I am so, so excited I don’t even know where to start.

This has been the most amazing month of my creative and professional life.

I know I’m only supposed to talk about my children’s fiction and parenting work here, but I’ve been working furiously on a passion project for the last few months, and since we hit a big milestone last week, I really wanted to share.

We’ve been working on this since mid-summer, and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had as a “grown up writer,” by far.

You may remember my horror novel, Available Darkness, co-authored by David Wright. I love that book, and am eager to write the next two chapters in the trilogy with Dave, but it’s nothing like Yesterday’s Gone.

Yesterday’s Gone is more than a book, it’s serialized fiction written specifically for the Kindle and other e-readers; EPIC fiction in bite-sized, hundred page chunks, released each week.

We designed the serial from the television templates we both love so much: LOST, Dexter, 24, The Sopranos; shows you can’t stop watching, and can’t wait to gobble up the next time they come on.

I grew up on copious amounts of Stephen King. This project made me feel like I was writing a Stephen King serial. Yesterday’s Gone is definitely not for kids. As funny as some of the sequences are, overall it’s midnight black – post-apocalyptic fiction at its best.

After just one month’s worth of promotion, Yesterday’s Gone is now the #1 free horror download on all Amazon, and #32 for ALL free downloads.

WOW.

Last week we watched the pilot episode (which is FREE!) drop from the high 1,800‘s, all the way down to a high at #31 for all free downloads, and #1 for horror (though it’s not really horror at all).

I would love, love, LOVE it if you could help me keep this fire crackling. There are three ways to help.

Download the free version of Yesterday’s Gone.
Buy the full season of Yesterday’s Gone.
Share this post.

The very best thing you can do, by far, and what will make me smile from ear to ear and remember you forever, is to buy Season One, then leave an honest review on Amazon.

Reviews are hard to come by, yet they mean everything to a budding author. Without all the 5-Star reviews we’ve earned already, our growth would not have been nearly as explosive last week.

Amazon trusts “verified buyers,” more than regular reviews, so if you’re willing to leave a review, please spend the $4.99 to get the full season. It will be much more meaningful to both us and Amazon.

Here are four trailers to give you a good idea of exactly how awesome Yesterday’s Gone actually is.

(The one at the bottom – “What Would Boricio Do?” is probably my favorite!)

Thanks again! I truly appreciate your help!

Click here to buy Episode I
Click here to buy Season I

Please share this page on Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, or however you like to share best!

Welcome to another Reflective Friday!

As a classroom teacher I made sure my students received at least 90 minutes of writing instruction each day.

Writing at day’s end was always a student favorite. After the day’s final clean up, we would play Mozart for the last 15 minutes, while everyone wrote in their writer’s notebook.

We called these Exit Notes.

My students loved the name, because what it really meant was that everyone needed to write something, anything at all, for 15 solid minutes in order to exit the class at the end of the day.

This precious time set aside for writing allowed all my students, including me, a sacred time to reflect, think, comment, sketch, and record their daily learning experience, while gaining personal insight.

The brainpower always sounded so loud amid the room’s heavy quiet.

Of course, some students would stare at the ceiling as though a deluge of nouns and verbs might come pouring down and onto the paper.

These students were usually my best artists.

“You can sketch what you’re thinking if you want,” I’d whisper, straightening their posture with my understanding.

Now that I have a family, people ask: “Do your children like to write?”

Absolutely!

I never have to ask Haley or Ethan to write, not anymore. Keeping a notebook is a habit for them both. For our family, writing is nearly as natural as breathing.

It is our archive of reflections that helps us understand one another better, and honor our daily life with dignity by regarding who we are today… right now in this moment.

These Friday Reflections are the digital, permanent version for our family.

We hit our targets hard this week!

Here are a few of our highlights:

Haley and Ethan helped make the school shine by planting flowers outside their school.

Service learning is an essential component in our family’s life. We know our efforts to  help others in need is part of living with dignity, and leaving our signature of who we are as a family.

They used their allowance to purchase flowers and have performed extra chores to earn money to buy candy and goodies to fill Halloween goody bags for Santa Maria Community Meals on Wheels program.

