"Okay, so who's the nut case behind this weirdo sci-fi stuff?"
To begin with, I've always been an avid reader. I can't ever remember NOT being able to read. As a kid, I was always reading stories, science books, history, and other things. Living in Virginia certainly meant there was no shortage of history to look at as well as read about. Growing up in the 80's meant there was usually something interesting in the news (Iran Hostage Crisis, Cold War and USSR, etc.). One might say with all the history, news, and sci-fi I was either reading or watching on TV, I was trying to get a sense of where we were, where we are, and where we might be headed.
As a kid, was always writing stories just for the fun of it. It was in junior high and high school that I had the idea of doing a story with the possibility of getting it published someday, and began work some novel-sized stories . In community college, I did the first story that I tried to publish: A Double Life . After getting rejected a few times, I decided to take a breather and move on. Although I did slow down, I never did loose interest in writing, and continued to write on one thing or another.
Although a long-time AOL user and net cruiser, I didn't make a website right away because I thought it was complicated, and didn't want a "vanity page." Then I got the idea of posting a few of my stories online, and made an effort to make one. It turned out that I found "doing it raw" with html code was easier than those "EZ pagemakers," and once I found a free webserver and a File Transfer Protocol program that worked, I uploaded a single page with single paragraph promising stories soon, with the title "A Writer's Block" ...
And as they say, the rest is history.
That my stories have found an audience has encouraged me to write more, though I do get quite a bit of writers block at times (hence the site's title). Lately, I've also tried my hand at artistry, doing pictures for the site, and some for a few friends. I have given some thought to an online cartoon strip, but my art's not quite good enough for what I had in mind, and I don't think I could keep a regular schedule. So in the meantime there's my artwork and a few "experiments."
Believe it or not, I don't work with computers (except for clocking in hours), nor do I work in an office. My job is at the prep shop of an industrial plant. Being 6 feet tall helps with lifting those parts weighing over 100 lbs. Not the most exciting stuff, but it pays the bills. This isn't what I studied for in community college, but when I hear those stories about 4-year graduates whom after all that money wind up in a burger joint, and lately dot-com people too proud to go back to old employers ... oh well.
Besides writing and reading, I still go to historical parks and events, such as war reenactments (got a great tape of the D-Day one at Fort Story), and lately the occasional sci-fi con that pops into town. A girl I met at church introduced me to roleplaying games, and I continued to meet with them for gamming for some time. The group has done a number of GURPS campaigns, some "Amber" (based on the novels by Rodger Zelany) and some "Star Wars." I have done some online gaming, notably the USS Freedom Trek sim which I stumbled across a few years ago, and with new freinds and old I continue to enjoy the adventures of the "Wackiest ship in Starfleet."
With fewer and fewer interesting things on network TV ("lowest common denominator" shows seldom appeal to me), have been spending a little more time on the 'net. Have met a number of interesting folk online, some whom have put some things of their own online. The "Gold Rush" of the Internet may be over, but one can still use it to make something of one's talents and leave something behind that can brighten the day of somebody in the world for at least a few minutes.