Ivy, my editor while she was at Capital Gains, asked me a few weeks ago to contribute a blog for the TEDx Lansing website. I of course said yes.  For those who don’t know, TEDx events are related to the TED talks.

My blog entry is pasted here, but you should check it out on the TEDx Lansing site as well. I decided to write about leaving the suburbs of West Lansing and moving downtown.

I’m moving in July.

No, not out of Michigan. And not out of Lansing either. My move is more inward. I’m moving to downtown Lansing, and leaving the suburbs to the west. Yes, I’m becoming an urban pioneer even though the only river I’ll have to fjord has plenty of pre-built bridges.

Why am I moving downtown? Lots of reasons. But more importantly, why not?

I went on a trip to San Francisco recently and it was my first time in California and in such a dense, urban city. I was there nearly a week and stayed with a friend in his apartment. I noticed a few things about urban living. I liked that he could easily walk to dozens of amazing things. I enjoyed the proximity of the cafes, bars and restaurants.

Do I want to move to San Francisco? No. It is a lovely city, but a bit too fast paced for me. I like how things are bit slower here in Michigan and I enjoy Lansing’s quirky blend of a big city and a small town. But I did decide I wanted to move downtown.

I’ll be a mere nine-minute walk to work (so long parking fees) and the City Market and Roma Bakery are but a hop-skip-and-a-jump away (…what’s that in meters?). I can make use of the River Trail right outside my door. I can walk to a Lugnuts games with friends and swing by the Tin Can or Michigan Brewing Company afterwards. On a lazy Saturday morning, I can wander down to Decker’s Coffee on Washington Square and maybe buy a comic book to read at Clem’s Collectibles next door.

There is this feeling I get when I’m downtown with my friends, a feeling like something is on the horizon and we’re going to be a part of something special. A change. A metamorphosis. A gear shift. It is coming.

And in some ways it is already here.

We have business incubators. We have downtown redevelopment. A new generation of community leaders is changing the city for the better.

And I’m glad I’ll be here to see how it all unfolds.

Daniel J. Hogan is a blogger and the co-host of the Internet talk show LansingNext.

- This week’s episode of LansingNext: 012 “Of Moose and Mentor.”

- This week’s special episode of the Magic of Eyri Podcast, “Adapting a Novel to a Podcast.” This was a panel talk I did at Penguicon last weekend (which I still need to write about, sigh). Joining me on the panel is the super-talented Mary Robinette Kowal.

- Oh, and that podcast made it on BoingBoing. Woo hoo!

- I threw together a story for Examiner about where to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

- And lastly, this week’s development stories for Capital Gains. One. Two. Three. Four.

Have a fun weekend.

I ran the 5K (a hair over three miles) in 25:25. I came in 351st place out of over 1200 competitive runners, and 41st out of 68 runners for my age group. My pace was 8:12/mile. Not terrible. Certainly room for improvement.

I’m not bragging about that time, as it is anything but record breaking, but it was a big deal for me. My personal goal was under 30 minutes, and my previous best, a training run last week, was 26:43.

But more importantly, I beat my younger sister.

She was not amused.

My sister has been training much longer than I, and even ran a half-marathon (13 miles) this past fall. I even asked her for training advice when I decided to do this crazy thing. I think I beat her by five minutes and change.

I don’t know if I could handle a marathon though. I think I’m better suited for shorter runs relying on speed, not endurance, and I’m certain she’d leave me in the dust in a half-marathon. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll start training for a half-marathon myself.

I know one thing for certain: this will not be my last 5K. I enjoyed the heck out of it, and I’m ready for the next one. Look out Race For Education, I’m commin’ your way. I may do the Capital City River Run this Sept. as well (the 5K though).

I want to see if I can get my time under 25 minutes for the next race. I probably can, as I took a few “breaks” while running today. By “breaks” I mean, I slowed my pace down to a pseudo-powerwalk for thirty seconds to a minute (I wore a stopwatch). If I can keep my endurance up for the full time and not slow down too often, I’m confident I can improve my time.

Being able to improve my performance is quickly becoming my favorite aspect of getting into running.

I never really did any kind of organized sport, save a bout of rec league floor hockey in the third grade, and, amusingly, in college. There was plenty of street hockey thrown in there, but that was anything but organized.

Today I experienced, on a small scale, what other athletes must feel: the rush of a crowd cheering you on. It was great. It fired me up when I was wearing down. It inspired me to stick with this. As my sister said, “Running is addicting. You won’t want to stop.”

What I learned:

-My uncle’s pre-race meal suggestions worked. “Light breakfast. Toast and a banana for lunch.” I had zero cramps. I ate half an energy bar about an hour before the race too.