Here’s a terrific resource for finding service learning projects for your group.

We kicked off our weekend by attending a Monster Mash Halloween Party last Friday, a benefit for Families for Families.

Haley and Ethan had movie night with our amazing babysitter, decorating the house with full creative abandon, while Sean transformed into Jo Calderon, Lady Gaga’s male alter ego, and I morphed into Lady GaGa’s Bad Romance head-to-toe red lace vintage 2009 VMA Awards outfit.

The night was a blast and we added another Sean and Cindy memory to our adventures in Ohio as a couple.

Sean created another of his verbal magic tricks, part of his new “Timeless Stories Told in Timely Rhymes” fairy tale series.

Here are a few lines from Beauty and the Beast:

A merchant and father, without any wife
And three lovely daughters; a wonderful life
“I’m heading to market, some time around dawn
I’ll swallow my coffee, and then I’ll be gone.”

He turned to his daughters, looked each in their eyes
Then smiled and whispered a special surprise:
“While I’m at market I’ll see many things
From pastries and pastas to bracelets and rings

We’ve had a great year, don’t mull over thrift
Each of you tell me what you’d love as a gift.”
The first daughter smiled, “I’d love a new dress
Maybe brocade since this old one’s a mess.”

The next daughter clapped, tickled pale red
“A long string of pearls,” she smiled and said
The last daughter, Belle, her dad’s greatest treasure
Gleaming with glee and pickled with pleasure

She flitted her eyes and pointed her nose:
“I think what I’d love is just one perfect rose!”
“Of course, girls!” he said, “I’ll buy all you desire
Plus plenty of fry bread, pulled right from the fryer

A great day at market, then gifts for his girls:
A flower, a dress, and a string full of pearls
Halfway to home, the sky turned to black
As serpents of lightning began to attack…

Click on the link to buy Beauty and the Beast (for just .99!)

We also published “A Promise to My Family,”  a collection of 15 posts from the first year of Writer Dad (the same collection is available by clicking the links in the right hand sidebar).

Click on the link to buy A Promise to My Family (also just .99!)

* Side Note: As I was heading to Amazon just now to get the link for this, I noticed it was ranked #50 for “Fatherhood.” Not bad in the first week – GO SEAN!!

Sales are steady for Yesterday’s Gone. We loved reading some of our first reviews and receiving emails from fans. We appreciate everyone’s support with our first big title.

Dave made a page of the four trailers for Yesterday’s Gone that we’ve finished so far. They just keep getting better and better. If you’re a fan of Boricio, the evil monster with a mouth as salty as a sailor, or not, we think you will find this trailer hilarious.

You can check out all four trailers for Yesterday’s Gone here.

Here’s the Boricio-centric trailer, “What Would Boricio Do?”

Buying Yesterday’s Gone is awesome, reviewing it is even better (that’s the #1 way for authors to get found on Amazon!)

Click on the link to buy Season One of Yesterday’s Gone ($4.99)

Click on the link if you’ve already read Yesterday’s Gone and would like to give it a review (THANKS!)

Thanks for another great week, can’t wait for the next one.

See you Monday!

Cindy

I plan on living a long, fruitful life.

Yet, no matter how long I live, I can’t imagine there being a period. more formative than the last three years. An era that began without ceremony on July 17, 2008  And and with the registry of this domain,  or and heand is only now fading as I move my first major fiction project to market.

Because I am a man with the marrow of romance and nostalgia in my bones, I wanted to commemorate time gone by with a collection of 15 posts from the earliest days of Writer Dad.

I love these stories. Each captured a moment in my life, memories made permanent with 26 keys, rather than a click and a flash.

I used to write that way every day. It was all I knew for the first six months of my online life, capturing the daily happenings of my happy, hard-working family with fingers dancing across the keys, long after my children were in bed and sweetly snoring, as my patient wife waited on me once again.

“Just 20 more minutes,” I’d say, even though we both knew I’d be 40, if not twice as long. Every word had to be perfect. After all, I was building something beautiful and we both knew it. It wasn’t just a new online audience or the promise of creative freedom, I was steadily articulating an archive of our lives, one word at a time.

