I'm Back!

I had not really expected to take such a long hiatus, but such things happen. I have been going through another extended period of depression, and while I cannot say that it is ended, I have decided to actually do something about it, rather than simply waiting for it to end.

And, what I have decided to do it write.

It is my intention to finally try to act like a writer and see if anything comes of that.

Around the age of 22 or 23 I decided that it would be fun to write science fiction stories. I was still in college (for the second time) then and I never did really devote the necessary time to my goal. Yes, I did write a couple of stories, and I did send them off to Asimov's SF Magazine. I am rather proud of my short stack of rejection notices. I consider it proof that I did more than dream about it.

After three years (well almost) at Utah State, I moved to Texas. It was supposed to be a temporary move, but after nearly 28 years, I am still here. I continued to write, a bit haphazardly at best, but I did write, and I collected more rejection notices.

For long periods I did not write very much, but I did keep a journal, and I began writing essays in notebooks. I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and this gave me another outlet for my writing. I wrote articles and book reviews for our local newsletter. Once again, my natural lack of drive hindered me. I had several articles planned that were never written.

I went to work for Dell, and after a year answering the phones, I got a job answering technical support by email. This played very much into my abilities, as I have always been very good with being able to express myself clearing in the written word. While working at Dell, I learned the importance of voice. I learned how to aim what I wrote at my projected audience. Many tech support documents at Dell were written for technicians, and I found I had a knack for turning those into documents written for the general public. I went on from email to working on the Dell Forum. Here I learned how to word bad news so that it did not cause an explosion on the forum.

The final stage of my development as a writer (so far at least) came when I began to play Neverwinter Nights (NWN) on a Persistent World (PW). I began writing stories about my characters, and then moved on to actually writing the lore, the background myths and legends of the world. I wrote prayers and stories for the first PW that I played on, and then after moving on to a second PW, I was given the position of lead writer. I wrote lore, and more stories, and I edited what others wrote. I finally moved on to a third PW, where I was given the job of lead writer almost from the start. I continued to write stories for the PW and lore, but by now I had almost given up writing anything that was not related to the PW.

I still have that job, and I intend to keep writing lore and possibly even a story or two, but now I want to move forward with my own writing again, and this is the start of that. I have not said anything to anyone. I have not made promises to myself, or declarations about things changing now. I have done that far too often in the past and I had to repeat my mistakes. I do not know if my determination will hold, but I intend to try.

I think that my history has made me a pretty good writer, and now I want to see if I can push it even further.

And it starts here.