Monday, December 31, 2018

Peculiar People #28


For decades, Sunday worship services of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have spanned three hours: one hour with the general congregation for sermons and to partake of sacramental bread and water; one hour for Sunday School classes; and another hour for men, women, and children to break out into their own groups to study and counsel together. Yesterday was officially the last day of this three-hour schedule, and with the new year, the Church is implementing a two-hour Sunday block in favor of more home-centered, Church-supported learning. I'm excited to see what this change will bring--not the least because I have four children under the age of five!


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Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Warped Plastic #47


As this holiday season comes to a close, I'd like to give a shout out to the people of my local Walmart, who always make me feel at home no matter how overdressed I come.


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Monday, December 24, 2018

Peculiar People #27


Merry Christmas, friends! Whether you celebrate the Babe born in Bethlehem, the winter solstice, good food and family, or anything in between, I hope your holidays are filled with happiness and light.


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Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Warped Plastic #46


Today's comic features Vanny Spencer, who won an appearance in Warped Plastic in my Thanksgiving giveaway. Congratulations again, Vanny!


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Monday, December 10, 2018

Peculiar People #26


I'm experimenting with some new tools that will hopefully make my comic better. Not sure I'm totally pleased with the font yet, but I like how the speech bubble turned out.


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Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Monday, December 3, 2018

Peculiar People #25


Two-hour church is almost here! As a parent of four kids under the age of five, I can hardly contain my excitement.


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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Warped Plastic #44


At a sleepover one Saturday morning nearly twenty years ago, I woke up to a friend turning on the TV to a new show: Spongebob Squarepants. I couldn't have known then what a presence Spongebob would go on to have in our culture or in my life; my friends and I just laughed as he and his underwater friends competed with Sandy the squirrel over whether land or water critters were better.

Over the coming years I laughed some more as Spongebob flipped Krabby Patties, bothered his next-door neighbor, and repeatedly failed boating school. I grew up with that happy yellow sponge.

In the wake of Spongebob creator Stephen Hillenburg's passing earlier this week, I wanted to pay tribute to the man whose work defined such a large part of my childhood. 

Thanks for the laughs, Stephen.

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Warped Plastic #43


Confession: I actually prefer mashed potatoes from a box over the "real" ones. Can't wait for tomorrow's feast!


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Monday, November 19, 2018

Peculiar People #23


With Thanksgiving this week, I wanted to do something about food and coming to America. This isn't your average pilgrim story.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Warped Plastic #42


First rule of Lego comics: if Johnny Thunder can make a cameo, he gets a cameo.

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

What My Newborn Taught Me About Finding Happiness

My wife and I welcomed our fourth baby into the world last week. Childbirth obviously isn't new to us. Yet I can't help but appreciate that moment more every time it happens. 

I have watched a child take his first breaths. Been there as he opened his eyes. Shown him to his first meal.

I don't know what kind of person he'll turn out to be, but I'm his guide. I was there to greet him at the gate, and now I walk beside him on his path of life.

How can I not be filled with wonder?

And just look at his little face!

Holding a newborn changes you.

Here's this tiny person, brand new to the world, light as a feather and ready to grow. Everything is new to him. He has the kind of fresh start the rest of us wish we could have: no failings, no debts, no cares other than when he'll get to eat.

He knows nothing--and yet is a master teacher.

Little Ezra stayed awake for hours after he was born. I followed his eyes as I held him--the way he fixated on my face, the way I imagined him looking around the room. 

Our hospital room overlooked a field with horses, a quiet neighborhood, and the highway I used to take to work. Behind it all stood Utah's Oquirrh Mountains, and as the sun lit those coppery hills on my baby's first afternoon, I held him facing the window and said, "Look at this new world of yours!"

We just need to not screw it up.
Image credit: Don LaVange on Flickr

Of course he couldn't see more than a few inches in front of him. But in that moment, when I presented the world to my newborn, I truly appreciated my little part of it. How many times had I driven down that road and taken no notice of the horses in the field? How many times had I missed the sun hitting those mountains?

When was the last time I really took in a room when I entered it?

When did I last notice cars on the road, trees in the yard, voices on the phone? When did I last notice my bed, my clothes, my kitchen sink?

When everything's new, everything's amazing. Since my baby was born, I've tried to see things through his eyes, and I've been so happy.

