I'm 29-years-old, married with a 2-year-old son, and our daughter will be born in mid-June. I have a B.A. and M.A. in theology from a small Catholic liberal arts university -- the University of Dallas, which is in Irving, Texas. My goal has been to earn a Ph.D. in theology and teach and do research. However, due to kids and finances, that path is no longer open for me. My wife and I have decided to reverse roles, so she works full time and I'm a stay-at-home dad.

I've been writing on and off since I was 10. Now that I'm not going after a Ph.D. -- which means that I have a lot of free time on my hands -- I have decided concentrate on being a writer. I try to write 4 pages a day, six days a week, and read a novel a week. I try to do what Stephen King recommends, namely, putting four hours a day into writing and reading (six when my mother-in-law babysits).

My reading usually oscillates between science fiction and fantasy, and literary fiction. The best book about writing I've read is John Gardner's, The Art of Fiction. My favorite SF novel is Connie Willis's Doomsday Book; my favorite fantasy novel is J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings; and my favorite literary novel is Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory.

I have a complete feeling of destiny that few people understand when I try and communicate it. No power in the universe can stop my becoming a published writer - except myself. Even then, in the end I will always triumph.

About 18 mnths ago I figured that if I could approach agents, and say that the word was out on the net for my writing, then it would be a feather in my cap. In stages, the whole marketing of a concept has become an extraordinary obsession, but I am collecting respectable statistics. The concept of my writing has been exposed widely on the internet - the banner and name has been used frequently on communities totally over 300,000 people - the link is in over 1600 usenet groups (slap wrist), 121,000+ legal downloads of the soundtrack music, over 25,000 unique visitors to the website itself, and I am now about to pass 300 members of my own forum, which opened in December. And I'm going to expand the site even more, to catch more visitors. Oh yes...

Currently immersed in the topic of search engine optimisation - specialising in key-term marketing within Google.

I don't work any other way.

[This message has been edited by Chronicles_of_Empire (edited April 23, 2003).]

I've been writing since I was about 16 (not nearly as young as many of you), but have not really been able to kick it into full gear yet. But I think about it every day, read articles and stories as often as I can, and when time permits (like summer breaks) I become almost obsessed.

I have a Bsc from the University of Alberta. Majored in microbiology and minored in chemistry.

According to my mother I was writing little illustrated stories at the age of three, so I got a real early start on the writing game. I remember as a child writing a lot of stories together with a younger brother -I am the oldest in the family and have four brothers and two sisters.

I like to read and will read anything including cereal boxes, soup cans, and the advertisements on the sides of city busses. Right now the books I'm reading include the following:

OSC's Shadow of the Hegemon, Jordan's Crown of Swords, Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club, Dante's Inferno -Musa Translation, and Jeffrey Eugenidis' Middlesex.

Besides reading I like to putter around in my flower garden.

I'm new also, signed on today. My name is Donnie Clemons. I'm 41 years old and have been married 20 years. I'm a fulltime teacher and football coach. Yeah, I know. Most of you think football coaches can't read muchless write. I'm not a stereotypical coach at all. I teach technology and computer classes. I have several published works in fantasy and a little poetry. You can see my post under the Hatracks Published Writers thread for more info if you like. By some will of God I ended up owning the small press where I have two novels published. That wasn't what I had in mind when I signed their contract, but that's the way it goes. Both books are still inprint. I also added a line of OP, rare, and collectable books to the company site which I sell online. My current library consists of 13,000 books. I'm currently sending out 10 new short story manuscripts in hopes somebody is willing to publish my work besides me. (I have work published through other publishers by the way.) I am considering publishing a science fiction and fantasy anthology of about 10-12 writers if anyone is interested. I don't mean a subsidy deal either. I mean the kind of deal where the publisher (me) pays for the books and you get paid for the story. That's not a "done deal" but I'm close to doing it. Once the funds are in place and distribution deals are finalized I'll need writers. I grew up on a large dairy farm in Tennessee and proudly admit to being from "The South". I'm also a fairly accomplished musician. I was a voice major in college. Yes, I have sang opera. How many football coaches can say that? As to reading taste, I love Tolkien, Terry Brooks, Brian Jacques, L. Ron Hubbard, and of course Orson Scott Card. I keep signed editions of these authors' works in my private collection.

