09 Oct A Proper Introduction
You’re here. You’re an early adopter, or you’ve gone all the way back to the beginning. Either way, thank you. It’s hard for me to understate how much your patronage means to me because I never thought I’d be here.
By way of introduction, which is basically what this blog post will be, I’m Mike. I live in Grand Island, Nebraska which is in the middle of state (literally, the dead center. We are so central there was talk in the 1800s of moving the capital here). I have a long suffering wife of 15 years and two daughters who make me better than I thought I could be. I have a day job. I serve on boards. I play in my church band.
And I write nasty little thriller/horror novels.
Where did that come from? Like so many of you my internal identity is tied to our shared culture. I was in third grade when Return of the Jedi came out and I obsessed over it. I read Stephen King’s “It” over the summer I turned 13 and felt like I had a naughty secret every time I cracked the book. Later, “Pulp Fiction” drug me, as it did so many others, into cinema. I grew up, I started a family, I held down a job and had other passions, but internally stories always held the deepest resonance. I tore stories apart, digested them and whined about how I could do such good work if I had the chance. I was an armchair filmmaker, author and musician for many, many years.
I’m also a fan of podcasts (as you’ll see in the recommendations section of this blog) and stumbled onto what I call the “make your thing” culture. Sometimes it was a cheerleader like Chris Hardwick (@nerdist) literally yelling “go make your thing” and other times it was hearing tales of how creative people did creative things that eventually gave me motivation to act. It took long enough. After nearly a dozen fits and starts, I was 37-years-old when I started my first novel, then titled “Bones in the Gift Shop”. Like many who aspire to create, I had what I thought was a crackerjack idea and I jotted down notes. But, unlike other times, I actually sat and wrote something. And I liked it. And I shared it as I went along and received encouragement. I kept going. I wrote whenever I could. I lost sleep, I bugged my friends, I pounded out 500 words over lunch hours, I wrote in the gym waiting for my kid to get out of gymnastics and half way though my life I finally made my thing.
My first book, with the working title “FantasticLand” comes out in October of 2016 through Skyhorse Publishing.
I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to write, then go back and read that sentence.
Since I was a preteen, I’ve wanted to do this. Before I wanted to kiss a girl or make a buck I wanted to do this. Even though this is small potatoes when you look at the big picture, I’ve still wanted this more than I dared speak aloud. I’m so damn happy that I made my thing. So happy.
Those are the broad strokes of how I got here and I will go into more specifics as we get further down the road (I NEED CONTENT!!). I plan on writing about what inspires me, how my creative process works, what I find interesting and how dumb my dog is. Until then, feel free to email me at and I’d be happy to hear how you created your thing or about the struggles you’ve run into. I’m still a busy worker, father, husband, musician, board member and writer (hell yeah) but I’ll make time. I’m thinking that’s what creators do.
Thanks. I mean it.
-Mike
No Comments