I've listened to music like it was my first time.

Stepped outside to get the mail and sniffed the autumn air like it was my first time.

Hugged my family like it was my first time.

Life is hard and the world can be cruel. I've got a list of challenges a mile long. But I've got even more to be thankful for.

Because life--boring, everyday, difficult life--is pretty dang fantastic when you really think about it.

Monday, November 12, 2018

Peculiar People #22


Baby Ezra joined our family last week and we're in love! We do miss our sleep, though. But on the plus side, we were (mostly) on time for church yesterday--the best we've done in weeks!


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Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Warped Plastic #41


Have you ever had a Lego minifig head pop off when you were only trying to remove the hair?

Yeah....

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Polishing Garbage: A Story About Fearless Writing

Halfway through November 2014, I announced my decision to participate in NaNoWriMo.

If you're unfamiliar with the challenge, let me explain why this was insane: National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) participants aim to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. That's roughly two hundred pages, depending on the layout.

I set out to do it in two weeks.

Before you get your hopes up for a story of triumph against impossible odds, I'll say right now that I didn't finish. I actually burned out after a week or so--but only after I spat an impressive 24,271 words onto the page.

Well, more like vomited. Because it was ugly.

To accomplish this herculean writing feat, I sat down in thirty-minute sprints and simply typed the very first words that came to my mind the second they got there--even if they made absolutely zero sense. In some cases, no words came to mind and I just typed to keep my fingers moving. I didn't merely throw caution to the wind; I threw thought out, too.

I gave my story the appropriately-meta title Stream of Consciousness, and it decided it was about a man named Rook, who had worked as a fire juggler at a retirement home before the story's inciting nuclear incident, and a cockroach with survivor's guilt named Carlisle.

Guys, it was bad. Here's just one paragraph:

Did monkey brothels exist? Rook had heard of them. There were some across the desert, he thought. He’d seen them in books: monkeys serving broth to their brothers while they competed to write lists of words that began with “broth.” He couldn’t imagine a more taxing game on his imagination. Anyone with that kind of creative genius might have been able to save the city, if they’d been patriotic enough to come out of the monkey brothel and pour broth over the fancy computers and make everyone do things their own way.

I just Googled "monkey brothels" to find out if they really do exist. Don't do it.
Image credit: TexansTalk.com

Some might say I was on something. I say I was trusting my creative instinct, the same way Luke Skywalker turned off his targeting computer and used the Force to blow up the Death Star.

Granted, no would one have ever published my little foray into the Force.

Here's the thing, though:

In those pages and pages of utter garbage, I discovered a world I wanted to explore.

And to this day, Rook and Carlisle remain among my favorite characters. I never saw them coming--in a very real way they broke themselves out of my crazy mass of gray matter--but when I think of that unlikely duo, I can't help but beam with pride. Eventually, I want to go back and team up with a fantastic illustrator (Doug TenNapel, if he's not too busy. Call me, Doug!) to give Rook and Carlisle the graphic novel they deserve.

That writing maxim, "You can't edit a blank page," always brings these characters, this world, to my mind. Their story gave me a ton to edit. Nothing will be safe from my delete button. But there never would have been a story in the first place if I hadn't gotten the words out. No Rook. No Carlisle. No monkey brothels.

If I'd let my fear get in the way, none of that magic would have ever happened.

Image credit: Textbook & Academic Authors Association

Will I attempt NaNoWriMo this year? Nobody knows.

But whether or not I officially participate, as NaNoWriMo approaches every November, I recommit to writing fearlessly.

One year that may mean busting out quicker chapters. Another year, it may mean getting up a little earlier each day to get some extra writing time.

Whatever my November looks like, I celebrate writing and what it means to be a writer.

Even the messy parts.

Monday, October 29, 2018

Peculiar People #20


To be honest, people probably just thought they had great missionary costumes. It happens here in Utah sometimes.


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Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Warped Plastic #39


National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starts next week! I considered doing it this year, but haven't been able to prepare like I should.


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Monday, October 22, 2018

Peculiar People #19


It's one of the Church's oldest puns. I had to use it once!


In other news, my wife and I are officially on baby watch. Our little guy could come today, or he could wait another couple weeks (not likely). In any case, if you see a hiccup in posting, chances are we're either at the hospital or getting settled in to our new routine with four kids. I won't let any lapse last too long, though!


