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I have a dream.

I have a dream that my creative works will be judged not by the signing of a lucrative book deal but by the content and their characters.  In other words, I realize I’ll likely never get rich from this spare-time writing gig.  I’m OK with that.  What I really want is an audience.  I want someone to turn the last page of one of my books and feel something.  I want someone to love my characters as much as I do.

I have a dream that 2023 is a seminal year in my writer’s odyssey.  Here’s what I’m excited about:

1.

HERO

In a few days, I’ll be publishing a novel titled Hero.  I wrote the rough draft of Hero during National Novel Writing Month of 2017.  That’s right, I wrote an entire rough draft that November, and it actually held up better than I ever could’ve imagined.  I’ve spent a lot of time since then revising and polishing.  I find I grow attached to all of my characters, but the eponymous protagonist of Hero is absolutely a favorite of mine.  I’m looking forward to sharing her story with the world.

“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” —Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II

While fifteen-year-old Hero Jean Taylor struggles to adjust to a new home and a new school, she fixates on a solitary hunt for a brazen killer.  Intent on cracking the case by visiting the scene of each murder, Hero crisscrosses town on her bicycle until a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger brings her tantalizingly close to the answers she seeks.  But as the death toll mounts, Hero’s very survival hinges on the one truth she finds hardest to accept:  She can’t do it alone.

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2.

YOU BE YOU

I often say junior high school is the bootcamp of life.  It’s absolutely miserable – and chock full of conflict.  What a fertile setting then for my latest novel.  Plus, I turned this book into a grand experiment in second-person storytelling.  Whenever I finish writing a manuscript, I think to myself, ‘This is it.  This is the one.  This is the book that gets me an agent and a contract.’  I can’t help thinking that about You Be You, but time will tell.  I’ll be devoting a lot of energy this year to getting the book query ready, and then we’ll see what the future holds.

“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” —Maya Angelou

When you blast an atomic sneezer-cheeser right in the middle of first-hour (f)art class, you’re marked as a cheese-puff for life. Your only hope at redemption is a longshot bid to make the Francis Middle School seventh-grade basketball team. Even though the odds are never in your favor, you’re convinced a mysterious series of geocaching messages is guiding you on to basketball glory.  Or is it?  You decide.  From the author of Red: A Football Novel comes an epic story of basketball, geocaching, and the fear of being a dork.  You Be You: A Novel of Self-Reflection by Christopher D. Seifert.  “Everybody has a superpower.  Only U. can find yours …”

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3.

SOJOURNER

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” —Joseph Campbell

My writing projects usually start with a title and an end scene in mind.  I’ve had this girl named Sojourner bouncing around in my brain for months now.  I just couldn’t quite hear her voice until recently:

“You might think that growing up on a space station is the epitome of awesomeness.  Well, think again.

“My name is Sojourner Macie Swift, but you can call me Sojo for short.  Everyone else does.  By everyone else I mean my dad and my trusty recreational droid known as Art.

“The three of us live together on Space Corps Outpost 997.  Dad says my mom used to live here too, but I don’t remember her at all …”

There she is. My fifth novel is officially in the works, and I can’t shake this feeling that 2023 is an ideal time to dream.

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Chris lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife, Sara, and their seven children.  He has a B.A. in communications (print journalism emphasis) from Brigham Young University and a J.D. from the University of Nebraska College of Law.  Chris enjoys music by The Piano Guys, flying kites, and pumpkin pie. He is the author of Red: A Football Novel.

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After finishing the first season of Star Trek: Prodigy, I’m here to rank every Star Trek TV series in descending order. Granted, there’s a small sample size for some of the shows, but still.  Are you excited? You should be:

11.  LOWER DECKS

In the category of things the world doesn’t need: A raunchy animated Star Trek comedy show. No, thank you.  (Three seasons and counting.  Please make it stop.)

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10.  THE ANIMATED SERIES

Haven’t watched it, don’t plan to. I’m sure it’s fine for what it is, but it’s never appealed to me.  (Two seasons.)

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9.  ENTERPRISE

I’m probably the only person alive who actually likes the theme song. The show itself?  Not so much.  (Four seasons.)

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8.  DISCOVERY

Too dark, too loud, too fast, too preachy, too much crying.  (Four seasons and counting.)