I can never return to that time. Now, I write with a plan, and everything I publish must weave in or out of my ultimate agenda. Yet, there is a beauty to writing without purpose, or at least a purpose as pure and simple as grabbing the magic in a single moment.

This year has been good to me, and I’ve finally earned the right to write with frivolity again. I still believe that “life’s better with the right words” and am looking forward to returning to Writer Dad so I can take pictures with my thoughts and give my memories permanence.

This collection of 15 of my earliest Writer Dad posts are some of my favorite words I’ve ever written. They’re not necessarily the best, but they are wonderfully, beautifully, and almost achingly honest. When I assembled the collection I nearly cringed, suddenly hungry to edit yesterday’s raw copy and innocent perspective.

But I don’t believe in rewriting history and prefer to see the perfection in their flaws.

I love this collection. I love its naiveté and optimism. I love how the pages give me hope that I will recapture the purity I once had and blend it with everything I’ve learned since.

A Promise to My Family is available on Amazon for .99, is FREE when you sign up for the Writer Dad newsletter below, or you can read any of the 15 entries with a click (they’re lined up in the sidebar to your right).

However you prefer to read them, I hope you enjoy and would love to hear what you think!

Writer Dad 

Leave a comment below!

Fridays are always reflective for me.

At the end of my week and the edge of the weekend, I consider all our family crammed in during the current week, along with everything we’d like to fit into the upcoming one.

Fridays give me a chance to appreciate the week that passed and look forward to the next one. I’d like to share some of my Friday reflections with you, starting today.

Our world is a constant flurry of words; ideas in the air and fingers on the keys. Living in our household is quintessential communication cuisine indeed, since  words and language are at the core of everything we do.

Sean refers to me as his CMO, or Chief Mental Officer.

Believe me, the job is never ending. I keep the calm, turn hiccups into happiness, support and celebrate everyone’s accomplishments, provide never ending feedback or a shoulder to lean on, and always know when to listen, when to advise and when to pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Maintaining balance with Sean, in our online endeavors and in life, while ensuring we tend to our many small moments each day, growing as a family with peace and dignity, well, that requires a CMO.

It’s like being one of our fictional characters Ocho the Octopus, with eight arms to hold the important stuff together.

If you don’t know about Ocho, you will have to check him out in Syllable Soup

We hit the ground running this week. Here are the highlights:

We started on Monday with our reboot of WriterDad

Sean had interviews and guest posts scheduled throughout the week to support his and David’s (AMAZING!) new serialized project, Yesterday’s Gone:

Yesterday’s Gone. This is Why Tomorrow’s Better
What the eBook Revolution Means and How Copywriters Can Prosper From It
The Evolving Model of the Entrepreneurial Novelist
Is THIS the Best Way For Writers to Make an Amazing Living in 2012?
A Radical New Way To Tap the Kindle Economy
Is This The Best Way For Bloggers To Blow Up BIG?

If you’ve not yet caught any of Sean and Dave’s Yesterday’s Gone, all I can say is WOW.

Start with the trailer here:

We also published Syllable Soup, which was the full realization of a long time passion project I really wanted to see Sean take to Kindle.

Among all the verbal gymnastics of this week, my prized moments included seeing Syllable Soup come to fruition, hearing my daughter Haley read the first eight chapters of her first book, and watching my son grapple with the writing process on a homework assignment and come out on the winning side.

I’ve always believed Sean would change the world with his words, and this week I saw him run farther and faster than ever.

Remember the Think Different ad for Apple?

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square hole. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
~Apple Computer  

Sean celebrated the life and vision of Steve Jobs with this touching tribute (it made me cry!)