-Study the race route ahead of time. I only got a brief look at the route about an hour before it started, but what little knowledge I gained was helpful. I knew which streets made up the final stretch.

-Going full throttle and passing people in the last few yards of the race is awesome. Amusingly enough, Eye of the Tiger was playing on track speakers in the home stretch. It was meant to be. I hauled, unleashing a primal scream all the way (not kidding). I’m sure any photos of me at this point are hilarious.

I decided a few months ago to man up and train for the Race for the Cure 5K here in Lansing. I opted for the Couch to 5k program, although I’ll confess I didn’t really advance too far in the program.

But, I still ran once or twice a week and stuck to the run/walk system, and adjusted it on my own to challenge myself.

Had a bit of a panic last weekend when I used a new pedometer on my route. When I looked at it after I was done, it read in the neighborhood of 2,400 steps. Thinking (foolishly) at the time that 1 step = 1 ft. and 5,280 ft. = 1 mile, I was worried.

“Sweet Mother of Batman, I’ve only been doing less than half a mile this whole time?!”

I feared for Sunday.

Then, thanks to some quick Google-sleuthing, I saw how wrong I was. I had actually run a mile or so–but, then used Google Maps to track my route and saw that it was actually a little over two miles. I need to calibrate my pedometer to my stride length according to the manual, which makes sense, as everyone walks/runs different.

Today I ran my last training run, as I want to be well rested for Sunday. I tweaked my route so that I was, at last, running a full three miles. I was feeling the burn toward the end, but I sucked it up and finished. Time: 26:43

Not bad. I’ll take it. My personal goal for Sunday is 30 min. or under. I’m willing to confess that my route could have been just shy of three miles, as Google Maps is anything but infallible, but it is still a good guideline.

Last weekend I also bought my first ever pair of running shoes, and I quickly noticed the difference. Reading about the safety aspect in Jef Mallet’s book, Trizophrenia, really convinced me to make the investment. I’m glad I did. I highly recommend Jef’s book. Sure, it is about triathlon, but it was inspirational for me, as I was just starting a very active sport.

Heck, by the end of the book I was ready to take part in a triathlon, and I don’t even own a bike. The Hawk Island Triathlon intrigues me, and I hear it is very beginner friendly. But, it is less than two months away and there is no way I’d be ready in time (see the aforementioned lack of a bike). Maybe I’ll think about it for next year. It would be a good Bucket List addition. Jef’s mantra is more or less ‘who cares if you are last? at least you were there.’ Inspiring words.

Today’s run did me a world of good. I was stressed and had a lot on my mind. Going for a run (and being outside in the sun) hit the spot. I felt great afterward.

Although I don’t know what helped more, the run or my post-run chocolate milk.

Looking forward to Sunday!

In this version you can see me work the stage and rock the mic*.

You can join the hundreds of viewers in wondering “Why is he wearing an eye-patch?” or “What’s with the one glove?”

In other news, I just go back from a (much needed) vacation in San Francisco. I’m still “on vacation” today, even though I am home. I wanted a day to recover from jet lag and the red-eye flight back to Ol’ Mitty.

A day-by-day blog series about the trip, with plenty of photos will be happening soon.

*results may vary.

I arrived on scene at 6:00 PM as the speakers were told to do, the interior of the Knapp’s Building was a buzzing hive of activity. Lights. Lasers (yes, laser). Cameras. They were all alive.

I had my pre-show briefing with show runners (Nick, Ben), the MC and the stage manager, Melissa. I was happy to see I could use a hand held mic, as I wanted to be mobile during my speech.

Around 7:00, the floodgates opened and attendees started arriving. It was energetic chaos (I mean that in a good way). Dozens filled the line for the Cravings Popcorn bar (my LansingNext co-host Julielyn helped as a volunteer).

The evening was pretty much a blur for me until I had my cue to head for the stage around 9:00 PM. I was in Group C, the last of the three groups of presenters. The crowd had thinned a bit by this point, but it was still very much a packed house.

I was pumped, primed and ready.

I took the stage and killed. My choice to go for the silly, crazy presentation worked. Had a lot of great crowd reactions (although my spork joke at the open didn’t seem to go over that well). I’m glad I decided to wear an eye-patch and to do a “character voice,” the crowd ate it up.

Five minutes later, it was all over. I received scores of compliments afterward, both in person and online.

Better still, I took First Place for my group. Bam.

I think I had third place overall. I don’t know when the video will be on YouTube, but I will post that asap once it becomes available.

Thanks to everyone at Ignite Lansing for putting on a great event!

This scene from ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS inspired my presentation a bit.

For those unfamiliar, the Ignite events are held around the world and the idea is you get people together and share ideas in five minutes.

