am using it: Read More
Figuring Out What I Like To Write
Anyone who has checked out my Stories page lately will see that I am writing across several genres.
While I like fantasy and have written mostly fantasy stories over the years, I don’t think I write it particularly well. Over the past several months, I have started Read More
From Pantser to Outlining
For as long as I can remember, I have always approached story writing from ‘the seat of my pants’. This is a common term for a writer who just writes as the story comes to them; it unfolds as they write. They may have a general story in mind, maybe even a few plot points and scenes, but for the most part, they just write whatever comes to mind without too much forward planning.
Last year, in the summer of 2025, I had a very bad day. Read More
A Whisper In The Dark: Getting Some Rework
My first novella, which I self-published back in 2013 (and later unpublished in 2023), is getting a pass through Grammarly. And wow… did it need it. When I self-published that story, it was a vanity project. It should never have been put out there for people to read, let alone buy and read.
Grammarly Can Be Useful
A few weeks ago, I finished writing a 50k novella, a murder mystery set in 1894 Baltimore. For the first time in the past twenty years, I have been thinking about finding a small or indie publisher that isn’t afraid to back novella-length works. With that thought in mind, I wanted to give my finished novella some polish and have it checked for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and readability. Read More
Focused On Novellas
From the late 80s to a few years, my writing hobby focused on short stories and novels. Occasionally, a novena is thrown into the mix. Short stories were easy to write. Novels, I would tend to move on to other hobbies and lose interest before finishing. Novenas were fine, but somewhat unsatisfying for some reason. Read More