personal | - Part 2

Rejoice and Be Glad

By Gregory Meyer
March 24, 2016

Figure 1 Found on Pinterest

I originally planned to spend this blog post as a launching point for a multi-blog series on the creation and process behind The Seekers and the Hidden, my soon-to-be-released contribution to the Bron/Calea side of our novel series. Yet given what’s gone on in my life as of late, I decided to postpone it and talk about life.

See, my grandmother passed away this month after battling cancer. She was a strong and beautiful woman, and watching cancer rapidly deteriorate her health was difficult to watch. Yet through it all she stayed positive and feisty to the very end, and I’m proud of her for not allowing her condition to rule her spirit.

During the funeral, I got to see my extended family and all of the lives that she touched. We celebrated her life together in a beautiful ceremony, and I know she would’ve been happy with how everything was done. Afterwards, we shared stories about her, the things she would say, and laugh at her little quirks.

I know one day I will see her again, rejoicing, healthy, and cancer-free. This is the hope that we have as believers in Jesus Christ. Death is the end of this life, but not of the next. (more…)

March 24, 2016 - Tags: christianity, family, Greg Meyer, personal Posted in: Blogs

The End of Life As We Know It

By Nick Hayden
March 4, 2016

Not the Hayden Household
geralt / Pixabay

First–no, this is not a commentary on the current political races.

This is, instead, a much more personal reminiscence.

Back when Natasha and I were preparing for the birth of our first child, our calendar was filled with the usual appointments, get-togethers, and reminders, at least until THAT DAY. After the expected birth date of our child, there were no events planned. We couldn’t even conceive (pun intended) what life would be life after THAT DAY. We scheduled nothing after THAT DAY. It was a wall, and beyond it was a void shrouded in deep fog. (more…)

March 3, 2016 - Tags: family, Nick Hayden, personal, schedule Posted in: Blogs

A Shared Birthday

By Timothy Deal
November 11, 2015

Twenty years ago, something happened that forever changed my life: my baby sister was born on my birthday.

It was an astonishing event that had been foretold months before. My parents had announced that the new baby’s due date was around November 11. After the initial shock had faded, I was left with the deepening sense of fatalism that only an eleven-year-old boy who knows in his soul that he will likely forever have to share his birthday with another can experience. I dreaded that no longer would my special day be about me, but it would be about some smaller, cuter lifeform. As the eldest sibling, I had seen it happen before; the youngest kids got all the attention. I would have resolved to face the future with stoicism, if I knew what the word meant at the time.

We celebrated my twelfth birthday the night before, just in case. And sure enough, early in the morning on November 11, 1995, my dad woke me up to let me know he and Mom were heading toward the hospital. It was as I had foreseen. I confess I gave my mother a somewhat accusatory look before they left, as if to say, “I’m not angry with you, Mom. Just disappointed.”

After the the birth of three previous baby sisters, it was beginning to feel routine to be brought over to Grandma’s house while Mom and Dad were at the hospital. When Dad called to say Mom and newborn baby Danielle were safe and healthy, of course we were all happy, but then my conversation with Dad went something like this:

“So…another girl, huh, Dad?”

“Yeah…another sister.”

“….”

“….Yep. Sorry, looks like we’re still gonna be the only men in the family.”

“Well…that’s life.”

Okay, so I don’t know if that’s really what I said, but that was kinda my attitude at the time. It wasn’t entirely the best, but from a twelve-year-old’s perspective it’s hopefully understandable.

What I didn’t realize at the time was just how much fun it would turn out to be having a baby sister as a teenager. Little Danielle quickly stole my heart with her chubby cheeks, shiny hair, huge smile, and imaginative personality. In her preschool/kindergarten ages she delighted in grabbing onto my legs, climbing all around me while I was lying on the couch, and generally treating me as one of her most beloved toys that she could pose and ride on. (One of her strangest ideas during this period were her attempts to make me “relax,” which apparently involved looking disinterested in the world while holding specific poses.)