Here’s the video, and you can find the text below:

An Apple has fallen and rolled to the ground
In a deafening quiet, heard all the world round
The branches have bounty, still flourishing FULL
But a bit like a lamb freshly sheared from its wool

It’s the core of the Apple, the Steven who said
Think Different! (or else your ideas are dead)
Thomas and Benjamin, Alexander then Steve
You’re gone, but you left us so much to believe

You created computers we could afford
So easy to use, people piled on board
Apple II was amazing, inspired success
The Macintosh followed with fluid finesse

Then right after that, well, who would’a thunk
The Apple’d be booted from the base of the trunk
That mattered not, you knew you’d return
In the meantime you’d let creativity burn

NEXT was incredible, and Pixar STUPENDOUS
Toy Story to Nemo, every one entertained us
The Apple eventually returned to its tree
To make the branches the best they could possibly be

First with the iMac, then OS X
You did it out loud, then you did it again
Two early rolls in a long wave of winning
A remarkable run that was only beginning

From iMac to iPod, from iPhone to Air
No other company could hope to compare
The iPad set forth a revolution that day
With just one more thing to blow us away

With an orchard designed to draw a large crowd
Your tree now sits under a game-changing cloud
It all just works, your words set in stone
Your technology helps people feel less alone

Beyond your hardware, gifts from the tree
Have landscaped my life in a major degree
On the day I turned 30, a new life begun
With so much potential, my old one was done

I opened my present, my future was changed
A gift from my wife left my life rearranged
“Now sky is the limit with Mac in your hand
You are the music, but it is the band”

My wife, she was right, I started that day
To write a new life, got my world to obey
Technology’s great, but I am a writer
And words are what make my universe brighter

You had more than plenty, a life well expressed
Here are a few of your paraphrased best:

Design by committee can lead to an oops
Which is why I always ignore focus groups

You cannot con people, products speak for themselves
And that’s why our Apples line so many shelves

Good artists copy, great artists steal
Picasso said it, but we make it real

Link up your life and make your links last
Dots connect in the future, not in the past

Trust in yourself: karma, destiny, life
Every breath that you draw feeds your body new life

Billions of millions don’t matter to me
It’s being the creator I know I can be

The impossible’s possible behind a great team
No building stands from the brawn of one beam

Don’t let dogma destroy you with other people’s thought
And turn you into someone you’re certainly not

Stay hungry, stay foolish, stay truly unique
Know what you’re doing, look after your speak

You wanted to ding the Universe and did
You’ve influenced me, well, since I was a kid
Taught me to believe in the Infinity of ME
And to rap with the world standing all around me

Thank you for EVERYTHING, your soil is rich
The earth under your tree is a fertilized ditch
Your ideas seemed obvious, once they were said
So elegantly uttered from your intuitive head

The Apple has fallen, but seeds have been planted
You left us a future completely enchanted
Innovator and artist, entrepreneur and brain
You gave us a world with an obvious gain

Thank you for everything, your legacy’s alive
Filled by the decades and fueled by your drive

***

We had a ridiculous amount of fun with fiction, connected with our readers and capitalized on every opportunity to think different.

Thank you for being a part of our world this week.

I’m already looking forward to the next one.

Cheers!

Cindy

The dawn of WriterDad was a pregnancy.

Exciting, uncertain; a relentless onslaught of mental, physical and emotional work.

The constant slog, my endeavor to understand everything happening in a world that didn’t quite make sense to me, implementing everything Sean asked me to do so he could run farther, faster, all while feeding every immediate need of my family.

It was GRUELING.

Every minute was spent planning, writing, executing, reading, trying, failing, thriving and living. It was hard, and non-stop, but I was happy.

This was Sean’s calling. Everything about it felt natural and real.

Our most priceless possession those first three years was our family faith in Daddy and his BIG, beautiful brain. We never wavered, not once.

Our family never strayed from the trail of our ideals and ideas, family and work ethic. In spite of the never-ending demands we carved a beautiful life for our children, and held our space without surrendering to resignation, or caring what naysayers said of our dream.

We modeled perseverance, a relentless work ethic, problem solving, ownership, and how to tolerate unfortunate circumstances with optimism and pride.

Our children have been reared with an appreciation for simplicity and powerful language.

The most crushing part of these last three years was the endless exhaustion, quarreling with critics and ignoring the naysayers, protecting my children and ultimately having to say sayonara to the home and equity I thought we’d have for a larger piece of the rest of my life.

But I loved Writer Dad, the site and the man.

