How do you do it?

People ask me this all of the time. "How do you do it?" They are normally asking this because I work full time, am a graduate student, indie writer-publisher-promoter, I'm planning a wedding with my fiancée, have dogs, cats, birds, turtles, play video games, try to work out, try to keep the house clean, try hard to have an active social life, participate at my Church and maintain a fairly happy healthy life.

My answer is this, I just never stop trying. I don't give up if something slides by the cracks. I have a really supportive and equally busy fiancée and we try really hard to compensate where the other can't. We don't stress about the dishes not being done, (but we will complain about there being no clean forks).

I'm not up on media, I haven't seen the Avengers, I don't get the weekly comics (I wait for the trades and read them on downtime at work), and I normally get to watch a TV show maybe two-three weeks after it aired, or maybe I watch an entire season during my breaks from school (which are few and far between) on my DVR, DVD or Netflix streaming. I read textbooks, and all sorts of fun books randomly and rarely complete one before starting another. I write novels in my head and try to take notes via phone memo, journal or the iPhone’s notepad.

I was a drug addict for 3.75 years, I've been clean for almost seven years. I suffered from depression for almost twenty years, but I've been mindful and self-caring for 5 years. I found ways to counteract my maladaptive behaviors with healthy behaviors. I was an MMORPG/GUILD Leader for almost eight years, and I gave up the guild realizing I was living in a video game, instead of living my own life.

So I guess I've just HAD my lazy years, and there was a time in my life where I wasn't sure whether I'd have a normal life, so when I found a way to achieve my dreams I decided I'd had enough time to squander my life and it was time to start living it: MY LIFE.

So I TRY really hard not to sweat the small shit. I get to what I can, when I can. When I start to notice my warning signs I use my fucking safety plan. When shit is getting overwhelming I make an appointment to see my therapist. When the dishes and laundry need to be done, instead of bitching about it, I do what I can in the miniscule amount of time I have and I'm happy with the results, instead of feeling like a failure.

For school, I get the syllabus and I plan out the entire quarter, when to read, when to watch, when to work on papers. I give myself time to write each paper three-four times, so that come turn in time I don't feel overwhelmed. When I read I highlight all the bold/italicized print and I read the intro and the conclusion, so when it's time for tests I either make flashcards, or if it's open book my brain has mapped the book so I know where to go to find the information.

I force myself to sleep 7 hours a night, if that means I come home and go straight to sleep and don't get any entertainment time, that's what I do. I listen to music on my car ride to work, or podcasts, or YouTube episodes that feature Felicia Day because SHE ALWAYS makes me laugh. I don't complain because I don't get to sit on my ass and play Diablo 3 for 8 hours, I play for 40 minutes when I can, and then I fit in entertainment where there is space in my life. There isn't a lot of room for spontaneity, but I accept that and know that I've finally claimed my life, my space, my time.

This is my life. It's overscheduled, and I miss out on some things, but because I'm mindful, when I get the chance I truly appreciate the moments I DO HAVE. Sometimes just talking to a good friend in the parking lot of her job and getting two hugs is better than spending an entire day doing bull shit. Sometimes going to a ball game because it's your buddy's birthday, catching up on the ride there and seeing an epic homerun right before you leave early to get to work on time, is better than being at a game the entire time and not truly being present.

So yea, I decided to live my life and to not accept "Well I guess this is it, and I'm miserable." I'm the master of MY destiny. It wasn't easy to get here, but it's easy to deal with, and I'm happy. Doesn't mean I don't have bad days (see my solution above). If you really want something, it's worth the hard work to get there.

Reviews for Qualia, from readers!

This is a pretty good book for a first time author! It moves very quickly and its full of adventure. Sort of a matrix meets vampire diaries meets hunger games all rolled into one. Good character development. I am looking forward to what he writes next!!! It was entertaining and the fact that the story was based in the bay area made it all the more familiar. Keep up the good work. - Sharon S.

I don't know what I was expecting from this book, but it was so much more than I could ever anticipate! As someone who doesn't normally read sci-fi books, I was caught off guard by how quickly I became engrossed in the novel. The plot twists, romance, battles, and character studies kept me glued to the book. I can't wait for the second book to be published! I also can't wait to see this story on the big screen! It reads like a movie. Fantastic novel by an up-and-coming author! - T. Perez

I must say that these sort of sci-fi fantasy novels are not usually up my alley, but this is a fabulous read! As the review above me stated it is a mix of a few things into one and creatively so.

