Hi, My Name Is Mike

I’m told this week is for introductions, and my day to post is Monday, so here goes:

Hi, my name is Mike. I’ve been a writer for 32 years. Wow, that sounds like I’m at an AA meeting, doesn’t it? I suppose it’s appropriate—writing is a tricky addiction.  It gets into your veins and even when you don’t want to do it, when every word makes you shake and sweat and want to rocket out of your chair to scrub the bathroom floor—which doesn’t need it—you keep going because you need that high of the perfect sentence, the beautiful paragraph, the well-crafted chapter close. Or maybe that’s just me.

Here’s the weird thing about writing an introduction for myself: it’s unnatural. If I wanted to write about myself, I would have written a memoir, not a novel. I’d rather hide behind the cloak of fiction, to embed pieces of myself in my characters—in Alex, Darla, and even Target—but not to take responsibility for denuding myself to an audience of thousands.

I even resisted writing the flap copy for the back of my debut novel, ASHFALL. When I finally forced myself to task, I evaded responsibility by writing the silliest bio I could. My publicist insisted that we needed a more serious biography, so I tried again. That still didn’t satisfy her, so I wrote this staid version. Luckily, I was able to convince my publisher to use the silly bio on the book.

So that’s me. My name is Mike. I don’t like writing about myself. And I wrote a novel called ASHFALL. It’s out now. Buy a copy so I can keep writing, would ya? Because I need another fix.

p.s. If you want to know more, ask in the comments. Or let me know what you’d like me to write about on this blog. I’d appreciate the help. Because I have no clue how I’m going to come up with 35 more posts this year.