A little bit about me... PDF Print E-mail
Written by J.M. Offringa   
Sunday, 31 January 2010 00:03

Hi! If you’re looking at my website, you obviously have an interest in either me or my writing, so I’ll take this opportunity to tell you a little more about myself…

I first became interested in science fiction back as a little kid, through the Star Wars and Star Trek movies my older brother got me hooked on. Then, all through high school, I was a huge fan of both universes, and watched all the various Trek spin-offs and Star Wars movies many, many times. Yet, before I graduated from high school, I had never read anything of what is called “fantasy,” only science fiction.

During my freshmen year of college, something remarkable happened: A friend of mine introduced me to what have become two life-long passions of mine: fantasy novels and role-playing. He was going to start a new D&D campaign, and asked me if I’d like to play. He left me his PHB, and after taking one look that night, I was hooked for life.

My first character was a ranger named Tarn Nohmahl; (now you know where the name come from!), and that campaign went on for the whole spring and summer of my freshman year of college. During that time, he also introduced me to fantasy fiction: the works of Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman, first of all. I moved on to other authors after that; Terry Goodkind, Raymond Feist, Robert Jordan, and others. I ate them all up.

All this time, I was gaming – both RPG’s and war games, joining the gaming club at the college I attended, and so my second hobby was born. I still game to this day, both running an RPG campaign and playing in one, and still play war games as well - Battletech being my current game of choice. In fact, it was this love of war gaming that introduced me to the fiction of David Weber, and from that, I wrote my first stories – a mini-novel based on a science-fiction war game campaign I played during my senior year of college.

Eventually, I realized that while that there was a story there, it wasn’t mine – it was just another version of Weber’s writing, and so I filed it away, thinking that I might come back to it someday, but I never did. That story is still half done, and someday may appear on this site.

For several years I kicked around ideas for writing, but never got around to it until several years later. I tried to run an RPG campaign with what I thought was a killer plot. Real life intervened, and it never got past the first few sessions as people, work and real - life commitments got in the way.

But I knew I had a great story in that plot line. In fact, I realized that the story was far more than an RPG plot. It was a story that had to be told.

So I tweaked that plot line, and the characters of Nyla, Tarn, Logan and Alec were born. As I started to write them, they grew. They continue to grow; in some ways, they are almost like missing family members. In fact, I find as I write their story, that they grew on me with every moment.

So now, join with me in telling their tale. Do I know where it ends? You’ll just have to wait and see…..

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