I don't get to read as much now as I would like to, but when I do, I enjoy: Stephen King, OSC, George RR Martin, Dean Koontz, Kirsten Britain, Anne Bishop, and an assortment of others. I don't usually read scifi anymore, just epic fantasies and horror. I am an AVID Harry Potter fan, and yes! I will be there at the "midnight party" release of book 5. Work be damned.

I'm 45,000 words into a novel-- fully plotted-- and to tell the truth, I need a little more experience before I finish it. My knowledge of a good story outstrips my ability to write one, so I need to practice for a while and then go back to rewriting the novel. Maybe I don't need more experience to finish it, but I need more experience to finish it and have it be worth reading by my standards.

I'm sure we did this a long time ago, but I can't remember when.

I'm a 39ish Engineering instructor in Cleveland. I'm married, with two sports cars and two cats but no kids.

I don't get to read or write enough, but I do try to make them high priorities in my life. I like technology, and so I enjoy hard sci-fi and techno-thrillers like Tom Clancy's stuff. I wish to be a productive writer, and refuse to waste my time with bad writing. Thus I read whatever I can on the subject, and I participate in things like my writers group and this forum.

Ah well---let's see, I'm a 40ish married female. 4 kids, five cats, and a rabbit.

I have worked as an acquisitions editor in Germany. I have done freelance editing for the same company in Germany. I've been published in non-fiction --many years ago--early 80's. I have done and still do the written side of public relations. I also do newsletters or anything else dealing with the written word that pays for the cat food.

Currently I work for Wild Child Publishing and an assistant editor.

I have completed almost 6 novels now. And have agent representation by The Zack Company, Inc.

I read almost anything—even a cereal box if nothing else is available. My favorites are Anne Perry, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman—yes mystery writers. My favorite fantasy writers, Pierce Anthony, Ann McCaffery, Marion Zimmeron Bradley. My favorite historical fiction writer, Don Coldsmith. SciFi, anything and everything. No real favorites there.

I read all sorts of SF/F leaning more towards SF. I have finished the first draft of a fantasy novel and am discovering that just putting in edits on 116K words takes a lot of time.

My favorite authors are Brin, Zelazny, Bear, Card, Zahn, Bujold, Feist, and more. I have a collection of Analog magazine that goes back to 1965. I gave up on being an engineer in college because I couldn't stand doing the math.

I am the keeper of strange hobbies ( I occasionally go camping in an 18' tipi) that I have less time for now with my four boys keeping me busy. I still find time to teach martial arts out of my basement.

About two years ago I decided all my dreaming about writing a book ought to be put to the test. After some hideous false starts, multiple versions, and some rejections for some short stories along the way, I’m probably over halfway done with my novel from a completed standpoint. Even though I get frustrated at my writing pace, all the versions have been a great learning process and I really enjoy the time I can put in writing. This is often less that I would like since my job tends to leave me a bit braindead for other mental activities come evening. Thank goodness for the weekend!

Meanwhile, back at the batcave, I'm approaching my low (opposite of high) fantasy novel from about the tenth perspective. I've changed the plotline and characters so many times that I barely recognize the first few tries.

My name is Jon and I don't do much else besides go to school, read, write, and hang out with my girlfriend. However, lately I've been building a large and sophisticated treehouse (about 100+ sq ft) behind my friends house. I plan on living in it for several weeks during the summer so I can have some sort of mystical life changing experience (and because it'll be interesting). that's enough of me, I'm done rambling.

The author who has taught me the most about writing is OSC, and I've never read any of his fiction. Nothing. Not even a short story.

I’m a professional housewife who’s been known to take career detours at the front desk of major hotels. Two years of Hospitality Management in college and no desire to boss people around probably explains that. Married 35 years, two kids, two old cats, two young grandchildren. Writing since sixth grade, with an original excerpt in Reader’s Digest and an article in ComputorEdge magazine, and a slew of unpaid op-eds. (The computer article is misleading. It was a humorous account of my introduction to computers.) I have two finished novels, the second SF and which I am presently polishing and wringing my hands over. Childbirth was easier.

I’m a nitpicker, but not sure if that’s my age or my love for the written word. I would’ve been a formidable English teacher. Not to say I have it all down pat. Reference books are a godsend. As are all of you.

Trying, Ergoface?

