Hello loyal readers! We have to do some more time travelling this month. Nothing as extensive as blog post 003 mind you, but still, you might want to bring lunch.

A few years ago two big things happened to me. One was the birth of my first daughter, Lelaina Blue. The second, very much connected to the first, was starting a blog call The Space Between Houses. The blog was connected to my daughter in that up until that moment, I was too lazy to try and make a career out of writing. Sure I liked it, but my laziness knew no bounds. What this meant was that even though I hated working in a grocery store, I was probably going to be doing so for the rest of my life. But then here was this amazing baby girl. She was everything I ever wanted and more, and I couldn’t stand the thought of her knowing that her dad never strove for anything.

Before I get too much into the Space Between Houses stuff, I have a confession to make. I’m a huge quitter. I quit everything. When I was a kid I quit karate, beaver scouts, saxophone, guitar and other things I’m sure I’m forgetting. This trend continued into adulthood where I quit jobs and even school (although the Tradigital Animation program at St. Clair was a joke so don’t judge too harshly for that one). The truth is, I like to quit. In fact, I would say I’m about as good a quitting as a person can be without being pro.

So here I am, starting a new life as writer and wouldn’t you know it, I want to quit. Writing’s hard. It takes time and patience; these are things I don’t have (those video games weren’t going to play themselves). But once again, here is this little girl who looks at me with huge blue eyes and in them I see the reflection of the person I can be, not the one I am. So, I turn off the x box, mute the television, put down the comic books and get to writing.

Alright, with that out of the way, back to the main reason I’m here this month; The Space Between Houses. What is it? You ask. Well, it began life (as I said above) a few years ago as a blog designed for my original, short horror fiction. Over the course of a year and a half I posted about ten stories and then Adventure Worlds came along and so, with a tearful goodbye, I sent the blog into internet oblivion.

But that wasn’t the end of Space Between Houses though. You see, I kept all those stories separate from the other stuff I was working on because I had this crazy notion of one day collecting them together into a book. I know, it seemed like a pipe-dream to me too, but hey, a boy can dream.

Let’s move ahead a ways until last fall (2013 for those at home who are too tired or drunk or both to do the math). I decided to get the Space Between stories edited. After pursuing Kijiji for a bit, I came across a woman named Laure Smith. Her ad was not the first I saw, but since that one was littered with spelling mistakes, I figured I should keep looking. I contacted Laurie and we meet soon after at one of the thirty thousand Tom Horton’s in the city. This was said. That was said. Yadda yadda yadda, I had an edited collection. Which was great, but even better was when Laurie informed me she was co-owner of Cranberry Tree Press. But that would come into play later.

I took my edits home and fully intended to go over them, but then something happened. I’ll give you a guess, I talked about it above in paragraph two. For those who have a phobia of scrolling up the page, I’ll just tell you. I got lazy. Adventure Worlds was dominating most of my time, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was taking care of the kids (yep, now plural).

Days became weeks and it looked like The Space Between Houses was going to be nothing more than a fond memory. But then one day, I figured what the hell, and contacted Laurie out of the blue and inquired about doing Space Between with Cranberry Tree Press. I wasn’t really sure what she would say, I was totally prepared and content with a, “It’s not really what we like to do.” Imagine my surprise when she said that they would love to release it.

Whew, we made it back to present day. As I write this, the Space Between Houses is being edited for a late summer release. There is going to be a ton of work in front of me but at the end of the day, I will have a book with my name stuck on the cover and people will be able to buy it. And that is great, it is super-great, but what is even better than that? When somebody asks my little girl what her daddy’s job is, she no longer says that I work at Fresh Co, but rather, that I’m a writer.