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Author Information
Freelance Services — Creative and technical freelance services available.
Great Writing Moment - First Novel — The journey of finding the right way to write my first novel.
Great Writing Moment - First Publication — The first publication was an important first step in my writing journey.
Great Writing Moment - First Workshops — Dougie Schwartz owes many thanks to his peer writing groups.
Great Writing Moment - Poetry — While he is no Shel Silverstein or Dr. Seuss, Dougie has written a bit of poetry.
Great Writing Moment - Wedding — All the creative writing that went into our wedding.
Hall of Dougs — A random collection of pictures of Dougie Schwartz.
Message from Dougie Schwartz — An introduction to the author presently known as Dougie Schwartz.
What Inspires Doug — Inspiration comes from all sources. These are a few things that inspire me.
Who is this Dougie guy, anyway? — The brief bio of Dougie Schwartz.
Writing Accolades — A few of the highlights of my writing life.
Writing History — A glimpse of my writing journey that helped shape my writing style.

Works of Fiction
Alice In Wonderland (an ASMC Production) — Co-written for ASMC, a modern take on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Artley, a Rarity — A therapeutic story of a boy struggling to get people to understand his artistic vision.
Ballad of Everything — A creative bit of poetic imagery written in my college years.
Boiled Eggs and Hamlet — A poem filled with references about my early relationship with Julie.
Bonkers Magic Toy Factory (an ASMC Production) — Co-written for ASMC, a struggling toymaker invites kids to his factory to improve his broken toys.
Book Ads — A compilation of book ad scripts I intend to film one day.
Checkered Scissors — My debut novel of four lost souls embark on a quest to find the most incredible office supply.
Checkered Scissors Christmas, A — A bit of Checkered Scissors fan-fiction imagining how the characters celebrate the holidays.
Chimichanga — A Support for Indie Authors short fiction contest winner. Imagining Santa being tired of cookies.
Class Clown — The 12th Doctor encounters an old Gallifreyan classmate.
Classic Guide — A Douglas Adams crossover fanfic, blending his two franchises.
Curious Case of Rumpelstiltskin, The (an ASMC Production) — Co-written for ASMC, a courtroom comedy of Rumplestiltskin and his other crimes.
Curse of the Werehouse — A story inspired by a silly conversation with my daughter about a person turning into a house.
Curse, The — A man records a confession of a bizarre curse before taking a vow of silence.
Dadtime Stories — A collection of unique tales to help with modern problems.
Fortress of Self-Isolation — A short story about the COVID pandemic written for Stories On Stage.
How Shall I Kill You? — A horror short story of a victim trying to escape a serial killer.
Jammed — This Doctor Who fan-fiction leaves the Doctor stranded on a planet set on a collision course with his Tardis stuck it the planet's orbit.
Killer Bunny from Outer Space — Fairy tales meets Monty Python meets Alien.
Leonard the Baller — The Flat Earthers inspired this bit of Discworld fan fiction.
Lost Love — A cheesy, teenage poem about the women who broke my heart.
Meddling Kids — Shawn and Gus investigate a paranormal murder at the Winchester Mansion in this Scooby Doo themed Psych fan-fiction.
Missing Kitty — Written for Support Indie Author's mystery short fiction contest.
More Than Dalek — This Doctor Who fan-fiction explores a horrific tale of a Dalek outcast seeking revenge.
Muggle Studies — Harry Potter fan-fiction in which a muggle is asked to fill the muggle studies position while his family is investigated for for its strange attraction to magic.
Names — A silly poem about the variation of certain names.
Party Trap — H2G2 fan-ficion exploring others using the Guide. In this story, a prisoner is asked to report a mysterious party in exchange for his freedom.
Peter Pan and His Lost Shadow (an ASMC Production) — Co-written for ASMC, Captain Hook teams up with Peter Pan's shadow to take down his nemesis.
Pickled Bananas and Other Schwartz Stories — The best collection of short fiction you will ever read!
Pinocchio (an ASMC Production) — Co-written for ASMC, an adaptation of the famous puppet come to life.
Pop Goes the Culture — A random stream of consciousness poem.
Reality Fiction — When you mix reality TV eliminations and a dramatic web series, the result is Reality Fiction.
Saving Earth is a State of Mind — A short script about how easy it is to build good recycling habits.
Secret to Santa's Success, The — My take on the legacy of Kris Kringle.
Self-Made Witch — Harry Potter fan-fiction in which a muggle defends herself in wizard court for teaching herself magic.
Shadows of Love — A collection of cheesy love poems from my teen years.
