Todd R. Vick, Author & Speaker

Having grown up in a house full of women, I know all about PMS. This week it seems like EVERYONE has it.  Was going to ask a friend for some help and was met with an unusually "grouchified" reply because technology beat me to the punch. All good. Stuff happens. People have bad days. I know about those too.

This past week my novel was critiqued by my classmates and I received some wonderful feedback. This novel is important to me, and I want it to be great. The feedback helped me toward that goal. So I logged into a forum outside of the class discussion and thanked my classmates for offering some excellent feedback. Apparently I broke some "rule" of the Writer's Workshop by offering my thanks after the fact, according to a classmate who emailed the professor in protest. The typical response to "Thank you," is generally, "You're welcome." This etiquette should apply to Writer's Workshop as well. We call that "good manners" in…

Spring is a brutal dichotomy for me. On the one hand, nature always looks great during Spring. The colors and blooming flora can be breathtaking at times.

At the same time, Spring also produces pollen, which wreaks utter havoc on those of us cursed with year-round allergies. Not to mention the mess it makes on the cars, porches, and well, just about everything it lands on.

Yet without the pollen, there would be no beautiful flora. Sometimes the things which we see as negative can actually be for the best in the big picture of things. This is a hard lesson to learn, especially for people like me who demand instant gratification. I'm the guy in front of the microwave going, "C'mon, I don't have all minute!" I despise waiting in line for anything, and I get really impatient at traffic lights and four-way stops.

This year, I was unemployed (again) for almost 3 months. Not at all the way I first envisioned 2010 going. Not at all. During those three months, I gained w…