My Obligatory Bio
Bios are hard.
If you tell the pure unvarnished truth, people assume that you are narcissist, or psychotic, or both. On the other hand, if you lie there will be a day in the future when some helpful net-elf from archive.org will dig up your bio and reddit will burst into flames asking whether or not you actually deserve to be considered human.
Since I am definitely human, always have been, and always will be, I am going to stick to the truth.
I started reading when I was four. When I was six, my family moved next door to a library, and my love for the written word took off like it was strapped to the side of a Saturn V booster. My claim to fame growing up: I finished reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in 12 hours; and yes, I could still remember who Gil-galad was at the end of it.
For fun, I tell stories. Occasionally, I write them down. Every November, I disappear into the depths of my house and serve up 50,000 words of incoherent plot for NaNoWriMo; and while the sighted world rejoices that most of those words have never seen the light of day; alas, some of it will probably appear on this site.
To keep the roof over my head, vinyls on my turntable, and espresso (a.k.a writing fuel) in my cup, I work as an engineering lab tech, which is like being an engineer except more fun and less money. On the plus side, most days they pay me to write.
I have also been known to dabble in woodworking, bookbinding, tabletop gaming, and other transient hobbies. I love to cook, and in my ongoing quest to avoid succumbing to the bachelor stereotype of ramen noodles and frozen pizza, I have become a regular patron of the local farmers' markets, butcher shops, and ethnic grocery stores. On very rare occasions, I try to keep entropy from consuming my 115-year-old house by starting and sometimes finishing remodeling projects.
Yeah, bios are hard.
Every word above reflects who I am… And yet, it is little more than a shadow of my personality and story. So, if you really want to find out who I am, you will have to read the fiction, the nonfiction, the recipes, and the nonsense, then draw your own picture.
― Joel Morell