I’ve always been its biggest fan. I’ve had every post read out loud before it’s been published. I love the thousands of snapshots that fill up my iPhoto, but those pictures are nothing compared to the way Sean captures our family.

I was sad to see WriterDad fading away. But it was a luxury at a time when milk seemed expensive.

He made the right move; focused, made everything work. But I felt like the beautiful permanence he’d started was slipping away.

I think WriterDad meant something different for everyone who read it. For me, it was about capturing time. It is our family archive, inspiration, and recorded journey as a couple working hard to raise an amazing business and two more amazing children.

WriterDad is where Sean’s passion and love for language shines for the world as brightly as it has for me in the last 14 years’ worth of privacy and whispers.

I’ve never met anyone with such a beautiful way of harmonizing life and purpose with words in a way that feels like front porch chatter, that always leaves you craving more.

Watching everything finally come together has been like the first taste of a perfect simmering soup, then popping the cork from a beautiful bottle of wine. Mesmerizing.

An explosion of Hell yeah chased by a cool drink of water.

Sean is in constant creation; moving, making things better, and finding new ways to crystalize thoughts; thinking out and around and then kicking the box, sending it into the sky where it detonates, multiplies and rains around us.

All like as if it was nothing.  

I call Sean’s writing his magic tricks because he can take nothing and turn it into something that leaves you thinking, weeping or laughing. Hell, he makes sales copy exciting.

Sean is wonderfully, beautifully exhausting.

Finally, things are slowing enough for me to enjoy everything to its fullest, all at once.

Life is as fresh as the air in Ohio.

I am looking forward to hearing and reading WriterDad’s natural cadence, and filling our archives with new stories for our children’s forever.

WriterDad is where it all started, the good old days, a scrolling timeline documenting our years as a family with passion for life.

I am also looking forward to holding hands with my Sean, skipping rope together and contributing to the success of this site.

I hope you enjoy the extra voice. As Sean says, “life’s better with the right words.”

Three years ago I started a website.

I didn’t have a plan, I just knew I wanted to write online, without a publishing deal.

I wanted to develop an audience, write across multiple genres, and sell directly to my readers. What I didn’t know was how to get from A to Z.

I figured if I wrote my face off and poured my heart onto every page, I’d eventually draw enough attention and that would be it. Money would rain from the sky and readers would line the streets for miles to read the brilliance of my words.

Not really, but you get the picture.

I started Writer Dad and wrote my face off, pouring my heart onto every page. I wrote five days a week; passionate, honest, consistent, and always believing if I just hung on, my persistence would pay.

It didn’t.

Attention wasn’t the problem, audience connection was always remarkably strong. That part was fantastic. The positive feedback was fuel for my fire. It made me feel alive as a writer. My voice was strong and readers cared about what I was saying.

Comments kept coming as my bank balance fell.

Six months passed and I dug myself deeper.

Things were far worse than I expected.

I had to make money, fast.

I started my satellite site, Ghostwriter Dad. Popped ghost in front of writer and BOOM!, I was open for business.

But I had to abandon the old WD because I couldn’t juggle both babies without banging one on the head. And as much as I loved writing at Writer Dad, it was hurting more than it helped.

So I had to leave, at least for a while.

In the last 3 years I’ve learned more about online business, marketing, and all that stuff that would probably bore you than I ever imagined I would. And it’s been great. I’ve  grown into a much better writer, connector and quality articulator.

I love all that.

But I miss writing for an audience for the fun and romance.

Yet, how do I reconcile the time I spend writing for Writer Dad with the business I’m building, the family future I’m longing to feed, and the career I’m trying to craft?

Fortunately, I’ve finally come full circle.

This year’s been great. David Wright and I have published several titles at the Inkwell already, and I have some wonderful children’s stuff coming out toward the end of the year, including Children Write the Future (my long in development project with Cindy!)

At long last, I have the perfect reason to do what I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time: return to Writer Dad with passion.

We will be publishing 5 days a week, starting now. Cindy will be the Writer Dad manager and we’ll be running it together. I’ll be here often, as will she. We’ll both see you in the comments.

I’m excited to write for Writer Dad and thrilled to write for YOU.