I don't hang out here much, mostly because I spend way too much time over in the Hatrack River Forum. However, I can't resist threads concerning grammar, usage, or punctuation. Whenever there's one of those, you can expect me to stick my nose in.

Oh, and Brinestone—I was so already on to you.

i'm another one of those paranoid types who likes to stay anonymous online, so let's just stick with Cosmi. i'm a seventeen-year-old student finishing out high school in a program at a university across my good ol' home state of Misery...uh...Missouri. i plan on being a physics major, but in this program i'm working towards an Associate of Science degree. (Associate today, PhD tomorrow, and then, the universe! muahahaha...) i enjoy reading and writing, of course. (and, like everyone else, i'll resort to product labels if need be.) i also play clarinet, am president over my program's astronomy club, and am secretary of the university's math club. i don't have alot of freetime lately, but i write when i can.

i mostly write scifi and fantasy short fiction and novel length work, and poems on...well, whatever comes to mind. i've noticed my poetry muse mostly visits during my math courses, so all my classwork is sporatically littered with poems. ironically enough, the idea that got me out of a serious slump (not so much a block, but a lack of inspiration) concerns a WWII vet visited by the archangel Michael--not remotely my genre, plus i'm athiest. well, when the muse hits, what can you do?

as for my favorite writers, i can't really say. i've never encountered one i invariably like. and it's hard to remember all the books i've enjoyed. my favorite OSC book is definitely _Speaker for the Dead_ because it was like nothing i'd read previously. i remember thinking when i put it down, "this is what i want people to feel like when they're done reading my work. wow."

i guess that's it, so:

TTFN & lol

[This message has been edited by Sharp (edited May 10, 2003).]

At any rate, welcome. Sorry for being such a poor host.

PS -- Watch out for a dude named Survivor. He's a shadowy figure that lurks on this board, and he has thus far refused to introduce himself to you new guys and gals.

I am a nearly 26-year-old female. I am engaged and plan to get married in October...no kids yet. I have 2 B.S. degrees, one in Computer Science the other in Psychology. After struggling to find work in a bad economy for nearly a year I decided to give it up and concentrate on my writing. (The timely engagement helped a lot.)

I've been writing since I was maybe 10, always science fiction and fantsay. (Oh, I read other things, but I've never really written anytthing else.) I guess my head has always been in the clouds.

Ever since the beginning of April I've been working part time on contract work (programming and web pages) and have been able to devote about 20 hours a week to writing. It's been great, if a little frustrating sometimes. That's about when I started snooping in on this site too, although I only posted recently.

I also joined a critique group for the first time a couple months ago. It's been interesting to actually ahve real feedback on my work. One day soon I'll have to start a discussion about how to interpret that feedback.

Nice to meet everyone!

My name is Danielle I'm 30 years old a mother of one (named Raven who is turning one.) I have been married two years (this time around.)

I don't remember when I started writing or making up stories. I'd have to say as early as five. I wanted to be a veterinarian though.

I was certified as a laboratory assistant at 16, took second in a national team competition on health knowledge and planned to be pre-med in college.

I was poetry editor in high school for our literary magazine and also took second honorable mention in a state poetry contest that year. Funny part about that is it was a poem just newly reworked and I had forgotten to bring any other ones. It was just something to turn in.

But wait.. there's more!

I have always been fascinated in languages and have taken German (high school), Russian and Spanish (college). Sadly I am not fluent in any of them. And then.. I decided I was burnt out on pre-med so switched up.

Got married, started tech school for multi-media and VR. Left school and started a web design company.

Got divorced moved to California and met my current husband.

I then started writing for a fan site for fun. After that it snowballed into writing for a network (IGN), working as a herald (online reporter for Shadowbane) and working for a multi-game website. I was recommended by Ubi Soft to Brady Games to co-write the strategy guide for the game. It's done very well in sales. I work part time as well.

After all these years of writing (for non liveable pay) for all these other things, I decided I was burning myself out for too little and needed to get back to writing for enjoyment and creativity.

Thus, here I am ready to get back laying down the text for the dreams that are always stuck in my head.

So there you are. I am one of the true 'jack of all trades master of none.' I bounce from thing to thing but the one thing I've always loved is writing. I have plenty of college credits, but have yet to finish since I have been the breadwinner in the family for years. Someday I'll get to finish.