There is attention to detail, so much so you get a wonderful, clear picture. The story is fun, full of adventure, character development, and of course a bit of love. It truly puts an interesting twist on one of the most anticipated days of the year and I cannot wait to read the second one :) - Tess


Thank you so much for the kind words and reviews. I have received so much love and support and encouragement from the people that have taken the time to get sucked into The Calling series. You've really inspired me, and I promise that The Seer is being worked out as I type, work and study through this wonderful year of the Dragon 2012, and as soon as it is AS GOOD or better than Qualia it'll be available =).

Cranial Explosion!~

Where to even begin? ...
Well I started a new job on the 22nd. I'm now a Crisis Line Specialist, I work for an amazing Crisis Center in ye olde East Bay California, and despite the occasional delusional and or suicide call I actually feel less stressed than I did working for my last employer where without the looming bankruptcy should have been a really chill job.
It was an excruciating decision to leave Windrush. I was appreciated at the school for my ability to communicate, for my ethics, for my dedication, and I could take my pups to work with me and they in turn were appreciated for their thirst for adventure and never ending reserves of love.
I left my best friend, my Aunt, new friends and a lot of little persons that I truly miss every single day. I have a lot of feelings about what is continuing to go on at the school, about what happened to the school, and perhaps someday I'll write a blog post about the entire experience, but it just would be kindling on a vast bonfire, so I will just say I left and I'm better off, but I do feel sad that I had to.
Ze new job is great. I'm gaining the experience I need for my career and for graduate school (of which I'm in the 2nd quarter). The people I work for and with are amazing and loving and have been kind enough to take me under their proverbial wings and show me the ropes, fine tuning the abilities I've acquired over the last 18 months of volunteering four hours a week on the lines.
I get to help a colleague as she works to develop a grant prescribed crisis chat line, and every week I become more intimately involved in the process. I've never developed or helped develop a program before, it is really quite exciting!
I really like my professors this quarter in grad school. Social Policy is like an orgasm for my brain, it involves social welfare, history and politics, which I mean is the shizzle I geek out on. I don't like all the reading and the incredibly short amount of time I have to prepare for presentations, but honestly I've kinda come to realize that the world operates on short term deadlines, so why should graduate studies be any different?
I'm working hard at keeping connected to my small kinship of friends, and being fairly successful.
The wedding plans are coming along well.
I've sold 14 copies of my book across various media and I still have some advertising ideas up my sleave. I wish I had more time to write, but at least this lack of "time" allows for slow percolating of my sequel.
In my miniscule free time I have been enjoying a lot of pleasureable reading, and hanging out with my fiancee, and my Boston buddies playing Star Wars the Old Republic.
Overall life is good, which doesn't mean it isn't at times stressful.
So that's the weekly dose of my life. Who are you that read? Drop a comment, let's converse.

Star Wars the Old Republic-SWTOR-Best Co-Op Game Ever!

So if someone asked me right now what the best Co-Op game that I ever played was my response immediately would be, Star Wars the Old Republic. *insert record scratch here* "Wait, what isn't that an MMO?" So let me start again. Star Wars the Old Republic (SWTOR) is the new MMO on the block. An MMORPG is a Massi...whatever it's an online game where hundred...thousands or maybe even millions of people play in a universe not soooo unlike our own (remember in the 80s that scare about virtual reality? it's totally here and has been for a long time, it's video games and MMOs are the top tier of that experience, if done right.)

My Sith Warrior

MMOers run around in armor, or robes and wield swords or magic or now "The Force". SWTOR is the new MMO in a long chain of MMOs. My experience in Video Games began when I was a tiny child with the ATARI and I've fairly stayed with the latest and greatest technology since then. In 2002 my then girlfriend and I picked up Everquest and spent the next couple of years until World of Warcraft arrived in the lands of Norrath killing snakes that kicked and dealing with 8 year olds that stole their brothers accounts and trained us with Orcs. World of Warcraft dropped and we were lucky enough to land into friends and family beta due to our connections in the gaming world (her brother in law). We then played Humans fighting Orcs or Orcs fighting Humans and then when Blood Elves dropped we basically just played them because they are so hawt and hilarious until Blizzard decided to destroy Azeroth in Cataclysm (what is with MMOs wanting to destroy themselves? ie-EQ2).

