Mark My Words

I knew at a very young age I wanted to be a writer.

Being an indecisive youth, I also considered becoming an astronaut, a meteorologist, or a professional raccoon tamer. But various factors (excessive g-forces, too much math, the fear of rabies) convinced me that the written word was my true calling.

When I entered a short story contest at age 13 and won first place, I figured I was pretty good at this writing thing after all. But destiny proved fickle; I didn’t land my first professional writing gig for another three decades. Better late to the party than never showing up at all, amiright?

Blogging served as a crucial bridge between dream and reality. I’ve been doing it on one platform or another since 2001, and it has changed my life. Not only did it help me hone my writing skills and find my voice; it also introduced me to a diverse community of people, many of whom have become real-life friends. I’ve dated bloggers and dined with bloggers. I’ve been to their weddings and vacationed with them. I even married a blogger, for cryin’ out loud! That’d be Tara, the garden-loving clean-freak half of Team MarTar. Yeah, we call ourselves that. Why should Bennifer have all the fun?

After writing a bunch of novels of varying quality — most of them stuffed into shoeboxes, gathering dust in the back of my bedroom closet — I published No Time for Kings in 2011. Dream Sailors followed on the Kindle Vella platform in 2021. OK, so I’m not as prolific as your Stephen King or John Grisham (nor as rich). But I’ve been busy, dammit! Churning out words professionally for marketing agencies, consulting firms, publishers, and the government. I’ve written about such a wide variety of topics, I can kill it at trivia!

I live in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, with Tara and a couple of cats named Laverne and Shirley. Yes, that’s an homage to America’s Dairyland. I’ve moved so often in my life, nobody believes me when I say this is it. But I’m telling you: THIS IS IT. As Detective Roger Murtaugh famously declared, I’m getting too old for this shit. Besides, Wisconsin has everything I need: cheese, and…

…well, what else is there, really?

Besides cheese, I love vinyl records, lava lamps, cocktails, indie rock, and photography. I’m an eternal optimist who can find the positive in nearly everything (watermelon being the exception).

The goal of my blog is to entertain; I devote as much time to the little things in life — the order in which you put on your socks and shoes, for instance — as the big, exciting, monumental events, usually topped with a dash of humor or a sprinkle of sarcasm. Almost nothing is off limits. Topics include daily life, food, pop culture, current events, travel, and the weather. Nothing too over the top; my parents read this, after all!

Thank you for stopping by and reading all these words. I’d love it if you followed me! (I don’t mean that literally: subscribing to my blog for updates is great; stalking me down a dark alley, not so much.)