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!

Chronicling A Legacy

As I write this post, my wife and I are still patiently waiting for our son, Nolan Bailey Alderman, to be born. He's actually not due until August 26th, but it feels like we've been waiting for years for him to come out of there.

In the meantime, I've found something productive to do that will hopefully benefit my coming son, and me. I've started a handwritten journal where I am going to detail the walk that my wife and I have taken with God these last few years - along with the adventures I've experienced during my lifetime. Hopefully I can drop some gems of wisdom throughout the journal and help my son to learn from some of my mistakes. Hopefully he can marvel at the outrageous things I did in my youth, and appreciate the incredible steps of faith I've taken as an adult. Hopefully he can benefit from the one story I haven't fabricated - couldn't have as big as my imagination is.

Someday, this journal will be considered a relic. I figure the art of hand writing anything seems to be getting more and more lost as we enter the digital age. I'll admit, I'm succumbing to the convenience that computers and smartphones offer. But there's just something ten times better about getting something handwritten rather than getting something typed out or preconceived. A poem, rather than a pre-typed greeting card. A letter, rather than an email. Heck, my grandfather and I write each other and he even keeps to the old tradition of sealing some of the envelopes with wax.

A bygone art that needs to be appreciated more.

I'll give this journal to Nolan someday in the future when he's grown enough to understand - and hopefully appreciate - all that's written in it. In the meantime, I have an adventure to write.Or rather, record.