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7.  VOYAGER

The characters seem flat, the stories recycled. Nevertheless, Voyager gets bonus points for being from the Next Generation era of shows.  (Seven seasons.)

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6.  THE ORIGINAL SERIES

Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Company didn’t really become epic for me until the movies, but I have to give credit to the show that started it all.  (Three seasons.)

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5.  PICARD

This one is hard for me to rate. It’s different. There are flaws, for sure, but I’m too much of a Jean-Luc Picard fan to not relish the opportunity to spend a little more time with the character. And occasionally the show rewards fans’ devotion with flashes of brilliance. Here’s to hoping the upcoming third and final season, which is billed as a Next Gen cast reunion/sendoff, delivers.  (Two seasons in the book.  The final season premieres February 16, 2023.)

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4.  PRODIGY

A cool ship, gorgeous animation, and fun action-adventure the entire family can enjoy. This show, which plays as a kind of sequel to Voyager, is an absolute treat with stakes every bit as high as those of any live-action Trek show to date. After we watched the penultimate episode, my eleven-year-old said, “How can it ever be OK?”  I won’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say the ride was surprisingly intense.  (One season and counting.)

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3.  DEEP SPACE NINE

DS9 will never be the most beloved Trek show, but its complex, multi-faceted characters and gritty mythology add texture to the entire Star Trek universe.  (Seven seasons.)

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2.  STRANGE NEW WORLDS

A do-gooder captain grappling with his place in the cosmos. An updated Original Series aesthetic. Serious Next Gen vibes emanating from the writers’ room. Here we have Star Trek in its purest form. There isn’t a single dud in the ten-episode first season, and the episode titled “Memento Mori” is as good as anything Star Trek has ever done.  (One season so far, a second season on the way, and hopefully many more seasons to come.)

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1.  THE NEXT GENERATION

Iconic characters, including the best captain ever, coupled with super-smart sci-fi storytelling. If we pretend like the first two seasons didn’t happen, I’ll argue with a straight face that this is the greatest TV show (Star Trek or otherwise) of all time.  (Seven seasons.)

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Chris lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife, Sara, and their seven children.  He earned a B.A. in communications (print journalism emphasis) from Brigham Young University in 2003 and a J.D. from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 2006.  He has also watched every episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” more than once.  Chris enjoys stories by Ray Bradbury, starry night skies, and cherry limeade. He is the author of Red: A Football Novel and other books and poetry.

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“Dad,” my eleven-year-old daughter called into the darkness early last Wednesday.  “Dad, the bunnies are dead.”

I bolted upright in bed, suddenly wide awake.  “What?”

I suppose I’ve always known, ever since we first brought the bunnies home a year and a half ago, that it would end like this – in tragedy.  A wild animal got them sometime during the night.

I took a deep breath.  I tried to comfort my daughter.  I did my fatherly duty by going out back and cleaning up the aftermath before the other children woke.  Then I broke the awful news to each of them as they emerged.

They were sad.  So was I.  The whole ordeal bothered me.  It still bothers me more than it rightfully should.

We named the bunnies Scratch and Sniff.  As best I can recall, that was my idea.  The kids weren’t so sure about those names at first, but they stuck.

From the start, the rabbits complicated our lives.  They were messy.  Frankly, they weren’t that smart.  We couldn’t go anywhere without figuring out what to do with them while we were away.  We worried about keeping them warm enough in the winter and dry enough in the rain.  A few times, we thought we had lost one or the other of them.

On the other hand, Scratch and Sniff were cute and inquisitive.  They were mostly gentle souls.  (Although sometimes they did get into bunny spats.)  They were long-suffering.  The kids toted them around like stuffed animals.  They brought them inside, dressed them up, cuddled them.

Outside, Scratch and Sniff were happy and free.  They bounded around our backyard like dogs.

Not anymore.  We’ll chalk this one up to important life lessons about love and loss.  Over the course of the last week, I’ve heard the kids make jokes about what happened.  They’re laughing to keep from crying, I guess.

Yes, Scratch and Sniff were just a couple of dumb bunnies, but I can’t help thinking that a sparrow or even a bunny shall not fall on the ground without our Father.

Someday soon I’m sure we’ll get new bunnies.  Our two year old has been petitioning for that very thing during her long and rambling stream of consciousness prayers.  Yes, new bunnies.  We’re already planning how to do a better job of keeping the new ones safe, but they won’t be Scratch and Sniff.

