First off, this blog used to be called "Tidings from Shraka," which name I like but didn't serve the purpose.  if you want to know who, what, or where Shraka is, you'll ll just have to read the book.

I don't recall precisely when I first picked up a pencil with the intent of recording for posterity my psychological state in fiction form.  It was at least by fourth grade because I remember earnestly denying that I had plagiarized a movie on TV.  At twelve, I remember doing both writing and organic chemistry.  The latter is ill-advised for 12-year-olds, especially if they plan to make chlorine gas in the kitchen.

But the real boon came when I was 15 and got a typewriter for my birthday.  In retrospect, it was a cheap piece of junk, but at the time it might as well have been made of rhodium.  I took immaculate care of it, and thereupon learned to type.  What I typed was what I had handwritten before: whatever came to mind.  There were several short stories, now gone, looking at them from and older and more analytical viewpoint probably not a great loss to the world of literature.  This was also about the time I discovered Harper Lee, E. E. Smith, Charles Dickens, Hal Clement, and, of course, J. R. R. Tolkein.

Writers will understand.  Writers of speculative fiction will understand even more.  Watching a good movie is fine.  Cuddling with a good book is even better.  But nothing exceeds the thrill of immersing oneself in a wondrous world of one's own creation -- making distant worlds solid, bringing characters to life, tying the loose ends of a plot together.  It is like a symphony, and always a more intriguing reality that the one we face day to day.

Since then, I've spent many years in engineering: electronics, software, even some mechanical.  I've dabbled in physics and mathematics because no one else knew how to do it or had the interest to try.  In the end, pushing 50 years later, and I am still writing and doing chemistry.  Only now the chemistry is physical instead of organic and I'm doing it at the University of Pittsburgh instead of in the kitchen.

The writing remains pretty much the same.  Science fiction (usually hard) and fantasy, with brief excursions into other genres.

Over the years, I've accumulated a few works gathering dust.  That is because -- and writers will understand this, too -- the objective was to write, not necessarily to publish.  But I suppose there comes a time in everyone's life when they want to share their work just to share it.  It is for that purpose that I have made this blog.