About MeMy name is Daniel, and I write. A lot. I spent my childhood dreaming I was off in some fantasy world, fighting dragons and zombies and monsters. Luckily, I never grew up. Now, I just focus all of that imagination onto the page.
Some people give "genre" writers a lot of grief. Their argument is that fantasy stories often rely on the flashiness of magic and the glamour of alien worlds to drive the plot rather than the characters. I understand where these people are coming from. So I made it my goal to become skilled at writing "literary" fiction. Then I brought it into my fantasy worlds. There's no reason why the terms "genre" and "literary" can't both apply to a particular piece of work. Imagination is limitless. There is no need to confine it to a certain "type" of writing. After all, it was my imagination that drove me to become a writer. |
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About the Socks and Moccasins Blog
(Had to get a picture next to an Onion newsstand!)
It's only good satire if you get in trouble.
Just in case you didn't know, the articles I write for my blog are entirely fictional! I encourage you not to take my word as gospel, although it's always fun when someone shares something satirical thinking it's news and getting all bothered about it. The point of satire, at least in my opinion, is creating a story that is way over the top, yet oddly plausible, so that for a second, you almost think it could be true... as happened when I put this piece in my college newspaper.
I try to call attention to things that people don't normally talk about. The best way to deal with tough issues is to laugh about them!
Most of the photos I use on this blog are from Stock Vault and Pexels. They're very helpful!
The blog used to be called The Sugar Beet, back when I was writing satirical articles for my college newspaper. I'm not sure how we came up with it; I think we were trying to emulate The Onion, and chose a vegetable Minnesota is known for. When I graduated, I kept the name for a while, but I felt like I needed something fresher.
And what could be more fresh (AKA cool) than wearing socks with moccasins, as I do most days? That's right, nothing.
Now that I'm gone, a new brilliant satirist has taken my place at the college newspaper. See how he destroyed my legacy and created the Brussels Sprout here.
Just in case you didn't know, the articles I write for my blog are entirely fictional! I encourage you not to take my word as gospel, although it's always fun when someone shares something satirical thinking it's news and getting all bothered about it. The point of satire, at least in my opinion, is creating a story that is way over the top, yet oddly plausible, so that for a second, you almost think it could be true... as happened when I put this piece in my college newspaper.
I try to call attention to things that people don't normally talk about. The best way to deal with tough issues is to laugh about them!
Most of the photos I use on this blog are from Stock Vault and Pexels. They're very helpful!
The blog used to be called The Sugar Beet, back when I was writing satirical articles for my college newspaper. I'm not sure how we came up with it; I think we were trying to emulate The Onion, and chose a vegetable Minnesota is known for. When I graduated, I kept the name for a while, but I felt like I needed something fresher.
And what could be more fresh (AKA cool) than wearing socks with moccasins, as I do most days? That's right, nothing.
Now that I'm gone, a new brilliant satirist has taken my place at the college newspaper. See how he destroyed my legacy and created the Brussels Sprout here.
Extended Bio
I got my first name, Daniel, from my late grandfather. Technically, it was his middle name - Herbert Daniel Kilkelly - but everyone knew him by it. He died years before I was born, so I never met him, but there were always stories. Almost like family legends. I grew up hearing about how he was born premature, and he was so small that he could fit inside a cigar box. That inspired the poem I wrote about him.
It's kind of a scary thought; he came so close to dying as a baby, and if he had, I wouldn't exist. But I do exist, and I have a great name to live up to. For most of my life I just went by Dan. When I was a kid, I went by Danny. Now I feel that anything less than Daniel would be ill-fitting. It feels like a true writer's name.
I was born and grew up in Stillwater, Minnesota. It's a town east of the Twin Cities, right up next to Wisconsin. The only thing between the two states is the St. Croix river, the very same river that my grandpa used to swim miles in. Over the course of my childhood, I had plenty of dream jobs - inventor, scientist, martial arts master (thanks to watching too much Dragon Ball Z) - but writing was always there in the wings.
I had quite the active imagination, as well. At one point I believed, and got all my friends to believe, that we were aliens, all from different planets in our solar system. I was from Jupiter. Evil people were from Uranus (that joke is always funny to kids). At one point I even asked my mom if it was okay that, when I died, I wouldn't be going to heaven with her but back to Jupiter where I came from. She played along just fine, as far as I can tell. At the very least, she didn't immediately throw me in therapy. Looking back on it now, it's a good thing I became a writer, or I might have lost touch with reality.
Writing became a means of escape for me, since I thought my everyday life was so boring. I started writing a fantasy story in the kingdom of Leinadia (from Leinad, which is Daniel backwards). The main character, of course, suspiciously resembled me. Most of my main characters did, and still do. In this case, however, my character allowed me to escape my world and immerse myself in another. The protagonist, an elf named Flé (which is elf backwards - aren't I clever?) got to save the world, and of course, get the girl.