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Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Monday, October 15, 2018

Monday, October 8, 2018

Peculiar People #17


Dieter F. Uchtdorf's statement about being a German shepherd has already become one of the most memed moments of this weekend's General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I wanted to get in on the joke, too!

You can listen to Elder Uchtdorf's talk here.


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Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Monday, October 1, 2018

Peculiar People #16


General Conference is this weekend, and I can't wait! Rumors are fun to speculate on, but I hope everyone's preparing spiritually, too. We're in for a treat!


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Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Warped Plastic #34


Hooray for fall! May your celebrations be spooky, safe, and fun this Halloween season!


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Monday, September 17, 2018

Peculiar People #14


I'm always waiting for the bishopric to say something like this after I've contributed to a sacrament meeting.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Warped Plastic #33


When you think about it, the shopkeeper is probably the most hardcore, mysterious person in the game.


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Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Consider the Cat: Remembering My Other Lives

People are basically cats, when you think about it.

Have you ever remembered an experience you had and thought, That feels like a lifetime ago?

That's probably because it was.

Looking back on my life so far, I can identify at least five solid stages that were so different from one another it was like I'd started a new life:

Nineteen years of living at home, which despite its many changes roughly stayed consistent and which I call my childhood; two years as a missionary; two-ish years of bachelorhood; one year as a newlywed; and four-and-a-half years, and counting, as a dad.

I'm up to five lives.

Meow.
Image credit: HalloweenCostumes.com

But although it's been said a leopard can't change its spots, people are different. People can change. And with each of these cat-like lives I've lived, I've learned and experienced things that have changed me at the very foundation.

I've been thinking a lot how ten years ago this morning, I woke up in a dorm room shared with three other nineteen-year-old guys. I showered, shaved, and brushed my teeth in a communal bathroom, stood in line for breakfast in a crowded cafeteria, and reported to my lessons in the Spanish language and how to preach the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

My first morning in the Missionary Training Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It was like Hogwarts, I thought back then. We had our "houses" (zones and districts), ate in the expansive "great hall" (the cafeteria), and learned how to use incredible powers. Naturally I equated our Gospel instruction with Defense Against the Dark Arts. 

I also thought I was pretty great.

I spent nine weeks there, then flew out to San Antonio, Texas, where for the bulk of two years I served, learned, loved, and grew.

I don't have enough space in a blog post to describe what my life as a missionary was like or what it has meant to me. But that time certainly changed me. 

I relied on God through the whole thing. I gained the confidence to talk to strangers--and to initiate conversations about deep, important things, beyond empty small talk. I bought my own groceries, maintained my own apartment, learned to live without my parents always there to help me.

I even fell in love with spicy food.

As my mission president used to say, it may or may not have been the best two years of my life. But it was certainly the best two years for my life.

It feels like a lifetime ago. But if you were paying attention earlier in this post, you'd know it was actually three lifetimes ago.

As much as my mission changed me, I've changed with each life since.

In some ways I've improved. In others, I feel like I've lost something.

I think that happens to all of us as we go through life (or lives). As we learn some things, we forget others. New habits replace old ones. And sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not.

None of us can go back to where we were before. Nor should obsess with doing so. But what a loss if we don't take the best traits and lessons of past lifetimes with us!

In my current life, I need the creativity of my childhood, the boldness of my bachelorhood, and the attentiveness I showed as a newlywed. I need the spiritual strength I had as a missionary. And I'm not there yet, in any category.

But as I recall the lives I've lived, I can rediscover the dusty treasures I find and polish them again. 

Monday, September 10, 2018

Peculiar People #13


Ten years ago today I embarked on my adventure as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'll have more to say about it on my blog later this week, but for today, something fun to mark the occasion!


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Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Warped Plastic #32


In honor of FanX (formerly Salt Lake Comic Con) happening this weekend, a joke about fan conventions. I know it blows. I will do better.


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Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Warped Plastic #31


So, a little bit of backstory: when my kids were building this scene with me, they insisted the bride have blond hair and the groom be bald so they would look like my wife and me when we got married. I also have to give credit to my wife for brainstorming suitable captions with me. This comic, like marriage itself, was very much a family affair.