As Danielle grew, she continued to delight and surprise all of my family with her boundless creativity which found expression in drawings, costumes, stories, unusual pet chicken names, hieroglyphs made of crushed dandelions, oral histories of imaginary worlds, ceremonies to mark new seasons, sketchings, rubbings, paintings, designs, calligraphy, photography, and probably a lot more that I’ve forgotten. As a creative nerd, I love being able to share my interests with all my sisters, but I’ve had some of my deepest conversations about creativity and favorite stories with Danielle. She has continued to inspire creativity in me during times when I felt creatively dry. And I hope to reciprocate that inspiration as much as possible.

And instead of being a burden, sharing my birthday with my baby sister has turned out to be a huge blessing. As a friend of the family correctly predicted, I wound up getting more attention (and more presents) during my teenage and young adult birthdays because I shared them with my kid sister. While she was still small enough, it was a fun tradition to have Danielle sit on my lap while we blew out our candles, and we still get a kick out of anticipating our special day day or calling/texting/telling each other Happy Birthday when it arrives.

12239688_895688946803_5262903489939655094_n So with all of that said, Happy Birthday, Danielle! Thanks for being the best birthday present I’ve ever been given.

November 11, 2015 - Tags: family, personal, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

The Great Unpacking

By Nick Hayden
October 22, 2015

geralt / Pixabay

About two weeks ago, I moved for the first time in 12 years. With two small kids and another on the way, we had plenty of boxes filled to the brim. The heaviest of these were filled with books. Lots of books. My wife has numerous Advanced Reading Copies of YA novels, and I have a good selection of fantasy tomes, Russian novels, and sundry classics. So, after the kitchen was in working order and our beds were reassembled, the next question was “Where do we put the bookcases?”

In a perfect world, we’d have more bookcases than we do. I mean, we only have seven at the moment, only one of those dedicated to DVDs and photo albums, and one half bookcase that will probably be used for knick-knacks. Seriously, who can get by with only seven bookcases? (more…)

October 22, 2015 - Tags: books, Nick Hayden, personal Posted in: Blogs

How Bad Movies Changed My Life

By Gregory Meyer
October 9, 2015

This past weekend I had the pleasure of joining my fellow Children of the Wells collaborators in person for our monthly meeting. I don’t live in Indiana, which is where the rest of the members live, so it’s a bit of a drive to reach them. I made it to one meeting last year, and wanted to do it again, so I took the day off from work Friday and made the trip all on my own.

I had a blast hanging out with everyone and chatting about CotW and life. There’s just something about hanging out in a room with other writers that I find invigorating. Most of my friends aren’t writers, so I don’t get to talk about the creative process often with others who can relate. Tim, Nick, Natasha, and Nathan are great people, and I am so thankful that I’m under their guidance for writing my first novel. I can’t thank them enough for all the encouragement and input they’ve given me and my story.

Figure 1 from www.mst3k.wikia.com

Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures of the meet-up, nor the Apple Festival I went to the next day with Tim. But it got me thinking today about how lucky I am to have such great friends that I’ve only met in person twice, other than Tim. How did I get to writing a story in a shared universe with people I didn’t know ten years ago? I started thinking about the DNA of friendship,= and how little things in life can lead to these powerful relationships. So how did I end up writing for Children of the Wells? After some thought, I found the answer: Mystery Science Theater 3000.

So if you will indulge me, let me explain to you how MST3K changed my life and brought me here.

Years ago when I was in middle school, I was flipping through the channels, and saw a strange movie with kids playing hide-and-go-seek in the woods. What stuck out to me was at the bottom of the screen there were the outlines of some guy, a gumball machine, and some weird thing with a net on its head making funny comments at the movie. I watched a bit and found it hilarious, until some scary melting monster appeared and I quickly changed the channel. That was the movie The Incredible Melting Man, my very first experience with Mystery Science Theater 3000, though I didn’t know what it was called at the time.

A few years later, I would pass the Sci-Fi Channel and catch the last fourth of an MST3K episode. I still didn’t know the name of the show, but I became exposed to movies like The Final Sacrifice, Invasion of the Neptune Men, Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders, and Devil Doll. I’d watch what I could and found the show hysterical, but I had yet to become a full-fledged fan.

