Hi there.
My name is Joel, but my online handle is TechnicoolDad.
This is because of three main things:
- I am a technical writer
- I am cool
- I am a dad
Together, this makes me: TechnicoolDad.
I was born to a loving mother and father back in—
Oh. You don’t need the whole story?
I got into writing when I was very young. Some of the earliest organized creative writing I can remember is writing adventures for our characters in the video game Super Smash Bros. It wasn’t fancy. It would be little stage pieces explaining that characters had been kidnapped, and folks had to pick certain levels and conditions to see the story progress.
My first dive into writing a larger story was in high school, when I was deciding on my senior project. I wanted to do something with writing, and one of my teachers encouraged me to publish an ebook. She said they were going to replace traditional print before long.
So I did. I bought a website, the earliest iteration of what you’re reading now, and I published my story there. It was called The Pain Beneath. It was a novella, at best, and it took me a long time to write it, with my old kindergarten teacher serving as my editor. I don’t remember a lot from the experience, persay, but I still remember her asking me one day if my characters were sick. I was confused, so I asked why she thought that, and I remember her pointing out that they were all coughing a lot.
I digress.
After high school, I started publishing short episodic stories on various websites. Sometimes it was on Livejournal. Sometimes it was on something I purchased and hosted. I wrote a story called Orange and Blue, set in a fictionalized version of my hometown and dealing with the daily feud between two hardware stores and their employees. Did I mention I worked at a hardware store?
I also conceptualized The Flip Side at this time. I still have a sketch from a friend of mine who worked with me. It was a flat planet, like a coin, with two sides, each deeply connected to the other without realizing it.
After that, I started cleaning up the universe I had started back with my draft of The Pain Beneath.
Between 2011 and 2014, I revised, edited, and overhauled the characters of that universe, and eventually I published Once and Again, followed by The Pain Beneath, and Dark Horizons.
Soon after this, I realized I didn’t like the way Ihad told the story and felt it deserved better. I pulled these novels down and went to work on revising them… again.
In 2016, I took the first step toward the goal by publishing The Hero of Hyla, which fleshed out the first third of my previous Once and Again storyline and gave it the time and attention it deserved.
Things stalled out after that. I didn’t publish anything for a while. Instead, I focused on fatherhood and my career.
In 2019, however, the spark of creativity hit me, and I started what would become the novel Township. The story was published in episodes online, right here at Technicooldad.com
I did this for many years, writing whenever I found the time, and growing the Worldship universe. After writing 950 pages (give or take), the story concluded, and I published Township in 2023.
At this point, I looked back at some of my older writing, a storyline that had initially been born from a fanfiction I’d created for a World of Warcraft character, which had grown into a much larger story. Taking a break from the Township universe, I decided to overhaul my story and create something new. Along the way, I realized that this story could fit within the same cosmos as my Township novel.
I settled on the name The Flamecaller of Stonehaven, eventually pulled it all together, and published it as an ebook in late 2024.
So, where am I now?
I’ve been working on two significant efforts. The first is the follow-up novella to Township, which has been drafted and should hopefully get published in early 2026. The second is a complete overhaul of my original The Flip Side concept, with the same goal as the Flamecaller: to bring it to a higher standard and publish it as a real ebook.
With that said, you know everything you need to know about me.
Oh sure, I have a personal blog. I’m sure I’m going to get into gaming, dad stuff, writing ideas, and who knows what else, but even that’s all a bunch of boring stuff for you, my creative works are available through links from this site, or you can probably find me where most ebooks are sold!
See you around!
TechicoolDad 