One thing that has never changed throughout my entire writing career is the size of my ego. When I wrote twelve page-long novel in fifth grade, I was convinced that it was the best thing ever. When I wrote my thirty-seven page-long novel in seventh grade, I realized just how much better it was than my juvenile grade school work, and assured myself that I was ready for publication.
In high school, when I started producing actual novel-length novels, I felt that now, finally, I was there. I would be a teenage author success story like the guy who wrote Eragon.
Then I got to college. There, I saw how advanced I was compared to the other writers in my freshman-level creative writing class. During my second semester, I decided I was skilled enough to go right to a senior-level workshop. That was when I learned the most about my own writing. By sheer word count, I was well ahead of the pack. At that point, I'd hit 500,000. Now, I realize that it was all brawn, no brain, so to speak. I could pump out a novel like nobody's business, but I didn't understand the complexities of subtext and character.
But after that, it was back to my huge ego. At every step of the journey, I felt like I was the best, and just about ready to publish. I still feel that way now, which is troubling, but at least I have the sense to question it. To date I've written 15 rough drafts of novels and roughly 1.6 million words. I think that qualifies me to have some confidence in my own abilities. But I guess we'll see.
A huge part of my journey has been the help and encouragement I've received from others. For this reason, I'm always glad to help out other writers when I have the chance. If you want some critique (I'll be brutally honest, but also tactful!), feel free to ask.
And for those of you who are readers of my work... thank you. You don't understand how much it means to me. Putting out a piece of writing is like putting out a piece of your soul, and there is no way to describe the feeling when someone genuinely appreciates it.
It's kind of a scary thought; he came so close to dying as a baby, and if he had, I wouldn't exist. But I do exist, and I have a great name to live up to. For most of my life I just went by Dan. When I was a kid, I went by Danny. Now I feel that anything less than Daniel would be ill-fitting. It feels like a true writer's name.
I was born and grew up in Stillwater, Minnesota. It's a town east of the Twin Cities, right up next to Wisconsin. The only thing between the two states is the St. Croix river, the very same river that my grandpa used to swim miles in. Over the course of my childhood, I had plenty of dream jobs - inventor, scientist, martial arts master (thanks to watching too much Dragon Ball Z) - but writing was always there in the wings.
I had quite the active imagination, as well. At one point I believed, and got all my friends to believe, that we were aliens, all from different planets in our solar system. I was from Jupiter. Evil people were from Uranus (that joke is always funny to kids). At one point I even asked my mom if it was okay that, when I died, I wouldn't be going to heaven with her but back to Jupiter where I came from. She played along just fine, as far as I can tell. At the very least, she didn't immediately throw me in therapy. Looking back on it now, it's a good thing I became a writer, or I might have lost touch with reality.
Writing became a means of escape for me, since I thought my everyday life was so boring. I started writing a fantasy story in the kingdom of Leinadia (from Leinad, which is Daniel backwards). The main character, of course, suspiciously resembled me. Most of my main characters did, and still do. In this case, however, my character allowed me to escape my world and immerse myself in another. The protagonist, an elf named Flé (which is elf backwards - aren't I clever?) got to save the world, and of course, get the girl.
One thing that has never changed throughout my entire writing career is the size of my ego. When I wrote twelve page-long novel in fifth grade, I was convinced that it was the best thing ever. When I wrote my thirty-seven page-long novel in seventh grade, I realized just how much better it was than my juvenile grade school work, and assured myself that I was ready for publication.
In high school, when I started producing actual novel-length novels, I felt that now, finally, I was there. I would be a teenage author success story like the guy who wrote Eragon.
Then I got to college. There, I saw how advanced I was compared to the other writers in my freshman-level creative writing class. During my second semester, I decided I was skilled enough to go right to a senior-level workshop. That was when I learned the most about my own writing. By sheer word count, I was well ahead of the pack. At that point, I'd hit 500,000. Now, I realize that it was all brawn, no brain, so to speak. I could pump out a novel like nobody's business, but I didn't understand the complexities of subtext and character.
But after that, it was back to my huge ego. At every step of the journey, I felt like I was the best, and just about ready to publish. I still feel that way now, which is troubling, but at least I have the sense to question it. To date I've written 15 rough drafts of novels and roughly 1.6 million words. I think that qualifies me to have some confidence in my own abilities. But I guess we'll see.
A huge part of my journey has been the help and encouragement I've received from others. For this reason, I'm always glad to help out other writers when I have the chance. If you want some critique (I'll be brutally honest, but also tactful!), feel free to ask.
And for those of you who are readers of my work... thank you. You don't understand how much it means to me. Putting out a piece of writing is like putting out a piece of your soul, and there is no way to describe the feeling when someone genuinely appreciates it.