SkuB2 — A bit of fan-fiction exploring the Mystery Inc gang several years into their future.
Sock Puppets — A family of time travelers attempt to exploit the past for their own personal gain.
Sour Grapes (an ASMC Production) — Co-written for ASMC, a series of accidents disrupt an Aesop's Fables themed variety show.
Spilt Milk — My first illustrated children's story of a girl who knocks over her milk and floods the town.
Stan Taklas is Coming to Town — What if Santa were afraid of heights and closed spaces?
Tame the Darkness — When a darkness threatens a sleeping boy, it is up to the monsters in his room to save him.
This Little Piggy — Written for NYC Midnight's flash fiction contest with the prompts heist, piggy bank, and sewer.
Ties That Bind, The — Written as one possible vision of my future.
Trouble with Gingerbread Cottages, The — A writing exercise taking a new angle on a classic fairy tale.
Twenty-Twenty Vision, A — A 2020-inspired poem.
Unaccompanied Minors — A NYC Midnight flash fiction contest entry with the prompts horror, rainbow, and airport terminal.
Visitors of the Dark Water Dweller, The — A poem exploring potential characters for my Checkered Scissors.
Wyrd World II (Anthology) — A short story collection from several indie authors.
Yertle the Fried Egg — A boy learns to face his fear of a giant, flying, fried egg.

Blogs
"Fan Fiction kills the original" — Does fan fiction harm the original work?
2020 Vision — Goals and resolutions for 2020.
45 is Guano Crazy — Why 45 should NOT be prez.
9 Books to Get to Know Me — Expanding upon a social media chain of what books help introduce people to who I am.
A Christmas Treasure Hunt — Details of an Amazing Race-themed holiday treasure hunt.
A Positive Bake — Building upon what you know.
A Session of Tutoring English — Sharing a customized tutoring session for a friend's son.
A Very Boring Blog — How to cope with boredom.
Airing of Grievances — Around the time of Festivus is the Airing of Grievances. My list contains more constructive grievances.
Alternate Realities — Creating the worlds in which we envision living.
Are You Not Critical Enough? — Accepting a more critical approach to your writing in order to improve.
Artificial Evolution — If humans impose an artificial layer over the world, how does this impact our evolution?
Bardic Knowledge — How RPG character development helps writing characters in fiction.
Big, Blue Changes — A brief overview of the major changes to the Checkered Scissors website.
Bullied or Ignored? — How promoting a book is like being the new kid in school.
Choices — Making a choice and dealing with the consequences.
Christmas Letter to You — Many Christmas traditions.
Church of Checkered Scissors — Starting a church based on my book.
Color Bursts — How artists and authors can feed people's thoughts.
Concerning the Future — Sharing my concerns and thoughts about the direction of the 2024 election results.
Considering Kwanzaa — What I have learned about Kwanzaa and why I would love to celebrate it properly.
Conversations with Characters — Holding imaginary conversations to better develop characters.
Creative Mixed Media — Creative presentation of mixed media.
Creative Solutionist — Striving to find creative solutions for difficult problems.
Crossing the Troll Bridge — A character study in three scenarios in which I try to understand the inner workings of internet troll behavior.
Developer Bootcamp - Final Exam — Dougie conquers the beast of all exams.
Developer Bootcamp - The End? — We completed the long, three-month learning experience, but is this really the end of this educational journey?
Developer Bootcamp - Week Eight — Connecting the front and back ends, capstone project pitches, and a four or more hour test.
Developer Bootcamp - Week Five — Learning APIs, Express, and EJS. Plus, navigating bootcamp across a family vacation.
Developer Bootcamp - Week Four — Continuing education with the ACC developer bootcamp.
Developer Bootcamp - Week Nine — Next level Git and coding with EJS, plus kicking off the projects.
Developer Bootcamp - Week One — First impression after a first week of a 14-week coding bootcamp.
Developer Bootcamp - Week Seven — Learning more React concepts and revisiting old projects.
Developer Bootcamp - Week Six — Nearly halfway there and learning ReactJS, advanced JavaScript, and this.
Developer Bootcamp - Week Ten — Learning databases. Learning remotely. Learning with a purpose.
Developer Bootcamp - Week Three — Javascript, JQuery, DOM, and a lot of practice.
Developer Bootcamp - Week Two — The 2nd week of bootcamp involving Bootstrap and Javascript
Developer Bootcamp - Weeks Eleven and Twelve — Covering SQL, testing, debugging, and a mock interview.
Dirk vs. Dirk — How people process the same source differently.
Discomfort Zone — Turning outrage into change.