Please subscribe to the feed, like our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our channel on YouTube (great stuff coming there!)

See you tomorrow…

Writer Dad

Were you ever the only person who really believed in you or saw where you wanted to go?

Three years ago, that was me.

Everyone thought I was crazy.

The parents at the preschool Cindy and I were running, friends, family, our accountant, and anyone who opened their ears to the dream. Even most of the people who said, “Go for it!” weren’t so sure.

It was easy to see the Is he nucking futs?!? behind their eyes.

Fortunately, there was one person who believed above and beyond reason. My wife, Cindy.

Cindy is the one who handed me the pen, then urged me to keep it moving. Despite the odds, despite the detractors. Despite my own occasional doubt, Cindy always had faith.

We knew things would get bad.

And they did.

Worse than we expected. But we also knew they’d improve. And they have. Better than we hoped.

We would find our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but we’d have to slog through endless buckets of rain before there was enough to hit the sun and color our sky.

I always knew there had to be something more than running a flower shop or a preschool. While those businesses were successful, it was growing harder and harder to make a living. And I wasn’t really doing what I wanted.

My inner entrepreneur longed for the Internet’s unlimited possibility. Though I’m a writer, I’ve always been a businessman first. The potential results of well-placed words and smart strategies are far beyond anything I could imagine with a brick-and-mortar business.

My ideas are now my best asset, each a new seed with the potential to grow profit.

I had to become a better thinker.

Metal rusts, wood rots, and water stagnates. You must work what you wish to use. I have an active mind, but it would get lazy if I allowed it. With less television, video games, and aimless browsing, writing has sent me deeper into myself.

Each day I shut down with a clearer understanding of myself and the world around me.

I wanted to develop my voice. I thought it was strong, but it wasn’t strong enough. I needed it to be rich, natural, and consistent. And if I was going to come close to being the writer I longed to be, I’d need to be able to bounce between styles, voice, and rhythms.

Three years as a ghostwriter have given me countless voices and amazing experience.

I wanted a worldwide broadcast.

The beauty of being a writer isn’t just the impact you have on yourself, it’s the ability to teach, touch, and influence the world around you.

My words have been read millions of times across every continent.

I wanted to become an architect of the impossible, creating something from nothing and making it good enough to stick around forever. The worlds I build, the characters I craft, and the voices I give their dialogue all teach me a little more about who I am, what I want, and who I want to be with every word.

I’m writing the fiction I’ve longed to write and have published five books so far this year.

I wanted to be present in my life. There for my family.

That’s why we started the preschool. But our children grew older so we had to move on. Cindy, Haley, and Ethan deserve my attention. They’ve stuck with me through every second of our adventure, never flinching. Because of their faith, I’m now living a life that wraps around them.

I’m living the life I built.

Two years ago my wife walked into our bedroom that doubled as my office. I was sitting in my nearly broken office chair sobbing. Honest buckets of liquid defeat. There were no other chairs in the room, so Cindy kneeled to the floor and placed her head in my lap, soothing my shaking body down to its regular rhythm.

Few words were needed. She looked up, I looked down and our eyes locked. Her hands continued to tell me everything would be okay; back and forth, back and forth. After a long silence the two of us stopped rocking back and forth.

“Everything will be okay,” she said, a single tear falling from her own cheek. You were born to do this, and we will do it together.

Four simple words brought me back from the brink.

Who believes in you?

Whether you have the support of a loved one, or many, or are going it solo, you’re not alone.

I was a lot like you, three years ago.

But the cool thing is, I didn’t do anything you can’t do yourself.

Everyone has a voice. Once you learn to use that voice, it can open doors to the life you want to build for yourself.

I’m not gonna lie or sugarcoat it. Writing can be hard. Damned hard, sometimes.

And there’s no one magic path that you can take which will lead you to guaranteed success. If you’re looking for that yellow brick road, then I’m afraid I can’t help you.

But if you want a head start. If you want the hard-earned knowledge I gathered on my journey, proven strategies that have helped me build a successful business, then you’re exactly who I’m talking to.

