Actually, movie is a bit of an exaggeration. Video is more accurate. Video clip better still. But I’m not complaining. Allow me to explain.

As an author, I get a lot of impactful email. Every day, people write me to praise or criticize projects that I spent many months of my life slaving to perfect. While most are similar, earlier this month I received one that really stood out.

A media relations executive at Ezvid Inc. wrote to let me know that they’d included my novel Pushing Brilliance on their wiki’s list of ten Thrillers That Will Keep You On The Edge Of Your Seat. They even made a promotional trailer to promote their list. To my knowledge, that’s the first time someone else has taken a stab at rendering one of my stories on a screen. Hopefully it won’t be the last.

You can watch the video here, where you’ll also see Ezvid Wiki’s trailers for books by my friends James Hankins and J.B. Turner among others.

I’m writing to dispel the misperception that the Achilles series is a trilogy. While there are 3 books at the moment, many more are to come. I expect to be writing Achilles stories for decades.

The confusion results from Amazon offering of a 3-book bundle and calling it the “complete series.” That book set is something Amazon automatically generates whenever a series adds a third book. It is not a sign of completion.

I heard the 80’s song Forever Young this morning, and it held particular meaning as I’ll be saying goodbye to my 40s later this month.

The refrain includes the question: Why can’t we be forever young?

For the first time, a satisfying answer struck me. It’s so that we can watch our children grow.

If we lived forever, we couldn’t have children (lest we run out of room.) With that simple realization, my anxiety over aging melted away and a tremendous sense of satisfaction took hold in its place.

I would trade a forever-life for life with my children any day. I’ll be keeping that in mind as the years pass. With this new perspective, I hope to never bemoan the passage of time again. And now that I know what I traded for them, I’ll be spending even more time with my kids.

After 40+ years of wanting to give it a try, I just enjoyed my first surfing lesson (along with my wife and daughters.) Felt great to check that experience off the big list. We went down under for the summer, and our trip included time in Surfer’s Paradise. (Isn’t it cool that a country would officially name a place Surfer’s Paradise? Got to love a government that doesn’t take itself too seriously.)

Don't look for me surfing in the picture above (I’ll need a few more lessons before posting one of those pictures) but rather my youngest running along the beach we surfed. I included it because it resembles the painting hanging over our living room fireplace, the one I stare at when I want to relax and it’s too hot to light a fire. It’s nice to have lived the picture.

A top literary agency in Japan just asked to represent me. Holy smokes — I said “asked” not “agreed”. Usually it’s the author who does the asking (and more asking, and waiting, and hoping, and praying…) when they want the people who represent Dan Brown and Tom Clancy to pitch their work.

It feels like good fortune and no doubt it is, but it wasn’t pure luck. Unpaid years of apprenticeship came first, as did countless sweaty nights and daily sacrifices.

Just ten days ago my wife and I returned from our first trip to Japan. Coincidence? Maybe. But coincidences certainly seem to happen more often when we venture beyond our comfort zone.