Last Wednesday night, after most everyone had gone to bed, I caught my fourteen-year-old son drift toward the back of the house, pull back the curtain, and gaze into the blackness of our backyard.  He might have been the only one who hadn’t shed a tear for the bunnies that day.

I looked up from the kitchen table.  “You sad about the bunnies?” I asked.

My son shrugged.  “I don’t know,” he said, still staring into the night.  “It’s just kind of strange that they’re gone.”

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Chris lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife, Sara, and their six children.  He is the author of Red: A Football Novel as well as other books and poetry. He has loved several pets over the years. Most of them met tragic ends.

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Maybe youth is wasted on the young, but that’s OK by me.  I’m not sure the middle aged would be crazy enough to embrace it anyway.

I’ve been thinking lately a fair bit about my nineteen-year-old self.  You know, the guy who traveled to the Dominican Republic, sight unseen, armed only with a fledgling faith in Jesus Christ and a stronger sense of duty, to serve a two-year proselyting mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The entire proposition was terrifying then.  I’ll never forget that sickening feeling as the plane lurched off the runway in Miami en route to Santo Domingo.  (“There’s no turning back now!” I thought to myself.)  Or what about that first day spent wandering the dusty streets, drowning in the humidity and completely unable to understand a single word anybody said?  (The native children eventually resorted to unloading their entire English vocabularies in a desperate effort to communicate with me.  “Wuht tyme ees eet?  Howw ahr yoo, miy freynd?”)

From where I stand today, it’s hard to believe I ever had the guts to go through with it all.  Somehow, I did.  What an adventure.  I survived flying cockroaches, sweltering heat, a hurricane, spotty electricity, unfamiliar food, cold bucket showers, and the list goes on.  I saw staggering poverty.  I was also on the receiving end of unmatched kindness and mind-boggling generosity.

I sometimes think about those people I met, the ones I taught a lifetime ago, and I remember a man who once said to me, “The missionaries are all the same.  They finish their time here, they go back home, and we never hear from them again.  But you’re different, Elder See-pare.”  (They never could pronounce my last name right.  It always came out sounding like the Spanish word for zipper.)  “You won’t forget us.”

Well, yes and no.  I haven’t forgotten them.  How could I?  But I’ve also lost contact with almost every last one of them.  I wish I knew where they are, what they’re doing right now.  Mostly, I wish I had been better for them.

Oh, it’s easy to look back and see everything I could’ve done differently.  I’m now over twice as old as I was then.  I have the benefit of experience and perspective.  Back then?  Youthful energy, optimism, and the Holy Spirit were my guides.

In the end, I’m not sure it could’ve been any other way.  I did my best with what I had.  I planted mustard seeds.  Maybe I made a difference in somebody’s life.  They certainly made a difference in mine.

All of which brings me to my young nephew who recently received his own mission call to labor for two years in, of all places, the Dominican Republic.  He’ll be heading there soon, and I’m extraordinarily proud of him.  He’s a young man of faith and intellect and maturity – and so many talents, really.  He’s infinitely better prepared than I was.  Even though I know a thing or two about those steps he’ll be taking into the darkness, I also know this adventure will be uniquely his.

He’s eighteen years old, the world is at his feet, and something tells me he’s not going to waste it.

Chris lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife, Sara, and their six children.  He has a B.A. in communications (print journalism) from Brigham Young University and a J.D. from the University of Nebraska College of Law.  Chris enjoys music by The Piano Guys, flying kites, and pumpkin pie.  He also spent two years in the Dominican Republic without a pillow, but that’s a story for a different day.

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I’m not a real photographer, but I sometimes play one while I’m on vacation.  Or at least I did last week.

The whole thing started a few months back as I was staring at one of those night-sky photographs.  You know the kind.  A billion stars twinkling as the Milky Way clusters together like a ritzy jewel.  The image practically pops off the page.  So, I’m looking at one of those, and I suddenly think to myself:  Somebody took that picture.  Why can’t I take one just like it?

Thus started one of those weird, manic obsessions that sometimes grip me, and there was no going back.  I read articles about night-sky photography.  I studied camera settings and specs.  I set a date (right during our family reunion trip to my in-laws’ Missouri farm).  And I agonized over location.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  I couldn’t stop talking about.