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Tuesday, August 28, 2018

This Failed Grocery Run Reminds Me How Far I've Come

Adulting is hard. There are bills to pay, things to clean, hours to keep, and sometimes Google doesn’t have all the answers (blasphemy, I know).

On top of it all, I’m the dad now. Which means even smaller, less experienced humans look to me for guidance, security, and . . . competence.

On the days--and there are many--when I want to rend my clothes and shout to the heavens, “I don’t know what I’m doing! No one knows what they’re doing!”, it helps to remember how far I’ve come.

Because I used to be a teenage boy. And teenage boys, despite their many good points, have a unique capacity for cluelessness.

Recently I remembered an experience I had when I was fifteen or sixteen, and my young men’s president (the Latter-day Saint near-equivalent of a youth pastor) sent his son and me for ingredients we would use in a dessert.

With shopping list in hand, my friend and I approached the grocery store with the kind of confidence only teenage boys could have who are about to make gigantic fools of themselves.

Among the few items we needed were yellow cake mix, cream cheese, and evaporated milk. The task was simple--and we were never trusted with such a duty again.

First the yellow cake mix.

You have to give us credit for even finding the baking aisle. We grabbed the first yellow-colored cake mix we saw.

And my friend’s dad just about died when we returned with lemon.

This is not a yellow cake mix. Mind = blown.
Image credit: Duncan Hines

The cream cheese was easier. We knew where to find the refrigerator it was kept in, and we felt confident in our hunt for an item we were already familiar with.

The only problem was that my friend’s dad never specified what flavor we needed. So we put our heads together, and proudly returned with something we thought everyone would like.

My friend’s dad just about killed us when he pulled tubs of strawberry and blueberry cream cheese out of our bag.

It comes in blocks. And plain. Who knew?
Image credit: Amazon

Now for our greatest challenge: the evaporated milk.

Somehow we ended up in the international isle. The cans we found were small and said "Made in Guatemala," but leche was Spanish for milk, so we felt okay about buying them.

My friend’s dad was speechless when we presented him with our cans of dulce de leche.

Truly, we had mastered a forbidden art.

Image credit: Tenor

But we used everything in the dessert: lemon cake mix, strawberry and blueberry cream cheese, dulce de leche, and whatever other abomination our teenage boy minds had conceived.

It wasn’t bad.

Now that I’m married and have a few years of shared kitchen duties under my belt, I’ve become not only a decent cook, but a fairly accomplished grocery shopper. In fact, I’m proud to say my wife has even called me from the store on occasion to ask where to find things.

And I never mixed up yellow cake mix and lemon cake mix again.

In so many areas, I still feel as clueless as those teenage boys in the grocery store. But when my life and responsibilities start to overwhelm me, I remind myself how far I’ve come--and what direction I’m going.

Monday, August 27, 2018

Peculiar People #11


I've always loved the idea of having Batman meet the missionaries. Yes, Bruce--you will see your parents again!

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Warped Plastic #30


It's back-to-school week where I live. Here's one for all of you who don't wanna go.


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Monday, August 20, 2018

Peculiar People #10


Last week the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a renewed emphasis on using the proper name of the Church. With that statement, an updated style guide suggested, among other things, that Church members should be referred to as "members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," or simply "Latter-day Saints," and not as "Mormons."

It's nothing new. But Latter-day Saints across the Internet have lost their minds over the "change."

Naturally, I had to respond.


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Tuesday, July 31, 2018

To Know the End from the Beginning: Thoughts on a Reunion

I got to attend my wife’s high school reunion on Saturday. She was excited to see her friends, naturally. But so was I, because we went to the same high school and had many of the same friends.

It was a casual affair, with picnic tables laid with trays of watermelon and children climbing on a playground. The outside observer wouldn’t have guessed we hadn’t all been together in ten years.

But ten years had passed. And life had moved on for all of us. Families, school, careers--we were all in different places.

Yet after all these years, we were not merely still friends; in many cases, we’d grown even closer to each other.

Maybe it’s the storyteller in me, but I can’t help but sit back and appreciate how everything began.

As I talked with one friend on the playground, who had been with me on the high school literary magazine staff, it struck me how that school year never really ended. How could I have known back then that ten years later, so many classmates on that staff would be my writing group? They’ve become my tribe. They’re almost family; my children know and love them.