You are the reason I wrote, Writing Online, a book for people in the position I was three years ago (writers and parents who feel potential burning inside them). You deserve a few shortcuts, so you can learn the right set of skills to make a great living writing online.

Writers write. Keep writing and keep learning along the way. You can write any once upon a time into your happily ever after.

I did it, so can you.

Check out this sample of Writing Online, including the foreword and first TWO chapters. Right click and save to your computer or tablet.

If you like what you read, or just want to get Writing Online right away, it’s now available in three different formats.

• Get Writing Online in print from Amazon.com

• Get the value-priced eBook version delivered immediately to your Kindle device.

• Or buy the instant download of the PDF version complete with the Writing Online Worksheets right here.

The good news is, things are still going great, and though I’m still a bit busier than I’d like to be, it’s all in service of a schedule that continues to improve by the day and promises to  make writing an awesome future a full time job.

Bad news is, though I’m making tons of headway, I still haven’t had the time to write for Writer Dad like I’d hoped. My news idea was a disaster. It tied in nicely to a model I was trying on several different sites, but the reality made me sort of sad.

I had set news alerts for stories about “dads,” thinking I’d publish charming bits about awesome dads, shining examples of parenting, and inspirational odes to fatherhood.

Turns out, that’s not what they talk about in the news at all. What showed up in my news feeds made me want to fill a barrel with my tears. But since I’m not one to mope, I ignored it entirely and kept my days happy.

I also got determined. Even if I’m not acting, I’m always thinking.

Now I know exactly how to give myself the time I need to write for Writer Dad, while making it the quality parenting site it deserves to be and getting the return I need for my  investment of time.

And I’m getting it done with the help of Dave, Tracy, Danny and Lori.

So I’ll be back soon with regular content, both written and video, in no time.

In other news, I’ve finally finished my first book!

Four Seasons, a book about life; all that goes with it and how it all gets sewn together, started as an experiment for Writer Dad subscribers more than two years ago. I never expected it to be my first official book, but I’m thrilled that it is.

If you’re interested in getting Four Seasons, you can get the book on Amazon or Kindle.

For Writer Dad readers only, you can get the full version by dropping your name in the box below. I’ll be sending a digital version out in a couple of days.

If you’re already a part of the Four Seasons project, you don’t need to enter your name below. Your book will be in your inbox this week!

I have a book on “being a writer” to finish up, then I’ll be back several days a week.

Can’t wait!

Wanna know a secret?

Of course you do.

In the history of that question, there’s only been a handful of people who’ve said no, and we both know they were lying.

If you’ve been reading my words for longer than a year, know me in real life, or have ever exchanged an email with me, then this secret is no surprise to you.

Cindy and I don’t have a son and daughter named Max and Mia – our matching set of mini-me’s are actually named Ethan and Haley.

Pen names are masks that make it easy to unmask our true selves, and back when I first started writing online I wanted one for each of us. I was Writer Dad, Cindy was Daisy, and Ethan and Haley were Max and Mia.

Yet there came a time in my writing when referring to Cindy as Daisy no longer felt honest, as though I was keeping truth at an arm’s length for no apparent reason. Two years after my first post, the pen names of my children seem like old clothes, threadbare and out of style.

We are opening new doors daily, but the excitement of this new life doesn’t match the old names, so I will leave them back in California and remember them fondly.

Ethan and Haley started school this week.

Though the academic calendar doesn’t begin until after Labor Day in Long Beach, neither child felt shortchanged by the brevity of their summer – both leapt up the stairs to their classrooms on the first day like true believers on Christmas morning.

They are eager, excited, and well deserving of the new environment that will feed their hungry minds and germinate their blooming brains.

Like Ethan and Haley, Cindy and I feel instantly at home, though 2,350 miles removed from the roots of our previous life. The natural transition is quite amazing, considering the immediacy of our move.

But Ohio isn’t a temporary harbor. It is our new home, and I feel my happy spirit now dangling its legs at the lip of a deep contentment that was previously just a pipe dream.