 Flashpoint

So why is SWTOR the best Co-Op game of all time? A large contigency of gamers play with their siblings, partners and or children. These days that means handing the controller back and forth, being stuck in PVP land or having to play on two different consoles across really crappy internet. Great games come out, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Skyrim, with epic open world feel like MMOs, but there are absolutely no multi player aspects and honestly having two Shepards running around would be weird anyway, there's only one hero here!

Our naughty Jedis

So my now fiancee (yea same as the girlfriend from way back) and I really love to play games together. It's basically what we do to spend time together. We enjoy the feel of MMOs, but we just don't have the time for the daily progression something like World of Warcraft requires to stay current. We don't mind playing Dragon Age for six months during our busy schedule, but we can't play that together. Handing the controller back and forth for Dead Space was awesome, and necessary that game is intense, but it just isn't the same as sharing the world together as equal heroes and kicking ass!

In SWTOR we can do just that. We login, group up, we can say whatever the hell we want in the cut scenes and the game randoms which answer will be there for us to see across the screen. Her character talks and my character seems to be checking out her ass, which is very true to real life, doesn't mean I'm not listening! We group up in what they call a flashpoint, which is basically a group instance where we all get to control the speech. Hilarity ensues when one person wants a badguy to die and the other three roll a speech answer that allows him or her to live. Don't worry flashpoints can be redone once a day if you want to see different scenarios play out.

We finally get to Co-Op through a dynamic world that recognizes us as equal heroes. And those thousands of other players are periphery, I barely know that other "heroes" are running around too, because the story instances are private and well I turn off general chat.

Our Jedi Light Side Crew

My Shepard voiced Trooper named Morrigen

So if you and your girlfriend/boyfriend/brother/sister/M.. ok you get the point the other gamer in your life that you like to play games with want a new game to play that feels like it could very well be the next big MMO for the casual RPG enthusiast, then pick up SWTOR and start playing.

 There are a million other reasons to play, I mean lightsabers, hello?!

The Calling begins...Book #1 Qualia has been released!

Hardcover Version Cover

So in about mid December I finished the tenth edit of The Calling Series Book One: Qualia. My first endeavor was to publish in hardcover. I wanted a collector's edition for myself, close friends and family, eventual fans and for people that just dig hardcovers in general! I really wanted a high quality collector's item, and so I got just that! I used a photo of the Shattuck BART station in Berkeley, CA, which parts of Chapter one and three take place. It creates a vortex look, which is an image that has resonated with me for many years beginning with dreams I used to have with an iron spiral staircase when I was a tiny child, to mindless drawings I would doodle during classes as a teenager (and beyond it still happens now in grad school). I took that photograph with my pal Yvette Mangual in early Spring 2010. The one I actually showcased on facebook and deviant art is a different photo, the one for the cover I just had saved in my throw aways until I decided to work on the cover and discovered how perfect it was! Just imagine the cover is Eden's view as he's being carried out of the station, because that's basically the idea I had.

For $32.52 on Lulu you get an original photograph of mine as the cover, the Calling Series Book One: Qualia on high quality paper with a glossy hardcover (kind of feels like a small textbook). I tried to price things as low as I could while still making sure I got something. If you purchase this from Lulu.com I actually get ten bucks, once it is available anywhere else I get like a penny just to give some information on that. You can preview it online to the tenth page, which is the first page of Chapter 1, before purchasing. My Lulu Page.

After Christmas, and doing some research, I embarked on publishing the book on the Kindle. No easy feat I will let you know. I had to brush up on some very old HTML skills. Don't let anyone tell you that someone is taking the easy road by self publishing. Basically you're doing the work of an entire publishing house! However, I feel the experience has been very rewarding. I actually am really proud of the way it looks on the Kindle because I worked so hard on it to make sure the formatting was done well. It isn't perfect, none of the versions are, I learned a lot from doing my own formatting, and I'm excited to improve my skills as I publish more books in the future. So for $1.00 you can read Qualia on the Kindle and Kindle Fire through Amazon.com. The pictures featured here don't do it justice, but taking a picture of the Kindle Fire's beautiful high def screen with an iphone probably isn't the best way to get the best photo of it. You can preview it on your Kindle before purchasing. Also you can download the Kindle app to the iPad or iPhone to read it on those devices.

