Category Jon

Hey folks,

Well, summer is in full swing now, and July has already snuck up on me!  It’s been too long since my last post, so I’ve got a lot of details for you readers to get caught up on:

First off, if you remember my last post, I told you I would make sure I started the summer off right by taking a few weeks off.  Fortunately, with nothing major on my plate, I got a chance to do just that:

Besides enjoying some hard earned game time, I took a day with some friends to head over to Seattle and visit the Asian Art Museum, part of the SAM (Seattle Art Museum).  I unfortunately didn’t take any photos from inside the museum, but I did get a nice picture of the view from outside:

Besides being situated in a nice park on a gorgeous day, the museum wasn’t too shabby either!  B...

Hey folks,

Its been a while since the last formal post.  Last month’s post was just a link to my interview with DigiPen, so I guess I finally have to get back into the writing scene.

Speaking of writing, I know many of you are still looking for Book 3.  As I’ve stated before, I’m still working through edits – just very, very slowly.  Definitely not as quickly as I like.  I’m going to be devoting Tuesday mornings specifically to keep writing and editing.  I’ve had some very interesting ideas for books recently, so I might divide my time between several works, but at least I’ll be setting a more structured time to work than my current on again, off again style...

Well folks, it’s just about that time – the start of Summer in WA, and I have to say, I’m pretty excited.  Even though it is June, the temperature is in the high 60s to low 70s and supposed to stay that way for a while.  And despite Seattle’s reputation, it’s been one beautiful day after the next.

Even without the fantastic weather, the last few weeks have been action-packed, with lots of great things happening!

First things first, I was honored to win one of two scholarships in the first annual Vandelay Web Future of Technology Essay Contest!  If you’re interested, you can check out Vandelay Web and see my essay here.  You may or may not agree with my points, but I’d love to hear your feedback on it.  Thanks again to Mark Runyon and Vandelay Web for the great honor!

And while that al...

Hey Everyone,

I’ve got a special treat for all of you today, an interview with fellow author and friend Rori Shay!

I first met Rori a couple of years ago at an SCBWI  conference  during a  critique session.  We’ve been helping each other with our  writing ever  since.  Rori has just released her first book,  Elected,  and is  promoting the rest of her series through kickstarter.  By  going to  kickstarter, you can check out her book, and pick up a  copy for only  $5!  If you contribute, and the kickstarter meets its  stretch goals, you  can get a copy of several other books, including  Book I of  The Phoenix Fallacy, for free!

 For all you readers out there, Elected is a sci-fi novel about a girl  named Aloy who is forced to masquerade as a man in order to help  her...

Well folks, its that time again.  Christmas is fast approaching and everyone is in a crunch to get everything done before the end of the season.  The same is true for me, and although I’m getting close, there’s enough left on my ‘to do’ list to keep me busy the whole holiday!

But even with that list, I can still take a moment to enjoy the conclusion of the semester and many accomplishments this year – and what a year it’s been!

I left friends and my family back home in Florida to journey across the country out to a brand new adventure in Seattle.  I zigzagged across the U.S., going up both coasts and from one corner to the other...

Hey folks,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Mine was a mixture of mad-scramble and occasionally being a bit more lazy than I should have.  As some of you know, I didn’t end up travelling home this year, which marks it as the first time I haven’t spent the holiday with my family.

Fortunately for me, I’ve met plenty of wonderful people up here in Seattle, and a few of them were kind enough to invite me over to join them!  I ended up eating Thanksgiving dinner with the family of one of my project teammates.  It was a great meal, with delicious homemade fixings and a truly memorable apple pie at the end to finish it off!  All of it was made from scratch, which makes the feat of cooking it all even more impressive.  Many thanks to the Street family for the wonderful meal.

Wh...

Hey folks,

Things are coming down to the wire now, both for my book and my school projects.  On the book front, I’ve seen several covers so far, and although the final isn’t quite ready yet, I should have a version in the next week or so.  While I’ve been waiting for that, and when I haven’t been directly editing, I’ve been adding some extra content to Book II.  This includes a brand new appendix with some extra lore for those who really love to dive in, and some resources for those who want to be able to flip to the back for a quick refresher at any moment.  Early signs suggest it really helps out and adds to the quality of the read, so I’m pretty excited about showing all of that soon.

On the school front, we had our Alpha presentations this week, and overall, it went pretty well...

Hey Everyone,

As I said last week, it’s been super busy the past month, and I’ve spent a great deal of time working on school projects.  I’m loving the work, but it’s resulted in some really long hours.

Fortunately, I’ve still managed to have some fun outside the school here and there.  On Halloween, I had a chance to catch up with my Aunt Shelly and Uncle Jay, who were staying in Seattle.  They were kind enough to take me to a fantastic restaurant called “The Brooklyn Seafood, Steak, and Oyster House”.

The food was delicious!  Oh, and it was great to see them too! : )

We had a wonderful time catching up and trying different dishes.  Unfortunately, my phone was dying by the time I remembered to take a picture, so I don’t have any photos of the food...

Hey folks,

The past few days have been really busy.  I’ve been working on my GAM100 project Robo Knight Rusty all week and had a major feature presentation on Friday.  I’ll fill in the details on that next time, but for now I wanted to say a belated Happy Halloween to everyone!

Next week should be a little less rushed, so I’ll see you then!

Hey Folks!

I don’t know about you, but the last week went by extremely quickly.  Maybe it’s my self-imposed deadline with the book closing in, or the fact that my game project just seems to be moving up faster and faster, but the days are really short right now.

Of course, it might have to do with the fact that the days themselves are literally getting shorter, too.

I’ve never lived in an area that had a true ‘Fall’ season before, so seeing the colors change here in Redmond has been pretty remarkable.  Funny enough, I didn’t even notice the change happening at first.  As a testament to at least my nature (if not human nature), I spent every day of the last week riding back and forth to school and apparently never looked up.

Just by accident as I was riding one morning, I adjusted my hel...