Fast forward to my sophomore year at college. My roommate Marcus was unpacking his things, when he showed me all the DVDs he brought for us to watch. My eyes widened in recognition at one sitting near the top: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. I grabbed that movie like Link finding a new item in The Legend of Zelda, turned to Marcus, and said, “I know this show; we need to watch it.” So shortly after, he and I sat down and I watched my first MST3K episode.

From that moment on, I became a hardcore MST3K fan, and it’s impacted my life ever since. With my eyes opened for the first time, I grabbed my friends and made them watch the movie with me. In turn, my college friends too were sucked into MST3K, and to this day, we will watch an episode together when we meet up in person. Over the next few years, I picked up box set after box set, ordering digitally converted episodes to DVD from dealers online. From about 2003-2007, I was obsessed with the show, and my college friends happily came along for the ride. When friends got married, we’d watch an episode at our bachelor parties. It became one of the foundations of our friendships, besides our faith and our love for video games.

After college, my wife (who also became a fan) and I went away to Virginia Beach so we could pursue our Masters. I struggled in making friendships, and I think part of it was that the other people I’d meet didn’t enjoy the show like I did. It’s strange, film school students actually like watching good films, who knew? Most people I showed an episode to would smile and nod, but that was about it.

Then one day, during my first semester meet-and-greet with other new Regent film students, I met a shaggy haired guy from Indiana named Tim. We talked for a bit, and he struck me as a person I wouldn’t mind hanging out with. But while showing an episode of MST3K to a mutual friend, Tim gave him a call, discovered we were watching MST3K, and exclaimed that he, too, was a huge fan of the show. Well, that changed everything; and when we met up for class the following Monday, we had a long discussion about the show, and I invited him over to watch an episode. From that moment on, we became friends, and while we ended up having a ton of common interests, I thank MST3K as being the icebreaker to open our friendship.

I ended up moving back to Illinois during the next semester, but I stayed in contact with Tim through Facebook, as well as through his podcast with Nick. Eventually, when Children of the Wells was looking to add more writers to the series, Tim graciously invited me to join the team, despite having never written a novel before. Once I finished my masters, I accepted the offer, and here I am, writing this blog while editing my first novel.

It’s funny how little things in life can create long lasting friendships. I mean, MST3K is a show about making fun of bad movies, how important can it be? Yet because of it, it’s opened a door for me in my writing career that has been an invaluable experience. I have a solid group of writing friends now, all because I flipped through some channels on TV one boring afternoon.

Figure 2 from www.mst3k.wikia.com

Keep circulating the tapes!

October 9, 2015 - Tags: Greg Meyer, influences, personal Posted in: Blogs

Personal Reflections on a Year of Change

By Natasha Hayden
October 2, 2015

It is barely October (my favorite month!), but for many reasons, I have been looking back over this year and the challenges and changes my family has gone through.

In January, our contentment and happiness was rocked by a sledding accident that put my three-year-old daughter in the hospital with potential brain damage. I was deeply shaken, wondering if the rest of our lives would be different. But the bleed into her brain dissipated with no obvious lasting physical effects. The emotional trauma lingered a little longer and will, perhaps, stay with her father and me for a long time to come.

In May, after a year of wondering and waiting, I found that I was pregnant with our third child. It wasn’t an easy decision to make to have a third. We already had a boy and a girl. Our small two-room house fit us, and we were getting close to paying it off. I wavered back and forth about whether or not I wanted a baby. Ultimately, it wasn’t up to us. We struggled to get pregnant with our first child, and this time, we had some trouble again. We left it in God’s hands, and he decided it for us…about a year after we thought we were ready.

The Hayden Family

In August, we became more serious about looking into new houses, and in the space of one very interesting week, we found a house, got our initial paperwork in order with the bank, made an offer, and began the process of closing. That process is nearing completion now, about a month later, and soon, we will be moving from our home of 12 years, a thought that brings both excitement and melancholy.

Last week, I watched my cat Chewbacca, who’s lived with me nearly as long as my husband, fight his last days of a disease I didn’t even know he had and be euthanized before my eyes, his little body stilling under my hand.

I laugh (and cry a little) to think that I had hoped for a less eventful year at the close of 2014. This one’s not even over yet, and ahead, I know there are expected joys and unexpected losses, blessing and pain all mingled together so that sometimes it is hard to tell one from the other. Such is life. We can prepare all we want, but only God knows what’s in store for us.

