In January of 2016, I sat down to write a story about reuniting with my birth family from El Salvador and my experiences as I got to know them. Now, almost exactly five years later, I have a completed manuscript of my autobiographical novel. It is roughly 117,000 words in length or approximately
For this month, I had planned to do a detailed year-in-review update, but I decided to focus on finishing the manuscript instead. I am thrilled to report that those efforts have paid off, and I am mere days away from completing it.
Well, it’s been a busy month, and in today’s update, I want to share a progress report on my book as well as some of the other projects I’ve been working on.
After two long years I finally finished my "Batman” rewrite! Even though this process took a lot longer than I had anticipated, I’m thrilled with the end result. I now have story that “works” and nearly completed manuscript.
Over the past month I’ve struggled to make a meaningful dent in the final act of my book. While the writing has been going great, finding time to work on it has proved to be difficult.
I made some good progress this month despite falling behind my intended schedule. I had planned to finish Act III before September, but I’m not quite there yet. Between spraining my wrist in late July and taking few days off to enjoy nature, I wasn’t able to write as consistently as I would have
One of the most fascinating parts of Sebastian Junger’s fantastic book Tribeis when he describes how American Indian societies used rituals to help warriors deal with their traumatic wartime experiences. For me, these ceremonies hold the key to finding homecoming and belonging.
Today I have some exciting news to share. As of a few days ago, I am roughly halfway done with Act III! Despite this milestone, I still have several weeks of work ahead of me before I’ll have a finished manuscript. In this update, I want to share what I have left to do, and how you can read my
It’s easy to look at the celebrations at the end of stories and think they only exist to please the audience, but I’ve come to realize that these ceremonies serve a much deeper, and more important role in stories and our lives.
After a couple of months off from writing, I'm happy to report that in early June, I resumed work on the book and that I’ve already made a substantial amount of progress
Just the other week I wrapped up coaching Ultimate Frisbee at a Beaver Country Day School. Coaching there is not only a lot of fun but is also deeply meaningful and plays a significant role in my book.
In my last post, I talked about selecting a Batman movie, The Dark Knight, as the masterwork for my autobiographical novel, Waking From Innocent Dreams. In this post, I will share a few ways that I incorporated this movie and the character of Batman into my book.
I was only 16 when I met my birth family and didn’t yet understand the long-lasting impact that event would have on my life. So, as I look back at the past 20 years or so, I think about what advice I might give my younger self.
When my editor first suggested using a Batman film as my masterwork, I was intrigued but unsure how I could incorporate it into my work. After all, what does the caped crusader have in common with a journey about getting to know my biological family?
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Dad appears to be lost in thought as he plans out our first day of spring vacation. He scratches his mostly gray beard while scrutinizing a map of local attractions. My brother Derek and I lean on the stone wall outside of the historic Banyan Guest House, waiting to receive the day’s instructions.
Utterly drained, frustrated, and still fuming, I dump my sports bag by the door and sit down at the kitchen table. I had just returned from my weekly Sunday pickup game of Ultimate Frisbee, where the yellow team had lost 13 to 15. Despite pouring every last bit of energy I had into the game, I
In the summer of 2019, when I started working with my editor, Rachelle Ramirez, one of our goals was to find a well-established novel, film, or any other story that I could use as a template to help ground my story.
Welcome to the first post in a series I’m calling "Beyond the Book," where I will give you a peak behind the curtain and provide you a window into my thought process of writing my autobiographical novel, Waking From Innocent Dreams.
As some of you may, or may not know, every spring I coach Ultimate Frisbee. While this activity is one of the highlights of the year, my duties as a coach often make it quite challenging to make progress on the book, so I’m taking a break.