I feel overwhelming gratitude for this chapter in our family’s history, and since being grateful and keeping the feeling inside is a lot like wrapping a present and keeping it hidden on the top shelf of the closet, I want to give heartfelt thanks to every person who has helped our family along the way, championed our good fortune, or wished us well in our travels. Without you this would have been difficult, with you it’s been wonderful.

But I do miss home.

Which gives Writer Dad a perfect new identity. This site is now the bridge between our old life and the new one; my words the planks of thought that will remind me where we were and lay the days of where we’re going.

So now you know my secret. It isn’t a big one, but it is the final barrier between us. And we both know a well built bridge has no barricades to impede the crossing.

Five months ago I boarded a plane and headed to Ohio, on my way to meet my newest partner, Lori Taylor. Having recently surfaced from a ridiculously difficult year, I made a promise to my family that I wouldn’t allow our new opportunity to swallow the success we’d worked so hard to find, or consume the schedule I’d fought so hard to shrink.

I stepped from the plane into bitter cold and wondered again if I was making a mistake. Five minutes later I was shaking hands with Dave, my giant, grizzly bear of a business partner I’d been working with for a year and a half, yet was meeting in person for the first time.

Like Cindy, Dave believed in my instincts enough to eagerly absorb the risk of the unknown.

With one partner at home and another on the other side of my hotel wall, I fell asleep that night lingering through thoughts of what it would be like to meet Lori, arranging arguments in my mind; casting aside those based on fear, and herding those born in creativity to the front of the line.

Most of life’s fears are rice paper walls easily walked through.

The trip flirted with amazing and Lori was everything in person I hoped she would be. The following five months flew by in a whirlwind; our mutual dreams coalescing to create something new and magical.

But it wasn’t easy.

Chaos at work collided with chaos at home. We were losing our house while at the same time digging deeper into our dream. Work with my new team was endless and 18 month’s worth of personal projects lay fallow as I did my best to maintain momentum amid shambles of shifting projects and spinning plates.

Lori is one of the best direct marketers in the world and has personally raised over two billion dollars for the Disabled American Veterans, five dollars at a time. I eagerly sip from her bottomless well of creative energy, but Lori’s fingers, fast as they move, can’t keep pace with her brain – and even 100 or so emails exchanged between us daily only seem to highlight the fissures in our fractured alliance.

Every so often Cindy would pack my bag and drive me to the airport where I’d amble through security missing home before I’d even left the time zone. Time spent with Lori always flew too fast, while feeling like a hunk of forever. I’d sit in the car on the way to the airport, driver silent, as I felt both eager to get home and sorrow at creativity severed as it was getting started.

This last trip changed everything.

This time it was summer, and I didn’t go alone. Cindy, Max and Mia boarded the plane by my side and accompanied me to Lori’s castle in the forest. Though Lori and I still stayed up talking until two in the morning, this time conversation included Cindy and Lori’s brilliant husband Steve. Around the fourth day and the 50th awesome idea, I finally started allowing myself to wonder what it would be like to stay.

The lush green scenery, low cost of living, and remarkable tribe of wonderful people populating Lori’s life nudged us forward—intersecting goals and creative firecrackers pushed us further, but the new school looking like a wing of Hogwarts brought a weeping Cindy to a decisive YES!

For the last half year, the scrambled colors of our life’s Rubik’s Cube have slowly shifted into place; that week brought the colors closer to their final click.

Her eyes fixed on mine, Lori told me she couldn’t do everything she wanted without me. That feeling is mutual, not just with me, but with Cindy, the most significant of my life’s many partners.

We agreed on the move and felt the burn of excitement. Cindy and the children returned to California to initiate the first of our farewells while I stayed one final week to take care of business.

My dreams have clarity, purpose and infinite possibility. Everything I’ve worked so hard for, with the devotion of my family behind me, now lies at life’s fringes, grazing the edges of my fingertips and teasing me with its proximity.

I’ll miss California, but after a lifetime underneath the sunny skies that make it all too easy to dream BIG, I’m ready for a transition that will put roots in my ground and fruit on my branches.

We’ll return to California one day, but it will be minus the struggle and with all the success.

Happy Birthday, Lori. We love you dearly, and not just because you made sure Daddy’s first trip to New York was in a private jet.

See you soon.