That’s right, five minutes.

Five minutes, 22 slides, 15 seconds a slide. That’s a lot of information to cram into such a brief amount of time.

And of course, being the crazy person I am, I signed up to be a presenter. Visitors to the Ignite Lansing website voted on which presentations they wanted to see. I was fortunate enough to be chosen.

I am equal parts nervous and excited about this opportunity. I’ll be speaking in front of a group of hundreds in the building, as well as being streamed online. Afterward, the presentation will be archived for all to see on YouTube. The presentations can be watched at video.ignitelansing.com (I go on at 9:15 PM EST).

So yes, I’ll be speaking in front of a crowd nearing 600, not to mention many more watching online. This is quite a bit of pressure, but I’m up to it.

My presentation is called How to Survive Writing a Novel.

Now, I do not plan for this to be a five minute promotion of the Magic of Eyri, I am not that shameless of a self-promoter. I do list myself as the author of it on my title slide, but I felt it was necessary to show the audience that I actually wrote a novel.

I am taking a very funny, zany approach to this and I don’t want to give too much away ahead of time. Although I have been dropping hints here and there, especially on this week’s episode of LansingNext.

My goal is not to be boring. I am treating this as more of a performance piece than a presentation, if that makes sense. I’ll be digging into my improv comedy toolbox a bit, and just having fun.

If I can share information and entertain at the same time, awesome.

I shall post a link to the YouTube video once it is online. Wish me luck!

There is another reason I opted to do this: my mom is a 20-year breast cancer survivor.

Both my mom and my sister have been very involved in the Detroit Race for the Cure for years. I’ve helped out here and there, such as (in)famously offering to be stage security for former-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick a few years ago.

A group of friends here in Lansing started chatting about the Race via Twitter a few weeks ago, and I decided “oh, why not?” Thus, Team Thanks for the Mammaries was born (if you’re in Lansing and wish to join, search for the #LoveLansing “company” name on the race website).

It hit me last week that I actually needed to train for this thing.

I am not a runner. We tend not to get along. But, some members of my team pointed me to the Couch to 5K training program and sang its praises. After looking over the schedule/routine, I decided “hey, I can do this.”

While studying the routine, I quickly realized why I never had much luck running in the past–I was doing too much, too soon. I liked that this routine has you starting out with a “jog for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds” plan.

Thinking back on the past times I’ve tried jogging I remembered that I did nothing like this at all–I just ran and ran for the whole time, without working up to anything.

No wonder I felt like I died each time doing.

Yesterday was my first training run and it was, as the they say in Italian,”non ce’ male.”

Yes, it was cold and I hated having to wait for traffic lights, but darn it, I survived. Better still, I didn’t feel sick afterward.

The only problem, training for running in winter is going to be a challenge (read: snow and/or ice) around here, but I’ll make due.

I opted for the fancy race registration where they give you a chip (not potato) to track your time. So, I guess I am ‘competing.’

Yikes. Wish me luck.

Tomorrow night (12.15.09) I will be presenting at DemoCamp Lansing in Harper’s Brew Pub in East Lansing.  I’ll be talking about podcasting. I have five minutes to rap about podcasting to a room full of (mostly) strangers. It should be interesting, as I have yet to really work out my battle plan.

Speaking of making it up as I go, I found out today that I made it to the Sweet Sixteen of PowerPoint Karaoke 2009, which really surprised me (thanks to everyone who voted for me, you are all awesome).

The idea of PowerPoint Karaoke (aka BattleDecks) is that you give a presentation–but you don’t know what your PowerPoint slides are going to be about.  In our case, we knew our topic (mine was the economy).

Watch the video below (or watch it on the YouTube).

If you like what you see, please vote for me. If I make it to the next round (the Elite Eight) I get a prize of some kind. Awesome.

http://magicofeyri.com/2009/09/fantasy-writing-panel-podcast/

The panel featured Jim C. Hines (Goblin Quest series, Stepsister Scheme, Mermaid’s Madness), Phil Kline (Curse of the Kitsune) and myself.  It runs about 49 minutes and is worth a listen–especially when Jim starts talking about his werewolf-muppet story.

The audio quality is not on par with my normal episodes, as I just set up a recorder on the table and let it go, but I did what I could in GarageBand to make it a little better (tried to cut out some of the long pauses too).

Joining me in splendid 64 kps glory are Jim C. Hines and Phil Kline.  I haven’t listened to the audio yet, but I’m sure it turned out just fine (or fine enough for this purpose).

