Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to tell all of you that I am supremely grateful for your support of my blog, my writing, and my career as a writer. I am a very blessed man to have fans, and even more blessed to have such a great cloud of friends and family who support my God-given calling as a writer. I hope each and every one of you have a great day today! Great things are coming in 2014, so stay tuned to keep tabs on my upcoming projects.

Giving Thanks

With Thanksgiving coming tomorrow, I wanted to take a moment and post some of the things that I'm thankful for. These are things I am thankful for all year long, but I figured since it's Thanksgiving, maybe I'd actually go public with them.

My relationship with God.
These last few years have brought me closer to God and further from myself - the parts of myself that need to die and make room for newness and better fruit. It's been a challenging journey through self-publishing, writing, and family matters since I left my '9-5' job back in 2009, but God has seen my family through and shown us miracles and countless proofs of His love for us. I'm thankful that He is a God who is continuously active in our lives.

My family -
I am blessed beyond measure with my wife and my son. My wife and I have grown so very close to each other during this journey, and I cannot imagine my life now without my dear son. Working from home while also taking care of my son has been a challenge, and I've had to learn to grown into certain spots, but overall, I wouldn't trade my family or the experiences we share together for anything in this world.

My Career -
I've been writing stories since I was eleven, and now that I'm thirty-three, I find my passion to write becoming an ever-growing obsession. I have had the ability and privilege to write from home full time and grow into this self-publishing business. At times, this writer's life is frustrating and hectic, but those golden moments when I get chills reading something I toiled over or hearing how my writing changed someone's outlook on life are priceless and make all the struggle worth it.

My hobbies -
This should probably be changed to hobby (singular) - video gaming. I grew up with video games. My dad introduced me to computers at a young age, and I still remember playing Choplifter on my Commodore 64. Video games run in my blood, and I still enjoy them to this day, sneaking in moments of gaming goodness whenever I get the chance. In fact, if I wasn't called to writing, I definitely would have entered into the area of video game design for my career.

I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving, regardless if the retail industry attempts to overshadow it with nonsense.

Giving Thanks

With Thanksgiving coming tomorrow, I wanted to take a moment and post some of the things that I'm thankful for. These are things I am thankful for all year long, but I figured since it's Thanksgiving, maybe I'd actually go public with them.

My relationship with God.
These last few years have brought me closer to God and further from myself - the parts of myself that need to die and make room for newness and better fruit. It's been a challenging journey through self-publishing, writing, and family matters since I left my '9-5' job back in 2009, but God has seen my family through and shown us miracles and countless proofs of His love for us. I'm thankful that He is a God who is continuously active in our lives.

My family -
I am blessed beyond measure with my wife and my son. My wife and I have grown so very close to each other during this journey, and I cannot imagine my life now without my dear son. Working from home while also taking care of my son has been a challenge, and I've had to learn to grown into certain spots, but overall, I wouldn't trade my family or the experiences we share together for anything in this world.

My Career -
I've been writing stories since I was eleven, and now that I'm thirty-three, I find my passion to write becoming an ever-growing obsession. I have had the ability and privilege to write from home full time and grow into this self-publishing business. At times, this writer's life is frustrating and hectic, but those golden moments when I get chills reading something I toiled over or hearing how my writing changed someone's outlook on life are priceless and make all the struggle worth it.

My hobbies -
This should probably be changed to hobby (singular) - video gaming. I grew up with video games. My dad introduced me to computers at a young age, and I still remember playing Choplifter on my Commodore 64. Video games run in my blood, and I still enjoy them to this day, sneaking in moments of gaming goodness whenever I get the chance. In fact, if I wasn't called to writing, I definitely would have entered into the area of video game design for my career.

I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving, regardless if the retail industry attempts to overshadow it with nonsense. I'll be back on this blog next week, ramping up for the release of Black Earth: Exodus!

Thanksgiving and the End of Nano

Well, I managed to finish my 100,000 word goal for NaNoWriMo on the 16th of this month. That's double the word count challenge (50,000 words) in half the time! And I have two brand new drafts under my belt, both of which I'll be working hard on once December comes around.

On that note, I will be offline until after Thanksgiving weekend. I want to wish all my followers/readers a great Thanksgiving. I am very grateful for all of you who have followed my path through self-publishing and my life as a writer, and I look forward to sharing some great projects with you as we wrap up 2011 and enter a brand new year.

Head over to Smashwords and grab a free copy of my novella, Picture Perfect, for your Kindle, Nook, etc. Just use coupon code - JZ47S - when checking out. Just a little way of me saying thanks for following this humble writer's blog.