Link with In Ear
I wrote They Who Cry Out Seek to be Heard.
I befriended Mark on the vast web of interconnections that is the interweb. He was kind enough to think of me as being a good candidate to work with, and for my part, I instantly recognised the quality of In Ear Entertainment’s vision and their execution.
I could think of no better collaborator for my first audio project – particularly since Mark was paying to produce the thing. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by working with such a driven visionary, and the work In Ear Entertainment had already released was of the highest caliber.
I’m thrilled with the results, which just goes to show – if a genius entrepreneur ever offers to make you look good out of the blue on their own dime, say ‘Yes!’
Background
I’m a 29 year old writer who has been working away on writing when on the bus I take to and from my day job for about three and a half years. I’ve written unpublishable, unreleased novel after unpublishable, unreleased novel, and about eight months ago I finally believed I had reached the standard to start releasing my work.
I have fourteen published short stories in various publications and several more on my website. I’ve loved books all my life, and indeed was so intimidated by my favourites growing up I never considered how writing fiction was something done by humans and not by the mystic winds of fate until I got older. I respect writers more than ever since my realisation that they were, indeed, flesh and blood beings like anybody else. My influences include Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Joe Hill, Kurt Vonnegut, Lee Child, and Agatha Christie – though I read a lot of non-fiction too.
I live in Minnesota with my wife, two cats, and in a few months my first son will join the household.
Other things to know about me include: Depeche Mode are my favourite band, along with the Beatles. I think understanding the theory of evolution is important and I wish they would have taught it better in school, and I would recommend you at least try to understand it because it makes a huge difference in the way you look at the world. I love gadgets and computers and it is a secret dream of mine to have one of the most powerful privately-owned supercomputers in the world because I think you could achieve a lot of good for the world running BOINC or a similar distributed-processing science application that way.
I love good television too, which is hardly surprising when you consider that TV is excellent writing plus amazing performances, great music, mind-altering cinematography, and more. Some favourite shows of mine are A Bit of Fry & Laurie, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Mad Men, House MD, Saturday Night Live, M*A*S*H, and 30 Rock.
I write horror, weirdo-crime, science fiction, and the occasional ‘regular’ story, and I love reading all of the above and more. Reading is the most fun you could have, so have at it.
Why I Write
I started reading much more than ever about four years ago, so much so that I sought out – for the first time – writer’s thoughts on their writing process. When I did, I discovered something remarkable: these people weren’t touched by the hand of the cosmos or some kind of freaks from another dimension. They were passionate lovers of books and reading who worked on a learnable skill as hard as they could until they could achieve remarkable results. I had been in a creative limbo at the time.
From middle school through high school, I was convinced that I was going to be a famous songwriter/musician. I had written over a hundred songs, self-recorded several albums, and spent all my time diddling around on guitars and synthesisers. While I had a lot of fun, I eventually stopped feeling fulfilled, like I wasn’t doing the right thing. I spent a couple years not doing anything all that creative myself, just enjoying things others had made.
When I finally realised I wanted to write, it all clicked. I had even written like three books before I ever thought I wanted to be a writer. They were all awful, but it just goes to show how much it was in me, waiting to be developed and come out. I started really writing with all my heart on December 3rd, 2009, and since then I’ve just focused on it more and more. Unlike the endless music-ing, I already have results to show for my writing efforts. I’d have to say I’ve found my calling. I’m more than happy at my day job, but I’ve proven I can write seven or eight books in less than four years while working full time, so as a hobby it is both exceedingly inexpensive (I just need to spend time on it, I have all the tools I need) and infinitely rewarding.
What They Who Cry Out Seek to be Heard says about me
These are all stories I initially wrote just to put up on my website. I did this during a time when I felt myself developing as a writer and wanted to share my works with a broader audience instead of keeping them on my hard drive.
I think what it says about me is that I clearly am not entirely ‘normal,’ I love saying ‘What the hell?’ in my stories, and that while I thought these stories were predominately scary while writing them, they have a strong vein of humour or at least ‘off-kilterness’ to them. They show, I think, the range of my fiction interests: from straight horror, to sci-fi tinged tales, dark crime stories, and sort of Twilight Zone themed parable-stories. I sincerely think that people will get a decent idea of what kind of person I am from enjoying this collection.