This is illustrated so well in even that first moment we draw breath into our lungs. No matter how much a mother prepares for the birth of her child, when labor hits, she has to go with the flow. I wanted to try a natural birth with my oldest, but I had gestational diabetes and had to be induced and ended up with an epidural, thank God, and that’s just how it goes.

As I’ve shared before, two of my pregnancies ended in miscarriage, and a little bit of that fear that my children’s lives are out of my control has remained with me ever since. I can no more protect my children now than I could at their conception and birth, as I was so strongly reminded in January and again, a few weeks ago, when my five-year-old son ran a kid-size motorcycle into a tree, five feet away from a lake. He walked away, but part of my heart still beats on the ground where I stood. We plan and plan and live in frustration when control inevitably slips from our hands.

On these contemplations, I venture into the last quarter of the year, preparing as best I can for a future that is, really, out of my control. But one thing I know for certain: God has brought me through so much and will bring me through the rest, little scrapes and lifelong changes all. I can trust in his control. I might rather remain in comfort and security, going at a slower pace than the rest, but contentment is found in letting go amidst the chaos and knowing he will catch me wherever I fall.

October 2, 2015 - Tags: christianity, family, Natasha Hayden, personal Posted in: Blogs

Ode to Old Cars and Old Ideas

By Nick Hayden
August 21, 2015

Not my car…yet.
Taken / Pixabay

My first car was a 1982 Honda Accord. I called her Betsy. I only drove her a few years before the repair bills convinced me to buy a new car. At the end, the passenger door didn’t open from the outside, the rearview mirror wouldn’t stay in place, and I had the habit of stalling out on any journey more than two or three miles.

I loved that car. It was mine. I listened to a lot of good music in that car. I even wrote a story featuring it and an incident involving a gas station and something like fire bursting from somewhere beneath my car. There was this thing called the Star Wars trilogy back then (maybe you’ve heard of it), and I liked to think of Betsy as my Millenium Falcon.

Fast forward to 2015. I’m driving a 2000 Volkswagon Beetle. I still think of it as my “new” car. It has the floor mats from my Accord that read “Betsy,” ’cause it’s Betsy 2.0. Problem is, it’s starting to resemble my old car quite a bit. The windows won’t roll down–or if they do, they won’t roll up. It makes an ominous chk-chk-chk when I turn the key. The ceiling fabric is sagging, my parking brake barely works, and I’ve been stranded twice in the last month.

But here’s the thing. I don’t want to get a new car. I like my car. It’s not old. It hasn’t aged a day. (And neither have I.)

What is this thing with Time, that keeps moving along?

I find the same thing happening with stories. I’ll start one, then suddenly it’s five years later and I’m like, “Wait, I’ve been working on this for that long? And why doesn’t it seem as bright and shiny as before?” Ideas seem ageless–and then you realize that cool world you mean to write about first came to you when you were a teenager and now you have two kids in school. Or, on the flip side, sometimes you re-read an old story that is grossly incompetent, but you still have a certain fondness for it no one else could possibly understand because you can see the sparkle of the idea that drove you (see what I did there?) to write it.

Moral of the story? No idea. Except I’ve come up with a lot of great stories while driving around, so I’ll keep driving and I’ll keep writing and I’ll keep making strained metaphors whenever the blog deadline comes due too soon.

Okay, I’m off. Time to head home. As long as my car starts….

August 21, 2015 - Tags: humor, Nick Hayden, personal Posted in: Blogs

Gregory the Terrible Reader

By Greg Meyer
July 24, 2015

As promised in my last blog, I completed The Return of the King earlier this week. The last three chapters were something special and brought the whole series full circle in a way most series can only dream of attaining. Most people I talk to can’t believe this was my first time reading through the series, considering its renown as a classic, beloved by millions. Why would a fantasy fan such as myself wait so long to get around to reading one of the greatest fantasy series ever written? Time for another confessional blog, though this time it’s a little less soul-baring.

