I'm creating this to share some information about myself, but it's not a regular biography, because I have no idea what would go in a "regular" biography, or why people would care.
I learned to read about the age of four, and loved books and stories about animals until the time I was 10 or 11. I read fairy tales about talking animals, fables, stories about people transforming into wolves or tigers, non-fiction encyclopedias and books about animals. I was sure that I was going to become a vet. I did like stories of fantasy and magic, especially the Chronicles of Narnia, but for me such stories weren't really interesting unless they had talking animals in them. Human characters bored me. All the stories and poems I wrote then revolved around animals.
Eventually, my relatives ran out of books to buy me that could gratify me obsession. Somewhat in desperation, I think, my father brought home The Lord of the Rings.
And that was when I found out that my obsession wasn't really with animals. My obsession is, and always has been, with the non-human.
Tolkien's Elves got to me. One of the distressing things about writing animals is that, unless you anthropomorphize them, you have problems such as not having hands, not being able to speak aloud, and so on. But here are characters who do have hands, who are human-like in form, who speak different languages- very important, I'll get to that in a moment- and yet who aren't human.
I was enthralled. I was gone.
I discovered friends in school the next year who were aware of the existence of the fantasy genre, which I wasn't, and introduced me to DragonLance and Forgotten Realms. After devouring almost everything there- luckily at this point I had an allowance from my parents, or I would have bankrupted them- I branched out to other fantasy authors. At the time my idol was R. A. Salvatore, who was the only author I knew of, other than Tolkien in The Silmarillion, to write a story set entirely among non-humans (Homeland, the first book of the Dark Elf Trilogy). I wanted to create a world like that.
I made one, though at first I was still trying to write about humans, and so I crashed and burned. The Elwens were the first success I had, and the first races I started making a language for that actually worked. After that, I thought it quite likely I would continue writing pretty much straightforward save-the-world stories, and was perfectly happy with that.
Then, in the space of one month, I stumbled on four of my favorite fantasy authors: Guy Gavriel Kay, George R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb, and Steven Brust.
Here was complex, bright fantasy with lots of political intrigue. Here was fantasy actually told in first person. Here was sarcastic, parodic fantasy where the author used humans not as the default, but as outsiders in a world of much more powerful non-humans.
I learned that it was okay to have political conspiracies, to write less than seriously, to kill my characters off if the plot demanded it. And it was okay to work on the medieval model, which Kay, Martin, and Hobb did spectacularly well, or toss it out the window and never miss it, which Brust did. I still didn't shift from writing high fantasy, but it marvelously expanded my range.
When I went to graduate school, my writing output slowed down quite a bit. I managed only four novels in six months, which for me is very slow. Then I stopped altogether, had a single bright spot in the summer of 2002 that produced two more, and stopped altogether for another four months, though I was still working on short stories and poetry.
And then I started writing parodic fantasy, with Royalty of Wind, and Fire, and Clay. I have not the slightest idea why. The story began life as just a plot about a prince who did all the work and got none of the credit, which formed mostly unacknowledged bedrock in the final version. The idea of parody crept in gradually. I'd written exactly two parodic poems by that point, and no parodic short stories or novels.
The answer's probably to be found in my reading, again. I'd gotten occupied with, and then immersed in, the poetry of Algernon Charles Swinburne, who was a very skilled parodist of contemporary poets, including Tennyson, and not least of himself. I loved his mocking poems, and wanted to try some of my own.
Perhaps that explains the poems and not the novels, though.
I don't really know.
I don't really care.
I can count the numbers, though. At least thirteen years from the day that my father brought home The Lord of the Rings, I'm still devoted to fantasy and the non-human, with later passions like politics and parody taking second place. I can't say that I really foresee my tastes changing. And I can't say that I foresee my writing stopping now. It may fall fallow again, as it did, but it won't ever stop.
Nor will my reading, which, along with my writing, is the center of my true life.