Do Over! — If you could change something to potentially make it better, would you?
Do These Genres Make My Story Look Fat? — Matching a story to a genre.
Does the Character Know or Not? — Writing about what characters do and do not know.
Dougie vs. Social Media — What I dislike about social media and ways I suggest of improving it.
Dougie's Writing Journey — Detailing my writing journey of where I started as a writer and how I got to where I am.
E Pluribus Unum — My thoughts on what it might take to unite our country.
Eating My Own Doug Food — Being more mindful of the tools I have created to better support myself and other indie authors.
Embracing the Weirdness — How to connect with the unusual.
Evolving Traditions — My thoughts on traditions and why I am okay with changing traditions.
Experimental Fiction — Exploring some of my favorite modern forms of experimental storytelling.
Finding Theme — How to find the theme of a book. How writers approach theme when writing.
Food in Fiction — Pondering the use of food included in fiction.
From Hobby to Profession - Part One —
From Hobby to Profession - Part Two —
Game of Chicken, A — An original Schwartz Story inspired by a randomly generated prompt about a city slicker seeking his freedom by playing a small town sheriff in a game of Chicken.
Glazomaniac — About my obsession with list making.
Go Around the Room — Talking about a pet peeve of mine going around the room saying a little something about ourselves.
Go Around, Again! — Celebrating another birthday by being comfortable with my life.
Good News Jar — The list of good news pulled from the Good News Jar for 2020.
Harry Potter - A Writer's Perspective — Observations of the Harry Potter series.
Hello, My Name is... — The glory of name tags.
Homemade Search Engine — Describing the working on the search engine I constructed to locate content on my author site.
Honesty in Writing — On the subject of death. The saddest moments of my life.
How Fan Fiction Benefits Writers — The benefits of writing fan-fiction.
How I Would Save the World — Thoughts on a self-sustaining model.
How to be Creative — How to exercise your creativity.
How to Write Stories — How to go from not having an idea to creating stories to bring ideas to life.
Humorous Branding — Rebranding myself as a humor author.
Interview with Katherine Luck — Interview about the How to Write Like blog.
Is the Big 50 Challenge Over, Yet? — A recap of the Big 50 Challenge.
It's All Connected — A description for a master project encompassing all five ideal jobs.
Juggling Act — Finding balance between projects and pastimes.
Juneteenth — Thoughts about racism and Juneteenth.
Learning Good from Bad — Discussing how to learn better storytelling from exploring bad writing.
Major Website Changes — Brief summary of the recent website changes.
Making the Necessary Edits — The concept of corporate layoffs and how it relates to writing.
Membership has its Privleges — Details of using subscriptions to access locked content.
Motivation — Pondering How to motivate students to study and readers to read..
My Fascination with Alice in Wonderland — How my writing is inspired by the elements of Alice in Wonderland.
My Fascination with Time Travel — How my writing is inspired by my deep fascination with time travel theories.
My Thoughts on AI — A collection of several random thoughts on AI and its usage.
My Vision of the World — How a German cross-dresser encapsulates my vision of the world.
Next Evolution of Storytelling — Different storytelling delivery methods.
One Banana is Worth a Million Books — The craziness (and creativeness) of marketing.
Organizing Thoughts — Thoughts on keeping my thoughts organized.
Over-Elaborate To Do List — More details about my ticketing system.
Pandemic Lessons Learned — What I hope the world learns from this pandemic.
Parody -- Flattering or Insulting? — The pros and cons of parody.
Pigeonholed Author — Assumptions and typecasting.
Planning the Big Five Oh — Thoughts on how to celebrate my 50th birthday.
Reality Fiction—Backstage—Recruitment Tour — How the first season's candidates of Rality Fiction could have been recruited.
Recipe for an Author Page — Suggestions for designing an author website.
Reinventing a Story — The different ways authors have delivered the same story in a variety of formats.
Remakes - The Story Multiverse —
Return of the Black Sheep — Finding acceptance in being different.
Seeing the World, Eating Cookies — A reflection of traveling Germanic Europe and being open to new cultures.
Self Review of Checkered Scissors — Giving my own book a critical look and writing my own review.
Sharing Ideas — Sharing ideas as creative prompts.
Slippery Slope — Struggling with issues and gaining traction.
Social Marketing — My understanding (or lack there of) of social media and how best to use the platform for marketing.
Speaking What is Written — How video editing is similar to writing.
Star Wars - A Prediction — Prediction of Star Wars Episode Nine.
Superpowers — If you had super powers, how would you use them?
