About me (Patreon)

So. Massive post incoming. Sorry in advance.

People ask questions about my books often.

Every now and then, people ask about me, but seem far more hesitant about it. They ask permission first, which is odd.

It's taken me a while to figure out it's simply because I don't talk about me very much.

Like, at all.

I think this'll be the single post I do about it. As me is a subject I really don't like.

Now we're going to do a massive post about me, because why not. It only took almost 3 years to get here and talk about it.

I was born in the 80's and with a cleft lip and palette. I was also missing 13 permanent teeth (no buds).

I had over 12 reconstructive surgeries before I was five. My childhood was fairly happy, as I didn't know I was any different than the rest. 

Just that I had to "go to sleep" on occasion, and wake up in pain.

Then I discovered the joys of other children. They immediately reconciled my view with the world, and that I was very different. That my missing teeth, and that I still had baby teeth, were abnormal in the extreme.

School was a joy. o_0

I spent the vast majority of it hiding, ignoring everyone, or generally just turning myself into an outcast.

Much of my childhood was spent in the lower middle-class in a part of California that was predominately upper-middle class. We made do with what we had, but we were by no means well off.

My parents had to of course pay for all the work done on my face and mouth, so that didn't help in any way.

They did all they could to give me what they had, and provide what stability I could get.

My family was perhaps the only bright spot in my world growing up.

Flash forward to 17 years old.

I've had over 30 reconstructive surgeries or some odd by this point, 6 years of braces, 5 dental surgeries, and 8 or so dental implants. I had a modicum of confidence because after so much work, I looked fairly normal. Though after a bit, most people would tend to ask, "You look different. Why?"

School was as boring as it ever was, and I ditched two years of high school entirely. I graduated by simply testing out early. I wanted nothing to do with it anymore.

I hauled ass off to college early. Did two years, and realized I was just as bored there as I was in all my previous schooling. Barely trying and getting a 3.9 average.

Dropped out without a degree, got a job, and started in on a career.

I started as a phone agent in a call center. I was like... 20 I think.

Slowly I got involved in data and analytics. Which eventually became "Workforce Management", and figuring out how to get the best service levels with the least amount of employees.

Move ahead to 32 years old or so.

Workforce manager at a fortune 50 company for multiple call centers, with a team of analysts under me.

Wife is pregnant, I'm bored, and I spend most of my day waiting for things to happen.

A friend of mine writes a book, publishes it on Amazon. I think his MC is god awful, and he tells me to fly a kite up to the highest height, and write my own.

I decided he was right so... I decided to write a book.

Except I didn't know how. I didn't know my own process on writing, or how to figure it out.

That book was how I figured it out. But the book...

It was awful. It's what I call my "dead book" which is actually available in it's awful glory on patreon.

I buried that sucker, and tried again.

I named it "GameBook" because I had no idea what I wanted to do, other than I wanted to write a book where the plot didn't matter because of an overlooked detail.

Otherlife was born in that moment.

Fast forward to January of 2016.

I'm angry, annoyed, and fed up with editing the book.

In a flip the table type of rage, I just put the damn book on Amazon, hit launch, and went to bed.

I literally forgot I had done it for about ... 3 days. When I finally checked in on it, it was a best seller.

I honestly had done the whole thing as a way to pass the time. I never thought people would actually like my work.

Surprise, I guess.

More so because I didn't have a social media account. I had done no advertising/marketing. My keywords in Amazon were Junk (Authors will understand this point). I literally just kinda stumbled onto the stage and waved awkwardly at everyone.

"Uh... hi... yes, hello. I'm Will." kind of thing.

I wrote the next two Otherlife books, and paused.

I was honestly nervous that it was a fluke. That people wouldn't like anything else I wrote. Or that it was the genre.

That it was luck.

So, I made up a new pen name. Randi Darren. I went entirely in the opposite direction of Otherlife, and repeated everything over again with how I wrote the first book.

Though by this point I was writing better.

Wild Wastes was came to be.

From that moment on, most of you know the story as it is.

In all of this, all I can say is... why not?

Why not try writing a book. It's not like I had an advantage you don't.

I just decided to do it one day :D