My day job is middle school math teacher, and this past year to avoid losing my freaking mind in the last two weeks of school I found myself writing a romantic novella. Writing contemporary realistic fiction is something I'd never done. I don't even like reading contemporary realistic fiction. However, it was fun to do, and the people I passed it around to seemed to enjoy it. So, what the hell, I'll do it some more if for no better reason than to maintain my sanity. Some of my reading habits, influences, preferences: Dave Barry, Patrick McManus, Tolkien, Wodehouse, Pratchett, "Expanse" books, "Montalbano" series by Camilleri, Trollope, . I used to be all about the Harry Potter in my twenties, but one day I thought "Wow, this is dumb" and I was over it. I am a massive consumer of nonfiction in the subjects of history, culture, and religion, but I am more likely to be found listening to an audiobook or Teaching Company lecture than reading.
One more unsolicited fact about my psyche: My favorite characters in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie are the human villains in Gamera vs Guiron. Two waifs board a deserted spaceship and are unwittingly whisked away on autopilot to a doomed planet. The only inhabitants are two delightful young women who make friends with the children and promise to get the spaceship to take the four of them back to Earth. Secretly, though, the women know the ship can only carry two, and they plan to kill the children, then cook them and eat them on the voyage to Earth. The movie goes all in on these women. They are unironically treacherous, selfish, ruthless, remorseless, and utterly irredeemable, all for no better reason than to save their own skins. I love them.
Yes, welcome. I have a feeling you're going to fit right in here. All in on Barry, McManus and Pratchett. Not so much with the others.