Teaching Fiction to Animals — How one might approach teaching a creature who has little to no understanding of language how to appreciate fiction.
Thank You Schwartz Family! — Recapping a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with my family.
Thankful — Happy Thanksgiving 2019!
The Appeal of Twin Peaks — Detailing my daughter's experience with Twin Peaks and what I appreciate about this unique series.
The Art of Propaganda — How to recognize propaganda by looking more closely to how it is written.
The Benefits of Journaling — The different types of journals I keep and their benefits.
The Complexity of Teaching — My thoughts on the struggles of teaching from the perspective of a long-term substitute teacher.
The Ghosts in My Life — Who ya gonna call? Ghostbloggers!
The Gray Area Between Hero and Villain — Talking about how characters become more interesting when they blur the lines between hero and villain.
The Humor of Monty Python — Prompted by a post about Monty Python, and how it inspires my own sense of humor.
The Pledge — Thoughts on writing and reciting pledges.
The Q-ness of Humor — Humor has a codependency on other genres.
The Schwartz Story Audience —
The Selfish Comedian — A blog of taking ownership of a stupid comment and lessons learned from this experience.
The Selfishness of Art — Is the act of creating art selfish?
This Author's Toolbox — The various tools this website has to offer.
Thoughts on 3 Body Problem — Pondering a couple of aspects of 3 Body Problem. Contains spoilers.
Ticket Tracker — An overview of the ticket tracking system designed for the UberPlan.
Ticket Tracker - Exposed — Sharing the ticket tracking system with the public.
Time for a Career Change — Career change and writing job search.
Time Travel Birthday Weekend - Recap — Best birthday weekend ever!
Time Traveler Logic Puzzle — Presenting an original logic puzzle touching on the theme of time travel fo the Time Travel Themed Birthday Weekend.
To Build a Brand (Writing Style) — Figuring out how to best brand my fiction.
To the Honk of My Own Trumpet — Staying true to oneself despite peer pressure to follow a more normal behavior.
Togetherness — The power of workings together.
Tools Other Than Checkered Scissors — What tools are available on the Checkered Scissors site?
True to Self, or True to Form? — Is it better to tailor a story to better fit a genre? Or, stay true to yourself and your style of writing, despite genre boundaries and guidelines?
Under Lock and Key — Incorporating a user management system to my websites.
Wabi-Sabi Writing — The appreciation and embracing of imperfections.
Warning Signs — Pondering why people choose to look the other way when presented with blunt warning signs meant to protect them.
Warped History — How the whitewashing of history needs to be fixed, and how fiction can help people face those harsh truths.
Websurfing the Witching Hour — Pointing out strange anomalous behavior on the website.
What Teacher Appreciation Week means to me — Expressing my appreciation to all the teachers in my life.
What Was the Question? — The Big Question in stories.
Where Editing Goes Wrong — Discussing editing for correctness versus editing for content when it comes to an already released work.
Where to Begin — How to start writing stories.
Wholesomeness vs. Offensiveness — The world has lost much of its wholesomeness and has become a more offensive place, causing people to become more defensive.
Why Are You Doubting Yourself? — What sets off self doubt and how do you combat it?
Wonka - Review and Predictions — I discuss my favorite adaptation of Wonka and make predictions for a Wonka movie franchise.
Writing Road Signs — Feedback from my editor.
Yertle - A Book and Breakfast Blog — Recap of the Yertle Book and Breakfast Party event.

News
A Degree in the Mad Arts — I could be a Mad Ice Cream Man.
A Werehouse Full of Fiction — In which there is a bit of bragging about my weird stories.
Apart from Wordle... — Home repairs and player accounts.
Approaching with Caution — In my personal news, projects ramp up with the library and I prepare myself for rejoining the Real World.
Caffeinated Puppy — Lost of stuff happened in April.
Call the Doctor! I ate too many cookies. — If you have tried my gingerbread cookies, you would eat too many, also.
Creative Crop Circles — Thinking about how to celebrate my birthday while juggling various projects.
Day Whatever of the Coronavirus Pandemic — Making tick marks on the wall.
Dougie... The Overplanner — Sometimes, it takes overthinking to realize I was right the first time.
Excitement Contained...Barely — Another glimpse into the madness, which is Dougie.
Folding Road Maps — Knowing how to get from A to Z is going to take a lot of road maps. Hit it!
Funny Ha Ha, or Funny Peculiar? — Humor authors are often a bit of both.
Go, Dougie! It's your birthday! — Raise the roof!
Going Cross-Eyed — The dark arts will do that to you.
Happy holidays! — The Holidays...Oof! Amiright?
