July 18, 2025

Bluh. What a shitty week.

I’ve always been a work-at-the-speed-of-light person. I would much rather get my part of project finished before passing it along to the next human, instead of taking it bit by bit. I hate when things move slowly, and I hate that I understand why they sometimes do. It’s a control thing. That’s why rich people look so happy all the time. They can just dangle resources in front of people and say, “You work for me and only me until this is done.”

I want to be rich. Not the sort of rich that influences US elections or has solid gold toilets, but I-don’t-work-for-anyone-but-me rich. Like $250K a year rich. Even then, I don’t want a job. I don’t want to deal with people. I would much rather plant my ass in an adirondak chair in some pine trees on the shore of Lake Superior and write.

It's a pipe dream, but it’s why I throw $20 at the lottery every few months.

Until then, I’m gonna keep plugging away at these books, watch hockey, wrestle a couple of butthead dogs, and travel more.

Banff

My wife and I went on our first actual vacation in 15 years the other week. As far as I’m concerned, the Canadian Rockies are where the planet hides its heart. It is so insanely beautiful there I was tempted to cash in everything and become an illegal Canadian immigrant. Being from Minnesota, I speak near-fluent Canadian and am versed in their strange customs, so I think I could pull it off for an insane amount of time.

This is what I’m talking about:

Double rainbow over a mountain

That was the view from my hotel room balcony. We didn't spend a lot of time cooped up in our room, because who's so miserable they'd do that when they could go to lunch here:

I don't even remember what I ate that day

We took some excursions. Brewster Sightseeing was phenomenal. They picked us up from our hotel, basically held our hands getting onto the bus, then brought us to mountains and glaciers.

Dude. I got to walk onto a glacier.

Athabasca up in this muthafucka

It's beautiful. It also gargles balls to know this whole sheet of ice is going to be gone in 50 years because we can't evolve beyond the Industrial Revolution.

We took about six million pictures. Once I pull them off my wife's camera, I might post them.

Anyway, until I'm one of the few fabulously wealthy and unproblematic authors alive, this is what keeps me working full time: traveling while it's not prohibitively expensive and spending money I will never recoup on a writing hobby I'll forever be mediocre at. Mediocre but satisfied. If you don't know what that's like, just ask a couple of lady friends about their sex lives, provided your relationship with them is solid enough to bring it up.

Seeing more of the planet and its people reminds me there's an entire world beyond my computer screen. Writing is sort of my thing, so I'm going to pay cover artists for their art while I can afford it, and I'm going to pay my absolute evil goblin saint of a beta reader/editor who is probably bored to tears with Book 2 right now. You're AMAZING, Jordan!

Writing aside, if you ever get the chance to visit Banff National Park, I plead with you to not miss Lake Louise. This is probably the best photo I've taken with my shitty phone, and it doesn't even do it justice:

It looks stunning, but that water is cold enough in July to stop your heart, if you're not careful

Dear Canada, can I get dual citizenship? Please?