If you are interested in publishing to the Kindle I'm happy to help, answer any questions etc. I'd even be willing to format it for you for a small fee. If you are a DIY kind of person check out Format Your Ebook For Kindle by Derek J. Canyon.

It has been very important to me that I publish to every format someone might want to read my book on. So on Lulu there is an Ebook publishing option. So I published Qualia in that format as well. It runs on Adobe Digital Editions, which is a free app, and can then be read on any device that isn't a Kindle, so your Apple products, PCs etc. It is available in this format for $1.25.

Qualia in Adobe Digital Editions on my Computer

I did the ePub, Kindle and trade paperback versions of Qualia on one very long Sunday. Once I mastered the Kindle it was really easy to do the rest. I already had a formatted manuscript, the artwork, the backcover blurb and photo, it was just a matter of uploading and checking to make sure I liked the finished product. Since I already was really happy with the hardcover I allowed myself to play with some of the templates for the tradepaper and with some feedback from my fiancee Michelle, decided upon the blue universe looking framework for the cover of the trade paper. I actually kind of like this version the best, it feels right in my hand and really makes me want to curl up on the couch with an afghan and read (although I will admit I've read it in every version, not to check it, but for fun). For  $15.43 you can get the tradepaper at lulu, it is also in the process of being distributed to other online retailers and possibly will be available on request in stores, once I know more I'll of course let the internets know.
           Lastly this week I published to the Nook. Lulu's distribution service took almost two weeks to tell me that Qualia had been rejected for the Nook. It took me 48 hours to publish to the Nook with 2 minor changes to my formatting. So if you're trying to use Lulu's ePub format to publish to the Nook and are encountering problems, try doing it yourself through Pubit, which is the Nook self publishing site, you might be pleasantly surprised with how easy it is. I actually really liked the Barnes and Noble system for uploading my manuscript a little more, there were more options for how to categorize Qualia and it felt more like publishing to me for some strange reason. Perhaps I'm just used to how Barnes and Noble does things since I used to work for them (yes the first chapter is entirely about that time of my life, no that manager is not YOU, or is it?) I don't own a Nook (I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas from my fiancee cuz she's awesome!), but I think it's a really cool device and want people that own one and are interested in my work to be able to read it. So I downloaded the Nook app to my computer and to my iphone to preview Qualia and it looks really nice.

On the Nook previewer for PC

Everyone that has purchased my book or will in the future, thank you. The Calling is something I have to write and publish and experience, there is no getting away from it. I dream asleep and awake about this world constantly and have to say that it is my opus, it is my destiny to complete. It will probably be about six books, or six story arcs, meaning I don't want to publish 6 books at 600 pages each. I like the 300 page mark so if that means the arcs come in two parts etc I'll publish as such, as long as it doesn't mean they won't make sense as a book with a beginning/middle/end that is clear. Thank you again, you're making my dream come true and it means so much to me. Happy to chat with you about it, as a matter of fact I can't wait to!
If you want a signed copy just hit me up with a comment here or on facebook and we'll figure out the details on shipping etc. I'm happy to do that, I mean this is my dream so I frakkin' better be happy to do that right? I also have business cards to advertise for the blog and the book if you want one as a collector's item or want a stack to hand out to people that might be interested, just let me know. Happy to sign one for you too. Glossy prints of the cover can be done up as well if anyone is interested that perhaps wants a signed book but owns it on a Kindle/Nook/Ebook device.
I really hope you take the time to post comments here on the blog and to review my book on any (or all please!) of the sites it is availble. Spread the word, let's keep this indie publishing scene alive!
Thanks to Sharon Shutjer who shouted out on amazon.com for me! Gave Qualia 4/5 stars, hot damn!
"This is a pretty good book for a first time author! It moves very quickly and its full of adventure. Sort of a matrix meets vampire diaries meets hunger games all rolled into one. Good character development. I am looking forward to what he writes next!!! It was entertaining and the fact that the story was based in the bay area made it all the more familiar. Keep up the good work. " - Makes a brother feel gooood.

Thanks everybody, for everything, sincerely,