And then there was another friend, who sat and laughed with me as we remembered skipping class in that same park, and who, himself, is now a teacher.

And then, above them all, my wife.

Despite us having the same friends and two years in the school orchestra together, my wife and I were only aware--at least vaguely--of each other’s existence during high school. I never spoke to her until years later, when as adults we met each other in another orchestra and I said, “Valerie, right?”

Even then we never would have guessed we’d someday have four children and a house payment.

When I think about what I remember of my wife in high school--that quiet, blond-haired girl I never saw without a book--I want my teenage self so desperately to talk to her. To be her friend. To know she is the greatest thing that will ever happen to him.

If I could go back and live my high school years again, knowing she would be the most important person in my life, I would take more notice of the girl who I would someday have a life and family with.

At the very least, I’d say hi to her in the hall.

But maybe that would blow my chances with her. After all, I was kind of a weirdo in high school.

Kind of?

Still, looking back, my heart grows fonder.

And now that I have grown, when I think of how a person could take on such a major role in my life, I can’t help but appreciate everyone I meet a little more.

I don’t know where the years will take me. But I know they’ll take me there with people I know now--and people I have yet to meet.

It could be anyone.

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

The Liberating Power of Subjectivity

Recently the good folks at Iron Butterflies Project featured the story of my failed playwriting class. It's always fun to get featured somewhere, and I was grateful to get to share my story. But one of the best parts for me this time was the conversation with some of the colleagues who had been in that class with me.

These friends are some of the most talented writers I've worked with. But it reassured me to find out I wasn't the only one who had struggled in that class!

Since that conversation, I've been thinking a lot about the subjective nature of writing--and how liberating that truly is, in the end.

Image credit: Juliet Tang, Shift

Majoring in English is an adventure. There are no rules that can't be broken, no formulas that must be followed, no expectations that can't be turned upside down, no answers that can't be challenged.

You have a lot of freedom.

But it sure makes a perfect GPA difficult to achieve, because no matter what you write, it won't resonate with everyone.

For example, one of the colleagues I spoke with pointed out a monologue I had written in that same playwriting class . . . which ended up winning an award in our university's literary journal.

I didn't think that piece would go far. The teacher had required everyone to submit something to the journal, and my monologue--truly a rush job, compared to my other work--was just the first thing I had ready before the deadline.

But a few weeks later I got an email from the journal's managing editor, who said how much he loved my piece and how it would shine as the only work of drama his staff had chosen to publish. The following month, the staff invited me to read my piece at the journal's launch party--after the actor they wanted to hire to perform it fell through.

So, in front of colleagues and professors, I got into my character, an aging piano salesman forced into early retirement, and read my monologue.

The audience applauded when I finished. And on the way back to my seat, I carried a certificate that essentially said, "Yes, we like your work, so stop doubting and keep writing!"


But in my class? The monologue got a C.

Not everyone will see the same work the same way. As a writer, I've had to learn to be okay with that.

Look at the millions of Harry Potter fans around the world. Over twenty years since the first book was published, the series remains a cultural powerhouse.Yet there are people who don't like Harry Potter.

Now look at the negative reviews of Twilight. It's a story people on the Internet love to hate--or at least love to meme. Yet by 2010, the series had sold more than 100 million copies (note that this number has since had eight years to go up even further).

An example; I withhold my opinion.
Image credit: Know Your Meme

And it's not just books. I can't tell you how many movies I love that most people didn't (Solo, Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within, that Super Mario Bros. movie they made . . . ).

My point?

It's easy to get bogged down in perfectionism.

I naturally want everyone to enjoy the stories I create. And that idea crippled me when I thought it was possible.

But here's the thing: Not everyone is going to like what you create. And that's nothing against you.

It doesn't mean you're not talented.

It doesn't mean you haven't made something amazing.

Maybe my reader isn't into the genre. Maybe a certain plot point doesn't work for them. Maybe they don't identify with the main character.

Granted, it's my job to make my work as effective as possible for everyone who reads it. What are alpha and beta readers for if I don't act on their constructive feedback?

But embracing the idea that not everyone will love my work has given my writing new life. It empowers me to write more dangerously--faster, freer, and, dare I say, better.

Because no matter how small the audience . . . there will still be an audience.

I've learned to write to them.
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