I’m curious how this will turn out and if people will like it or not. This will not be a regular feature, but I know people do enjoy this sort of thing (listening to writers talk about writing)–otherwise no one would ever attend any of the panels I’m on. I keep meaning to record non-podcast stuff to have at the ready if I ever need filler in case I don’t have an episode ready or something comes up (illness, vacation, pirate-ninjas).

Regular transmission of episodes will continue on September 27th.

Starting with the next episode, things really start kicking into high gear, action-wise anyway.  And we’ll meet some new characters too.

Event this Tuesday: I’m going to be part of the Fantasy Author Panel at the Delta Township District Library. Join Jim C. Hines, Phil Kline and myself as we rap about writing fantasy fiction. FREE. 6 PM to 8:30 PM.

We will be signing and selling books afterwards…well, I won’t be selling books, but I’ll be giving out free podcast CDs.  I may only put the first few episodes on there and make them audio CDs instead of .MP3s. We’ll see.

For those that don’t know, I play drums in the band. This is our first gig at Macs with me behind the drums and our first gig at an actual venue ’round Lansing (our first being at a charity event in Grand Ledge last month). Enjoy the lameo online flier I made.

And remember–I’ll be giving out free CDs with (at least) the first three episodes of the podcast. Haven’t decided yet if the CD will be data or audio (.MP3s or not).

Click below to see my finalized schedule.

May 1, 2009 6:00 pm Sci-Fi/Fantasy – The Perception Sarah Hoyt, Daniel Hogan, Jeff DeLuzio, Sarah Monette What is the general perception of genre writing? Pros and cons of Genre writing vs. traditional fiction.

May 2, 2009 11:00 am Can I Be Your Friend? Bringing Authors and Readers Together John Scalzi, Jim C. Hines, Wil Wheaton, Mary Robinette Kowal, Daniel Hogan, Dr. Philip Kaldon Facebook, LiveJournal, WordPress, MySpace, Twitter, website, etc. — SF/F/H authors are encouraged to engage in self-promotion on the web. Some, like John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton make it look easy. But where’s the line on privacy and personal details for the authors? And what about fans bent on making the transition to troll or stalker? No one said this was going to be easy.

May 2, 2009 12:00 pm Self-Publishing – How to Not Get Totally Screwed David Crampton, Wil Wheaton, Daniel Hogan, Rick Jackson, Alex Heberling, Megan Rose Gedris, Michael Marcus, Sarah Zettel Vanity presses are popping up left and right, and a writer/comic artist no longer needs to beg and plead with a publisher to get their work out there. So how to you get your book ready for print? What printers give you the best bang for your buck? How do you get people to notice it? These questions and more addressed.

May 2, 2009 3:00 pm To See a Universe in a Grain of Sand Sarah Hoyt, Dan Hoyt, Elizabeth Bear, Daniel Hogan,Sarah Monette, Sarah Zettel Worldbuilding. How to create your universe.

May 2, 2009 4:00 pm What’s So Funny?! David Crampton, John Scalzi, Jim C. Hines, Dan Hoyt, Daniel Hogan, Brian Briggs Humor in Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Does it work? Why or why not?

May 2, 2009 5:00 pm Copywhat? Copyrights! Open Source Licensing in Literature Elizabeth Bear, Daniel Hogan, Eric Raymond, Rick Jackson What they are, how they work and things to bear in mind when submitting to traditional publishers and e-publishers. Also – what happens to the rights on my e-blog if I want to publish somewhere else?

May 3, 2009 8:00 am National Novel Writing Month David Crampton, Jim C. Hines, Mary Robinette Kowal, Daniel Hogan Every November hordes of would-be writers as well as established pros unite to attempt to produce 50,000 words in one month. Good idea or waste of time? Does it help or hurt writing? What about the pressures of deadlines in general? Does slow and steady win the race, or does the pressure cooker of trying to produce so many words in the last hour really work?

May 3, 2009 9:00 am Book Signing Catherynne M. Valente, John Scalzi, Jim C. Hines, Wil Wheaton, Sarah Hoyt, Dan Hoyt, Elizabeth Bear, Daniel Hogan, Brian Briggs Come meet some of our great authors and get your book signed. There may or may not even be readings done by some of them – how well can you beg?

May 3, 2009 12:00 pm Is Audio the New Print? Wil Wheaton, Steve Eley, Daniel Hogan, Rick Jackson, Rick Stringer There’s an explosion of audiobooks and podcasts out there. Is Audio supplanting print as the medium of choice?

May 3, 2009 1:00 pm Selling Your Soul – Marketing Your Work on a Limited Budget David Crampton, Jim C. Hines, Daniel Hogan, Rick Jackson Websites, freebies, conventions and business cards – plus anything else we can think of! Ways to help market and promote yourself and your product when you’re strapped for cash!