And yes, you must watch out for Survivor. His nickname is "The Point-of-View Nazi." Scared yet?

I am also a graduate of the 1998 Odyssey Fantasy Writer's Workshop, a six week class taught by former editor Jeanne Cavelos. The writer in residence was Harlan Ellison, who came in for a week and ground our egos down to nubs. I still flinch when I think about him. The best thing about the Odyssey workshop was getting to meet a wide variety of professionals, from other writers to book and magazine editors who could give us insights into all aspects of publishing. Still, even this was discouraging in a way, since almost every single editor had the same market report: There are too many writers and too few readers. Still, I have struggled on, despite this knowledge that the odds of making a living writing fiction are longer now than they once were.

During Boot Camp, OSC talked about a new SF publisher called Phobos, and let us know they were running a contest to look for new talent. OSC felt this was a good opportunity for new writers, and he was certainly right in my case. I submitted three stories to the contest and one of them later went on to become the title story of the first Phobos anthology, "Empire of Dreams and Miracles," edited by OSC. This was followed by Phobos deciding to make my novel submission "Nobody Gets the Girl" the first novel they will publish. It comes out this October and I won't have any fingernails growing between now and then.

Phobos is also holding onto another short story of mine, "Absolutely Brilliant in Chrome," with plans to make it the title story of a non-contest anthology, although I've gotten no money for it and have no clue what time scale they are working on for this project.

I'm presently working on a novel set in the early days of the futuristic Atlantis that is the setting for "Empire of Dreams and Miracles." I'm having a real struggle in completing it, though, due to the triple-threat of woes coming at me from all sides as my employer downsizes, my house sits on the market unsold with I pay both rent and a mortgage, and my girlfriend battles with cancer. Not that I'm whining or anything. Every adversity in my life has later found some outlet in fiction. In a wierd, twisted way, writing is like morphine. It feels good to write about painful stuff, to sit back and realize that you've just put something honest on the page. Eventually, when tradgedy strikes, you sit back and grin and think, "As soon as I get out of this full body cast, this is going into my next book!"

So, anyhoo, that's who I am and what I'm doing lurking around on these boards.

Thanks,
James Maxey
www.nobodygetsthegirl.com

My contact info is
AIM masterful12
MSN krosch@hotmail.com
ICQ 15138144
e-mail kros0034@d.umn.edu

Now lets see, Just who the hell AM I. Well, I suppose I am 25, though at times I feel signifigantly older and/or younger. I AM married, with my first child on the way. I love to write. Though I took to actually putting my stories to paper rather late in life. In my younger days, much to my mother's dismay, I used to stay up all hours of the night making up stories with my brother.

quote:

---

I find the idea of a short story surprisingly difficult to tackle and do not see many of them in my future.

---

I suppose it is too late to edit that one . I meant to say that I started writing relatively late compared to many of the writers here, or even more to the point, relatively later than when I started creating stories to begin with. I did not mean to say that 25 is late in life.

As for the topic of short-fiction. I think part of my difficulty arises from the fact, that I simply dont enjoy short-fiction in general. I have liked very few of the shorts I have read. I prefer the more long-winded format the novel provides, both as a writer and a reader. So I would not exactly characterize myself as a "failed short-story writer," atleast not till I attempt doing so. Which after my next projects is top on my list.

Slade Villena, age 23,
been writing since age 11, poetry to scifi short stories, although I've never taken it seriously 'til I hit college. currently working on a novel, military/mercenary scifi.

I've been in a constant state of obsession with cypherpunk culture, rifle marksmanship, science fiction, computer programming and japanese anime movies. It's a safe state of obsessiveness since it's on the introvertive level. Obsessed, 'cuz I think it,and live it.

attended a myriad of community colleges since I can't afford the university,
attended UnivofCal, Santa Cruz with the help of loan and some money that I begged from my parents, extended family, etc.,
quit after a quarter,
Sep11 happened.

enlisted in the Marine Corps, December2001,
just flowed with the political inertia of this time, lotta kids I know did the same thing. The world grew more dangerous, so I had to grow more dangerous....

currently in a combat arms unit,
artillery.
pull-string-cannon-go-boom.
easy job. pays good.

upset about not getting deployed to iraq, scared that I might get deployed
into a nuke war with N.Korea.

can't wait to get out,
with a GI Bill, and tons of money
that I can use for studying.

