A Helping Proposition

On April 19th, my family and I were evacuated from our home because of the flooding on the Rock River in Barstow, IL. We haven't been home since. We were able to grab about 2 bags of clothes, and I shoved my computer in my bag. That's all we got out of there.

The day after we were evacuated, the dike holding the flood waters in broke at its weakest spot, which happened to be about 15 feet behind our home. The river has since gone down most of the way, but because there's a dike, the water isn't yet out of our neighborhood. We have no idea if the water got into our house, because there's almost no news coming out of Barstow (it's an extremely small town, and apparently the local news doesn't care enough of the the 60 or so people who live there enough to report on it), but all signs point to everything we had being ruined. I'm not going to go through a list of all the things we lost, because it's pretty much everything (including our home), and it'd be too much of a downer to think about it.

Thankfully my wife's parents have taken us in, and my parents have helped, too. My two kids are actually pretty happy with the situation; they feel like they're on vacation, and it's much more fun at their grandparent's house, although I think my son is going through some pretty serious video game withdrawal. We have a place to stay, but it still feels like being homeless.

If you can find it in your hearts to help us out, I have a proposition. I wouldn't feel right just taking your charity, so please buy my novel, Early Mourning. We both win from the deal. I get some relief from my situation, and you get a book out of the deal.

I get the most out of it if you buy a physical copy of my book directly from the printer. Click here to go to CreateSpace to do that. The physical copy of the book is $12.50 + shipping. You can also purchase it from Amazon.

If you have a device compatible with the Kindle app, you can also purchase the eBook from Amazon. If you're a Amazon Prime member, you can read Early Mourning for free, and it'll still help me out.

Finally, I also have a book for kids, which I wrote and illustrated. It's called, The Wurly Burly Boy Has A Boring Day. Here's the physical book on CreateSpace, and here's where you can get it from Amazon.

If you think you have some friends who'd be interested in helping a writer/artist and his family on your social networks, please consider sharing this, too.

Thank you so much for the help.

Hey!

I just put a new comic up on our comic site. Go there, dude.

True Stories, vol. 1

Versions of this story really happen to me. Often.

A New Reader Review

This review was written by new reader Delonna Wadley. She's a great person, and her review made my week. She's a fellow writer and is working on her first collection of short stories.

“Early Morning” by Tim Kress was an enjoyable read. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for or likes adventure, fantasy, Native American folklore and the wonderful art of storytelling – you would not be disappointed. From the cover to the back of the summary page, I had no idea what I was getting myself into and the best part about that was – I liked not knowing. The spectrum of fantasy and reality were evident at times when it came to Early and Jensen, by creating an imaginary world that felt like you were right there with these characters. I adored Steve a.k.a Early the most because of his will power and determination to find the girl he truly loved and cherished. I realized that there is a little of Early in all of us, I think; he was an underdog of a character who was not supposed to succeed, but triumphs in the end. He conveyed the example: when you are looking for the truth, you would find it no matter what.

Jensen and Early’s relationship was weird, from the first moment they met to the very end. But they were made for each other, they needed each other whether they realized it or not and that was another aspect I liked dearly about how Tim wrote things. There were moments I laughed, gasped for air in disbelief and felt hurt, these characters were not boring, they had personality, truth and flaws and they came across as human. My favorite part throughout the book would have to have been in chapter four. I believed that was the chapter Jensen opened up more freely toward Early about what had been going on with him and that was where we (I) learned about his Native American lineage and from there that was when the adventure really started. It was truly amazing in many forms and unbelievable to the imagination.

The motif of “Early Morning” to me was “knowing” and how the reason of existing or guilelessly just wanting to know whom you were and what was your purpose was written and done ideally. The beauty and simplicity of how things could alter into something else was tangible, because every character in this book was searching for something or changing into something, for the best and worst. This book gave me a new perspective of things and most importantly, left me with the impression of hope and satisfaction. It was a good read and I personally found no fault in this book. It had done its job, and painted a nice image of the unknown with me and I could not ask for more. I was glad I had the opportunity of reading such a tale.
 

A Post For Ean

My son, Ean, asked me to post this to my site so he could show it to his friends at school with his iPad, and since I'm pretty much the coolest dad that ever lived, I'm doing it.

 

There you go Ean, now do your school work, and stop farting in class!

 

 

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Maps

For as long as I can remember, I've had a fascination with maps. I don't seek them out, but when I see them, I'm drawn to them like almost nothing else. There's a giant map of the area I live in hanging on the wall of my mother-in-law's office, and every time my wife and I go to visit, I stare at that stupid map like an idiot the whole time we're there.

I've always wanted to draw maps for made-up cities, but have never done it. Recently my mom gave me her old Toshiba tablet laptop, which has a pressure-sensitive screen and stylus. I've been doing a shit-ton of drawing with it, and having a blast, so sometime last week I decided to draw a map with it.

As far as I can figure, I spent about 22 hours on this, which is probably 20 hours too much, but it was fun and I'm happy with the result.

Here it is:

Research Links 10/3/12

I recently updated my news alerts in Reader, and am gonna put links I find interesting up here when the fancy takes me, as a way to remember some things.

 

EATING MEAT MADE US HUMAN: "I know this will sound awful to vegetarians, but meat made us human," said researcher Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, an archaeologist at Complutense University in Madrid."

 

The Race to Bring Quantum Teleportation to Your World: “It’s like two people play dice and they always get the same result; it’s always random but they always get the same result."

 

Ray Kurzweil is nervous about a future with hyper-intelligent machines: Once we hit 2029, our technology will be able to grow on its own, according to Kurzweil. By then, our cell phones will be as small as a blood cell, he said, biotechnology will be able to supplement our brains, and we will treat our bodies as software waiting to be updated. And yes, it could be scary.

 

FTL drive is feasible, says NASA scientist: Instead of requiring a Jupiter-sized amount of exotic matter, he says, as little as 500kg could give a 10-meter bubble an effective velocity of ten times the speed of light.










 

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