Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 679

Resolution update: July 2010

In an effort to achieve my yearly goals, I post my monthly progress here.

This month I will begin crossing out those goals that I have already accomplished.  It will make me feel better, I think.

Below are my sixteen New Year's resolutions and my progress thus far.

1.  Lose seventeen more pounds, bringing my weight down to 185 pounds, which was my high school pole vaulting weight.

Somehow I've managed to gain four pounds this month, the likely result of days spent visiting friends and...

Contest update

I now have three outstanding submissions to my biography contest, and there are at least two more being written at this time.  In case you first the original post announcing the contest, here are the important things to know:

1.  I need a new author bio and am asking readers to write one for me. 

2.  I am offering fabulous prizes to the person chosen as the winner.  These prizes include signed copies of both my books (SOMETHING MISSING and UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO), as well as the galley of my...

Someone stole my college

From 1994-1997, I attended Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT.  Though I have attended three other outstanding universities since then, MCC provided me with the best education that I have ever received.

During my three years at the college, a majority of my classes were held in portable classrooms and trailers on what was known then as the Lower Campus.  These were old, drafty, rickety structures that looked more like an abandoned trailer park than an institution of higher...

Pleasure in another persons pain

From time to time, I have expressed an occasional appreciation for schadenfreude: pleasure in the misfortune of others.

It turns out that I am not so unusual. after all

Thanks to the ability of scientists to conduct brain scans, new research has demonstrated that when a person learns about the misfortune of a colleague or friend, the pleasure center in his or her brain activates.

Similarly, when one learns about the success or good fortune of a friend, the pain center of the brain will...

Short-sightedness

Occasionally I make the mistake of thinking about my friends' needs ahead of my own.  Rarely does it work out well. 

About a month ago, I suggested that my friend launch his own landscaping business after he successfully tamed the small-growth forest in my backyard and replaced it with a a lawn.  I provided him with information on an insurance company, wrote a testimonial for his webpage, took photos of my brand new lawn and ensured him that starting a small business would not be...

You have some explaining to do, John Boy.

I watched the Project Runway season premier last night.  I realize that this may sound odd coming from a man who professes to despise the fashion industry, but I find the creative demands of the show to be fascinating. 

In last night's episode, one of the designers, a twenty-something female designer, was preparing to go to sleep.  As the lights were turned out, she called out, "Goodnight, John Boy."

This is a reference to The Waltons, a television show about a family growing up in a...

The precipice of publication

Just a few days before the release of UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO and some good news has been pouring in. 

The Hartford Courant's review of the book was excellent:

We are happy to report there's been no sophomore slump for novelist Matthew Dicks, the Newington resident and West Hartford teacher who follows the success of his first novel, "Something Missing," with the funny, touching and very smartly written "Unexpectedly, Milo."

An online advertisement for UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO will be running for...

Believers welcome

A reader recently sent me an email explaining that she has not yet posted a comment on my blog even though she has wanted to many, many times because she wasn't sure if I would welcome her presence and opinions here.  She is a devote Christian who spends much of her time thinking, reading and speaking about her spirituality, and knowing that I am not religious and sometimes critical of the incongruity and discrimination that certain aspects of religion seem to promote, she feared that I...

Only in corporate America

I was sitting in Red Robin yesterday, waiting for my wife to arrive. Beside me, spread across two tables that had been pushed apart, was the cartoon map of a Red Robin restaurant. A manager, a middle-aged man with a perpetually furrowed brow, and a younger, more affable corporate wonk were placing cards on the map. At first I was confused, unable to discern the purpose of this exercise, and then the corporate wonk spoke.

"Here at Red Robin, we can only treat our guests as well as we treat...

Is this normal? Am I normal?

Here's how crazy my writing process can be:

I open the next chapter of my manuscript in a restaurant.  Protagonist, father and son sitting at a table, waiting for their pancakes.

Why are we here? I ask myself.

I honestly don't know.

Father and son begin a conversation.  Protagonist listens. 

Still not sure why we're here.  Can't just be here for this conversation.  This could have happened anywhere.  It's not even that interesting.

Waitress arrives with food.  Maybe this is it. ...