It's All About the Content — If Content is king, what are the Queen, Bishop, and Rook?
Kicking Off the New Year — Coming off the holidays, ready to face the new year.
Long-Term Subbing and Other Adventures — Accepting a long-term gig.
Many Spinning Plates — When news is more like a game show or holiday special.
May, the Warm Up Band — Update for all the fun I got up to in May and leading into the summer.
Me Good at English? — Stepping down the path towards teaching.
Meanwhile...In the Fortress of Self-Isolation — I hate leaf blowers.
Melting Like Popsicles — What I have been working on through May and preparing for the summer.
Missing Time Suggests Alien Abduction — I must have been busy
More of Doug's Crazy Ideas — Drip, drip, drip went the Idea Faucet.
Mr Doug is Turning Fifty — Preparations for celebrating my 50th birthday.
My God! It's Full of Ideas! — Juggling all the ideas in my head.
Newments and Improvements — The bi-weekly status report that briefly describes upcoming changes to the website, a brief review of my new favorite movie, and a couple other little tidbits.
Now with more scissors! (snip, snip) — Every little bit helps.
One Stop Shop — Keeping myself organized.
Orchard of Low-Hanging Fruit — Sometime the little things add up to a big accomplishment.
Pandemic Projects — I have eaten a LOT of Chinese food.
Pardon My Dust, Construction Zone Ahead — Discussing the attempts of my Big 50 challenges.
Pass Me the Updoug — The usual nonsense and shenanigans.
Perpetual Cereal — Does it come with a toy prize at the bottom of the box?
Please Use a Clean Plate — What I have been up to throughout December and January.
Pleasing Project Progress — As a co-worker had said, sometimes you need to slow down to speed up.
Project Hansel and Gretel — Introducing breadcrumbs! Organizing too many tickets. And, leaping back into the workplace fray!
Projected Focus — The usual juggling on a slippery slope.
Reading, Writing, and a Word Count — My compost heap is deep.
Reading, writing, and way too many baked goods. — Recovering from the holidays.
Reality Fiction Needs You! — Recruiting writers for a bit of experimental fiction.
Reviews, Tools, and Tools for Writing Reviews — Aaaah...Comfort books.
School Has Given Me a Lot to Think About. — Wrapping up the school year and kicking off summer.
Searching Content, Hidden Fiction — Some days my focus is all over the place.
Searching for Answers — Incorporating a content searching tool into the site.
Self Torture and Other Fun Activities — As if I need one more activity, I should pick up cloning as a hobby.
Self-Service Interviews with a side of Randomness — Some of the fine tools this site has to offer.
Sharing is Caring — Teaching is a rough profession.
Simplification, Please. — The KISS Rule - Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Small Steps Make Great Strides — A peek behind the curtain.
Spilt Milk? Fried Eggs? Why do I write about food? — I am a Word Chef!
Spoilers, Dirty Content, Horror, and Rudeness — This status contains details about the site upgrades and improvements, and a few non-work related topics.
Subs, Pubs, and Flubs — Otherwise known as The Good, The Meh, and the Tired
Surviving Snowmegeddon — That was a LOT of snow!
Tables of Food, Tables of Content — I love when the creation of one thing either exposes something needing improvement or another great idea.
Taking Steps in the Write Direction — One step in front of the other.
The Challenge of Too Many Challenges — Kicking of the Big 50 Challenge and behind-the-scenes work.
The End (of the Year) is Nigh! — Detailing the busy month of November and the continuing of the holidays.
The Ice Cream Man Cometh — Is Donut Delivery Man a thing?
The Monster at the End of the Status Update — Mainly working on pre-building content to improve the site content.
The Presentation of Relevant Information — Shining the light in the right places.
The Specific Ocean — Will anyone really see this?
They Need a Guy Like Me — Teaching English and driving.
Two Big Questions — The questions are not "Where am I?" and "Where are my pants?"
What's Going On? — The first status update.
Where in the World is Dougie Schwartz? — This update involves England, Scotland, Ireland, the Beatles, and Charlie Brown.
Where's Hippopotamus?! — Pre-holiday shenanigans.
Working on Stuff in Order to do Stuff — Update about what I have been up to in February.
Working on the Peripheral — Improvements to the interview process, UI work, and other things.
Writing the Wrong (Stuff) — A brief overview of what I have been working on since the last news update in May.
Writing, Writing, and More Writing — Did I mention writing?
Written Out of the Story — Just one too many.
Your Opinions, Please — Looking for feedback on the changes that have been made to the website, the content of the newsletter, and what future features you might find useful.