Someday, when I get back to the academe,
I'll have this encounter :

I came to Germany for a semester abroad, and that was seventeen years ago. In the meantime, it's become home. My German is good, but I prefer to read books in original English. Most of everything I own is either science fiction or mystery. I like Anne Perry, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Lois McMaster Bujold, Amy Tan, and many others.

I'm nineteen now and working at a summer job. I work four days a weeks(12 hours each time) dumping ingredients for ice cream into bins. Ice cream is so over rated...

I love reading -- I'm sure everyone here does as well. My favorite genre is science fiction, though. I'm currently, besides working at the ice cream factory, reading OSC's Ender series. I'm reading Shadow Puppets right now and will probably finish it within the next few days.

I won't be with this forum long. I'm leaving on July 23rd to serve a mission in the Latter Day Saint Church. I'll hopefully learn a lot about writing within the next few weeks before I leave.

I suppose something about hobbies would be good to list here . I love writing and reading, of course. But I also love weight training. It makes me feel like I'm not wasting my body away. I'm a health nut in some respects but I try not to be too fanatical about it. I love to laugh and miss it very much. The only amusement I get nowadays is from books and when something terribly wrong happens at the ice cream plant.

I come from a family of ten kids. I just completed a year at Brigham Young University where I was seriously thinking about getting a BA in English and then a Ph.D. so that I could teach it at a university. I'm questioning that right now, but I'm not worried too much about it, though. I have a little bit of time to iron things out and set up plans.

I'm Jules, and I'm from Coventry, UK. I was born on June 22 1976, right at the start of one of the hottest spells the UK has had in living memory. My mother blames me for having been stuck in an air conditioned hospital throughout it.

I read and write primarily science fiction, but do work in fantasy as well, although not as much: I like to keep my work as closely grounded to the possible as I can.

I read a lot of SF, mainly older works at the moment, although I have recently finished reading (most of) the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.

I found this site a few weeks ago because at the time I had just finished reading Speaker for the Dead, and my copy has an introduction in it in which OSC talks about how he developed the character of Ender between the original story and the novel - I was intrigued to find out what he meant by some of the things he said, so I sought out a copy of the story, which I did, of course, find on hatrack.com. And while I was there, I also found here.

Other than writing, I am an IT consultant by day and spend a lot of time performing various tasks from managing web sites to writing Windows software. I'm single, have no kids, don't smoke, but drink more than I ought to. I'm agnostic, but accept the possibility of a superior being, although I don't believe it is likely to be any of those described by religions I have heard about. I do consider religion important though, and find it a powerful theme for my stories.

I've written a few things, both of philosophy and fiction, and some have even been published, but never in anything prestigious.

As far as fiction goes, I only have one story that I care about, and I've been writing it for ten years. Or is it twenty years? Regardless, the work is in its third major version now, and this looks to be the final one. The characters have carried me 34k words into it, and the plot for it and the four novels that succeed it have finally settled down and ceased squirming beneath my implements.

My favorite authors are OSC, C.S. Lewis, George R.R. Martin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, G.W.F. Hegel (I'll aufgehoben you, buddy), St. John, Plato, G.K. Chesterton, St. Augustine, Homer, Connie Wills, Alvin Plantinga, and my uber-nemesis, Nietzsche, who writes like a dream but reads like a nightmare. And one more - I enjoy reading John Calvin. TULIP forever, you Arminian heratics (and assorted others possessing dubious doctrines)!

Oh, don't panic. I bear heratics no ill-will - I just throw them into Lake Michigan.

[Oh don't let me hear about all the evils, moral or intellectual, of Calvinism, whatever you imagine them to be. Maybe study it first, you know-]

[Yes, yes, some people dislike Calvinism even though they have studied it. But at least we can discuss the issue in that case.]

Now, did I mention Dostoevsky? I need to mention him at least twice. My heart trembles and my knees buckle at the thought of reading The Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment again, although not in love - rather in sheer terror of the works! But yet, I'm so powerfully drawn - irresistably, as it were -

I enjoy writing about evil and selfish characters who stumble and struggle and eventually gain redemption, and some who don't but instead murder the ones that do.

[This message has been edited by Alexander (edited July 01, 2003).]