More About Me: My Story

Wow, 40 profile views since I last checked, for a grand total of 112 now.

Anyway, in case there's some of you out in the blogosphere who don't know me, I'm Alan. I'm 14 years old (I turn 15 in October) and I have two weeks of middle school left (my school usually doesn't start until September 7/8 and gives us an extra week off in February), and then I head off to high school after summer's over.

I was born a fraternal twin (my twin's also a boy), and continue to live with my parents, my two brothers, my older sister, and my dog. At one point or other, my parents started noticing my emotional outbursts and such stuff, and set out to find out what was wrong. My mom eventually found the doctor that saw me for several years and continues to. After the two appointments where he asked the usual questions and I got emotional when I had to answer some of his answers, he examined everything and made a diagnosis: I had a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism.

Luckily, it IS mild compared to other cases. I was very into books and researching different topics, had no learning disabilities, and I was usually referred to as "the smart one" or something similar throught out my years of school. Some kids with Asperger's can't speak correctly, or have learning problems, or just can't function well at all. But usually kids with Asperger's have one or two things they ARE really good at. For many of those kids, it's math. But for me, it was reading, which later evolved into writing, and seeking knowledge of subjects that interested me.

I've been writing since about age 10, and I started learning about writing and publishing at about age 12 or so. Fantasy is my favorite genre to read (dark or light, it doesn't matter to me), horror is second, and science fiction is third. I've had a few ideas for novels, but they never went very far, and I decided I should practice writing short stories first. After learning bout all the mistakes I could possibly make in writing, I had a long writers' block (I couldn't write for more than 20 minutes without thinking, "this is useless, this is crap, this idea is cliched or overused" and then giving up).

I continued my research, though, and before long a book called Atlanta Nights was announced on the Critters website (Critters is my online SF/F/H critique group, which gave me very useful tips and suggestions to help my writing). The Critters announcement, and later the Making Light post on Atlanta Nights, made me aware of a horrible place that I had never heard of before: PublishAmerica, a so-called "traditional publisher" in Frederick, Maryland.

After I read the online PDF version of Atlanta Nights for myself, saw what PublishAmerica said about writers in my genres at AuthorsMarket.net, and heard first-hand accounts of peoples' experiences with them, I immediately joined the war against them.

The Making Light post led me to Absolute Write, which I finally joined in May 2005. And it's been my online home ever since. Once the school year started, I had much less time to post so I could dedicate more time to homework (I'm a very slow worker, and it takes me forever to finish things that other people finish in 15 minutes).

Christmas 2005, I finally got Atlanta Nights as a present, and have reread over and over again for its hilarious sensational reading experiences.

In April 2006, the school year started unwinding a bit and I got back to posting regularly. and I found the Top 20 Worst (Literary) Agents list. I also learned about an "agent" by the name of Barbara Bauer who sends Cease & Desist letters to people who posted the List (like Paula Offutt, for instance). On the Top 20 Worst thread at AW, I wrote a post that repeatedly used the words "Barbara Bauer, Ph.D." and "Barbara Bauer Literary Agency" and "scam."

You all know what happened afterwards. I took refuge in the chatrooms and met people from AW I hadn't met before. After the 10 day withdrawal period was over, I posted 15 posts the first day it came back. The next day, it was 20, then 25, then 30, then 40, then 45 on the days that followed. Within a week or so after AW came back, my post count doubled, going from 89 to over 200.

And I'm back for good on AW, and got myself back on the campaign against PublishAmerica.

In the past few months, my doctor finally found the best combo of medicine that actually worked for me. I still had some outbursts (which can't be stopped completely), but I was more talkative and more likable at school, and so found more friends. Now, I can talk to everybody in my class with at least being able say an occasional friendly conversation. And many of my friends are girls (GO ME!!!), but I don't have a girlfriend, per se. I don't have those kind of feelings for anyone yet, but I still have plenty of time to find the right companion. I also don't want to start dating because at my school, bf-gf relationships last only a few weeks or a month at most, and leave the two people sour and make them not want to talk to each other ever again. I'd rather remain friends with that person, so I won't try to date unless I feel REAL love for them.

The most frequent comments I receive from AW members are that I write extremely well for my age, I'm much more mature than other 14-year-olds, that I'm wise beyond my years, and that I'm likely to be published before I turn 21. I attribute all my knowledge of writing and publishing to doing research on the subject as early in my writing career as I possibly could, or what I call "learning all the technical stuff first before you start practicing writing the wrong way." Since I started learning that stuff within 3 or 4 years after I started writing, it gradually boosted my writing quality.

I can honestly say that the story I'm working on is a lot better than anything I've written before. The story's based on certain characters (which I created) from 10 or so horrible chapters I've collected from myself and 3 other people so far. I loved one of the characters so much that I couldn't stand NOT to make a good version with him as well. The book is still in progress, and I welcome anybody who wants to help write one or more chapters. (HINT: it's for a certain publisher. E-mail me at computerguy91NOSPAM@comcast.net if you want more details. Remove NOSPAM if you want it to work. Say who you are in the subject line if you actually want me to see your message and not automatically delete it, thinking it is spam.) It really ended my writers' block, got my creative juices flowing again, and I actually have ides for GOOD stories!

So that's me, readers in the blogosphere. I plan on sticking around for many years to come. Oh yeah! I will, I tell you, I will.