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For the most part, I lead the stereotypical suburban
life. I live a few miles from the town I grew up,
teach English at a local high school, coach girls basketball in
the winter, and spend as much time as possible with my wife and
son. Pretty Norman Rockwell, huh?
My Writing:
I've been a
reader all of my life thanks to an older brother who was never
without a book. However, it wasn't until I took a
class given by the Ohio Writing Project at Miami University in order to
keep my teaching certificate up-to-date that writing took over all of
my free time.
That class was mostly personal narrative writing, but the next year I wrote
my first short story "Milton's Whispered Bullet". It was a horror story for
no other reason than that's what came to mind. Knowing nothing about markets
or publishing, I tossed it aside and ignored it. Then one day a
few months later, I found the latest edition of
Tom Monteleone's Borderlands Anthology. I snooped around online and learned of
Monteleone's Writers' Bootcamp. On a lark, I sent in "Milton" and was surprised
to be accepted for the August '06 workshop.
For the critique, I wrote a story entitled
"Night Removal". The pros teaching the class (Monteleone, Douglas
Clegg, Tom Tessier, and F. Paul Wilson) all were very positive about
the story, and it has gave me the motivation to write
seriously.
Nowadays, I try to write a couple of hours a
night. The process is painfully slow for me, and some nights I
only eek out 200 words, while sometimes I tap into
the right vein and I get pages finished. I just
depends.
My Writing Group:
I am part of a writing group (the BL Krew - Sam
Anderson, John Mantooth, Petra Miller, and Erik Williams - all great writers from the Borderlands camp) where we submit and critique
each other's stories each month, raise a glass when someone
sells something, and bust each other's
chops for getting lazy. Without their help, I wouldn't be
where I am. Which is Hell.
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