The truth is back in my younger years I was a terrible reader. Oh, I could read, mind you, from a very early age. Just ask my Grandmother, and she’ll tell you the story. Back in grade school through middle school, I’d often check books out of the library and devour them. But once I reached eighth grade, I left public school for homeschooling and lost my daily access to a school library. Sure, I could go to my town’s public library and check out books, but I didn’t have a driver’s license and it was far enough that I didn’t want to walk there just to check out books. When I did go, I had too many choices to pick from but no guides to tell me what I should read. (more…)

July 24, 2015 - Tags: books, Greg Meyer, influences, media, personal Posted in: Blogs

Rings, Swamps, and When All Hope Seems Lost

By Gregory Meyer
July 10, 2015

“Come, Mr. Frodo!” [Samwise] cried. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you and it as well. So up you get! … Just tell him where to go, and he’ll go.” —Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

Since about 2013, I’ve been ever so slowly working my way through the most glaring series in my backlog of novels: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Since most of my friends are huge fans of the venerable Oxford professor, I decided that I needed to be part of the conversation, too. Given that most of my interests as of late consist of world building, Anglo-Saxon history and mythology, and monsters, this was right up my alley. Currently I’m three chapters away from finishing Return of the King, and then onward to The Silmarillion I shall go, for in Middle Earth “the road goes ever on and on.”

While I’ve enjoyed the heroic exploits of Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and even Merry and Pippin, it’s the trials of Frodo Baggins and Samwise that’s resonated with me the most. Watching brave Frodo go from the heroic hobbit saving his friends from the frightening Barrow Wights to end up practically crawling up Mt. Doom is heart wrenching. Tolkien shows the reader the magnetic attraction and power the ring has over even the purest of hearts, twisting a kind-hearted soul into a pathetic pawn who can’t complete his quest. It’s daring of the author to show the main character fail at what should be his crowning achievement. (more…)

July 10, 2015 - Tags: christianity, Greg Meyer, personal Posted in: Blogs

Lessons Learned at Grandma’s House (Part 2)

By Timothy Deal
June 26, 2015

Continuing in our June theme of sequels, today I offer the next lesson I learned at my Grandma’s house. It’s not a lesson many would expect from a grandparent, but it remains relevant for today’s culture and I’ve recently been trying to remind myself of it more often.

2. Try out new technology but don’t become beholden to it.

Not my Grandparents’ Mac. FirmBee / Pixabay

When Grandma bought a Macintosh in the early to mid-‘90s, it was partly for my aunts who were in college at the time, but also for her grandchildren. Personal computers were just coming into their own and she wanted us to be able to learn how to use them. Grandma’s house was probably the first place I encountered CD-ROMs, heard the otherworldly sounds of a dial-up modem, and surfed the primitive waters of the World Wide Web. It was an exciting glimpse into the future that helped prepare me for the technology-soaked world we live in today.

At the same time, Grandma, Grandpa, and the rest of the family rarely cared to jump on every technology bandwagon that came along. Though my teenage aunts had owned an original Nintendo system for years, they saw little need to get a Super Nintendo when it came out; it seemed a money grab in the name of a slight improvement in graphics. We made do with the Macintosh for years past its prime. And if memory serves me right, Grandma thought my parents were basically betraying the VHS format when we got a DVD player before them.

I think this sort of attitude toward technology is somewhat reflected in my own habits. Certainly, I use a lot of technology in my video work and use the Internet heavily in my everyday life, but I’ve always had a fondness for old tech and rarely feel the urge to upgrade to the newest models.

In fact, I only bought my first smartphone a few weeks ago, almost eight years after I first played with a friend’s iPhone. I always thought smartphones looked neat, but for awhile they seemed to me an unnecessary expense. Plus, there was a certain liberation in not being tied down to a device that seems to command so much of people’s attention. But eventually, I needed to replace my cell phone and the time seemed right to finally pick up my own iPhone. As with any new tech, it’s been fun to explore, but I also want to remember the lesson I first learned back at Grandma’s house.

Being aware of and experimenting with current technology is valuable; but because that technology is always changing, finding contentment with whatever you own is even better. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with upgrading when need arises. Yet there’s a relief in the realization that you don’t always have to.

June 26, 2015 - Tags: family, personal, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs