Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: We live in a valley, so it’s hard to have a good place to watch the sunset near the bottom of the valley, but there are some cool places to watch it up in the mountains. I think Camp is my favorite place, currently.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden:
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: I learned that I can stay calm in a medical emergency. Richard sliced his finger open yesterday pretty badly. He handled it very well, his first aid training kicking in no problem, but mine did, too, which surprised me. Five stitches later, he’s doing just fine, but the amount of blood was a little intimidating.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: Something vanilla. Light and fluffy. I love whipped icing. And no blue dyes that will turn my tongue funny colors.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: Pros: I work well under pressure, so sometimes I can do my best quality work when I procrastinate.
Cons: I spend a lot of time being anxious and frustrated with myself.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: Spanish. I’m tongue tied so it’s literally impossible for me to roll my Rs, so I stayed away from Spanish when I was young. Now I’m struggling to learn.
Richard: Honestly, probably German. A few of my friends speak it, and it’s useful in several of the hobby communities I’m in.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: So many songs. SO many. If Our Love Is Wrong by Calum Scott spoke to me for a long time.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: Snuggles and acts of service.
Richard: Snuggles and New York Times articles
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: That I’m going to have more time someday. I don’t know how to do down time, so I always fill it with things. But at least now I fill it with things (and people) I love instead of fill it to run away from something.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: For a brief time, I wanted to be a marine biologist. But mostly, I wanted to be a teacher. There was, of course, also the times I wanted to be a famous musician, or better yet, wanted my dad to be a famous musician so I would get the money but not have to do the work. 😉 (Plus it was my dad’s dream, so I wanted it for him.)
Richard: Also marine biologist (same as everyone). I was briefly obsessed with specifically being a paperback writer due to the Beatles song.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: Mary Higgins Clark. She is the queen of mystery! I was introduced to her when my grandmother passed away and my mom handed me Stillwatch from my grandmother’s closet. It was a book from her TBR (to be read) pile. I fell in love with this powerful female author who was everything I wanted to be. To this day, she’s the only author I collect novels for, and I have a good portion of them. She is phenomenal.
Richard: I’m really bad at these questions. It turns into a philosophical, “but what does favorite mean?” thing. I think we’ve had this come up before and I’ve thrown out Naomi Novik, KA Applegate, and maybe Kim Harrison once? Let’s go with Michael Stackpole today. While I (like every other millennial) has a “remember when you found Animorphs?” story (Borders? or a bookstore that would soon become one, Oxford Valley Mall, 1997, book #7 The Stranger) I think Stackpole is probably the most important author for my overall development as a reader/writer.
It’s a twisty, nerdy road. I don’t really remember a time before I was a Star Wars fan as a kid. My dad brought a demo disk for TIE Fighter home (probably circa 1994, based on the release date) and I was already really into it. That would also be the year that the Battletech cartoon came out. I maintain that it is a far better show than it’s generally given credit for. As a 5 year old, the fact that it had giant robots and something resembling a coherent plot made it the best thing ever. (These will converge eventually, I swear.)
The next year, 1995 (again, guesstimating based on the release date), my dad proudly came back to the car (where I was probably reading something considerably less cool than Animorphs or a Michael Stackpole book) with a copy of Mechwarrior 2. He (correctly) realized that anything with the Battletech logo on it would obviously be awesome. I think he also played the demo and probably saw that it won every freaking video game award that year. Or one of his German gamer friends told him to play it. That was how we got a bunch of game recs back in the day.
Fast forward to probably 1997, when my dad got a copy of The Krytos Trap from the library. I liked it (but, again, I’d have liked just bout anything Star Wars at that point.) Around the same time, we also got a copy of a strategy guide for Mechwarrior 2. As I recall, it was not a terribly useful strategy guide (aiming and driving at the same time is hard for an 8 year old!) But this was back in the good old days when strategy guides would have all kinds of cool behind the scenes stuff. So the first 50 pages or so were less about the game, and more about the history of Battletech, including book recommendations. Stackpole’s Warrior trilogy came highly recommended (with good reason, it’s probably the best thing he wrote in the setting.)
So off we went to the library, to use those old school loud keyboards with the plastic couch protectors on them. While they didn’t have the Warrior books they did have the Rogue Squadron (fuck you Disney!) series. I’m pretty sure those were the first “adult” books I read. That’s mostly true, I think I tried to read War of The Worlds in like 3rd grade. It didn’t go very well.
I found a ton of my other favorite authors via the Star Wars EU and Battletech series. Looking back, it’s kind of weird to see how all the pieces fell together (Star Wars>Battletech Cartoon>Mechwarrior>Strategy Guide>Rogue Squadron>Battletech Books…) None of them are that odd. I was a nerdy boy in the 90s, of course I liked Star Wars. But it was an interesting and meandering road. A few of those authors are still publishing today, and the ones that aren’t are always a gem when they pop up at a used bookstore. I am glad that I fell down the Battletech side of the rabbit hole instead of the 40K one. (Otherwise, this post would probably be about Dan Abnett. Who is fine, I guess.)
Anyway, I’d say Stackpole has a strong claim to the “best military sci-fi media tie-in” author title. How impressive this is is up to you. I remember finding his website back when I was in high school, and a lot of his advice for writers is really good. Don’t edit until you’re done a draft. Start with interesting characters and let them drive the story. I think balance is really his biggest strength as an author. Finding the ratio between political intrigue (giving your new wife a china set of all the planets you’re going to conquer as a wedding gift? YES!) personal drama, humor (again, FUCK YOU DISNEY!) and mech/starfighter battles isn’t easy. He gets his explosions wrong sometimes, but we forgiven him.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: We have a loft apartment, so there is no bedroom door and the walls don’t go all the way up, so there’s no privacy.
Richard: There’s no utility sink.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: My best friend would say yellow, because I am the sunshine.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: To cook: chicken, rice, sour cream, and cream of mushroom soup. It’s a recipe my mom adapted years ago, so it’s comfort food for me. It’s my favorite dish that I can make myself.
To eat: I don’t think this counts as a meal, but I would make one out of it. Richard makes the best sourdough biscuits. Yum!
Richard: I’ve really been enjoying experimenting with chili lately. Jayden can’t have beans, so I’ve had to change my recipe a little (celery and carrots help give it some texture). I’ve been working on a sweet, medium spice turkey recipe lately.
Making chili also means I have to get my corn bread game on point.
And as far as favorite to eat… chili is a great excuse to pull out a spork.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: Our wedding day. It was near perfect. Richard had a good time. My daughter had a good time. My friends and family had a good time. It was wonderful. I would do it all again in a heartbeat.
Richard: In the winter of 2020-2021, Jayden and I got snowed in together. We had just started dating, and it was a record breaking snow. We spent three days drinking tea, having snow ball fights, and snuggling (and of course, having sex). WHERE’S MY SNOW, WINTER!?
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: Yankee Candle’s MidSummer’s Night brings me right back to middle school. Hanging out with my neighbor (who I was hopelessly in love with) on his back porch, listening to music with that scent in the air. The first time I smelled that candle, it took me right back.
Richard: We just did a sense memory piece at grad school last week!
Cold, dark, and sweet. That’s the smell of our basement. Same as most people’s I think. But it doesn’t go with the rest of it. Sound? Plasma rifles jrrrrr, exploding fireballs, cries of pain. Touch? Cold, sharp metal. Warm skin. Taste? Bitter coffee. Sour pretzels. And all I can see is hundreds of demons, dripping with blood.
I’m 4 years old, sitting on my dad’s knee at his desk while he plays Doom.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: In about two years, I got a new job, left a marriage, moved out, got remarried, and started a doctoral program. By the way, I hate change. I’m much happier now, but it was very scary at the time.
Richard: I’m embracing my sexuality and writing about bisexuality and erasure in my thesis.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden & Richard: The train. We both love it, and we both hate that the passenger train infrastructure in our area sucks.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: I would call a financial planner, and then quit my day job. After that, I would be looking at who needs that money the most in my life, and how can I invest it so I never have to work again?
Richard: Also call a financial planner. And I would want some very expensive Swiss Army Knives and Scotch.
Hello readers! We’re here with the answer to the latest question in our Bloganuary series!
Jayden: Pack Richard’s lunch. I eat the same thing for lunch every day and even so, I have a list of what goes in my lunch posted on the refrigerator. Richard doesn’t like to eat the same thing every day (totally fair), so I have to really think about what I’m putting in it, and sometimes I forget stuff. Thankfully, we planned for that, and he keeps extra snacks at work. 🙂
J R Vincente 