I loaded up a tripod, a flashlight, and our trusty old Olympus camera.  I rented the lens I needed from a local camera shop.

Our first night in Missouri, I set up in my in-laws’ blueberry field around midnight.  Even down there in the relative isolation, nearby Monett gives off a glow in the east, which didn’t help my cause, but I had to try.  I pointed my camera to the southeast and went to work.

At first, it seemed pretty hopeless, and then I noticed the camera was picking up a glimmer of something I wasn’t catching with the naked eye.  Could it be?

I kept shooting.  I refined my angle and my camera settings.  City lights be danged.  I had it, all right.  The pictures weren’t pristine, but it’s hard to overstate the thrill I felt as the Milky Way came into focus.

Eventually, my eyes adjusted enough to make out the milky glow on their own.  That’s when I knew exactly where to go with the camera.  I stayed out there for a couple hours.  Then I packed up my things and headed back.  I stopped to take another shot over the top of an old pickup truck.

I stopped again for another right over the top of my in-laws’ house.

Finally, I took one last shot from the end of the road.

I got back to the house where we were staying sometime around 2:30 a.m., rousing the farm dogs in the process.  My brother-in-law had locked me out, so I called Sara and woke her up.  She saved me from having to spend the rest of the night on the front porch.

Two nights later, I was at it again.  Sara and I left the kids with family, and we trekked two hours south on winding roads to Steel Creek Campground at Buffalo National River in Arkansas.  Darksitefinder.com said Buffalo National River was going to give me the black sky I craved.

When we pulled up, however, I was concerned.  High bluffs on one end.  Tall trees on the other.  Snapping that perfect photograph was going to be more complicated than I’d hoped.  Sara and I claimed our camping spot, set up our tent, and then hiked down to the river.

The river.  I was saved.  The riverbank provided a clearing toward the south.  It would be just the place to set up my tripod when the time was right.

We went back to our campsite, got the fire going, roasted some hotdogs, threw the football, and read until sunset.  Then Sara went to bed early in anticipation of a long night.

Meanwhile, I sat out in a camp chair and watched the show unfold.  Darksitefinder.com didn’t lie.  Buffalo National River treated me to one of the darkest night skies I’ve ever experienced.  I waited there in wonder and awe, developing a serious crick in my neck from tilting my head back.  It was an absolute spiritual experience to be under that sky.  The wonder of creation was in full bloom.

I woke Sara just before midnight, and the two of us stumbled out through the trees in the pitch black.  We somehow found the riverbank.  This time, I had no trouble whatsoever spotting the Milky Way with the naked eye.  I set up the camera, pointed it toward the south, and got started.  The first shot gave me hope for great things to come, but partway through the session I noticed brown streaks in the photographs.  Cloud cover or some sort of river mist was marring the images.

We moved about that rocky bank multiple times as I sought to compose the perfect shot, but I never quite got it.  All the while, Sara and I heard an unseen creature splashing about in the water nearby.  (I later joked it was Gollum.  Nothing ever attacked or ate us, but I do think Gollum threw off my groove just a bit.)

Around 2:45 a.m., Sara had had enough, and I decided I’d done the best I could.  I packed up the camera, and the two of us tromped back up to our campsite.  As Sara drifted off to sleep in our tent, I flipped through the images I’d captured and quickly realized I wasn’t satisfied with any of them.  Frustrated, I put the camera away and headed off to find the restroom.

As I stepped out of the tent, I looked up, and there it was in all its glory – hanging above the tree line.  That glow stretched all the way across the sky like nothing I’d ever seen before.  As I made a hasty trip to the restroom and back, I knew what I needed to do.  This was my chance.

I set the camera up again – this time near our tent – aimed it high, and proceeded to capture the best images of the entire trip.  By 3:30 a.m., I was a happy man.  I got the pictures I wanted. For those of you keeping score at home, I used a twenty-five-second shutter speed, f/2.8 aperture, and 2500 ISO.

What an adventure.  I’m looking forward to the next one.  There’s so much more for me to learn and so many more pictures to take.  Western Nebraska’s dark skies are calling.  I guess I’ll see you … out there.

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Chris lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife, Sara, and their six children.  He enjoys stories by Ray Bradbury, starry night skies, and cherry limeade.  Chris is also the author of Red: A Football Novel as well as other books and poetry.

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