So, I'm John Abramowitz, like the thing at the side says.
This post is mostly to announce the imminent publication of my first novel, a science-fiction thriller called Weaver. I'm going the e-publishing route and it should appear on Amazon.com (and probably some other places) on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. (That's the 9th or 10th of August, folks.) But so as not to be boring (or blatantly opportunistic), I thought I'd include some fun facts about myself, too. That's what first entries are all about, right? Right.
Q: How tall are you really?
A: I am six feet, seven and 1/2 inches tall.
Q: Do you play basketball?
A: No, no I do not. However, if I had a nickel for every time someone asked if I did, I could give away my stories for free.
I do, however, have one hobby based on my height -- namely, using the heads of people about a foot shorter than me as arm rests. This includes my mother and my girlfriend (much to their displeasure).
Q: Why "On The Bird"?
A: It's a World of Warcraft reference, actually. I started playing the game about six years ago as a sort of sanity saver during law school (because lord knows every law student needs one!), and back before there were flying mounts, the only way to get anywhere was through gryphon flights. These flights insisted on taking you past every stop on the way from Point A to Point B, and so they could get extremely long, especially when you were flying from one end of a continent to another.
A person on such a flight was referred to as being "on the bird," and so I named my blog that in parody of my hatred of long World of Warcraft gryphon flights.
Q: What made you decide to write a book?
A: Partly, the fact that the economy sucks.
But I've also been a fantasy nerd for most of my life. I went through my Star Wars phase, then my Ender's Game phase, then I devoured all three of the Star Trek spinoffs (Enterprise does NOT count), and for the last few years I've been obsessively watching Joss Whedon shows over and over. (Binge Whedoning?)
After all of this passive observing of other people's storytelling, I decided to do some of my own by running roleplaying games -- especially World of Darkness and Big Eyes, Small Mouth. It took a while to get good, but I discovered that I was a halfway decent plotter. The epiphany came when, on several occasions, I would use plot points in my RPGs and then, shortly thereafter, they would appear in shows I watch! (The most notable example being Fringe, where this happened several times. Great show, by the way, I highly recommend it.)
So that was when I realized that maybe I was good enough at making fiction to play in the big leagues.
To sum up, it was some combination of experience, ego, and the economy.
Q: Any advice for our viewers at home?
A: Yes. Make the Bad Horse gleeful, or he'll make you his mare.
This post is mostly to announce the imminent publication of my first novel, a science-fiction thriller called Weaver. I'm going the e-publishing route and it should appear on Amazon.com (and probably some other places) on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. (That's the 9th or 10th of August, folks.) But so as not to be boring (or blatantly opportunistic), I thought I'd include some fun facts about myself, too. That's what first entries are all about, right? Right.
Q: How tall are you really?
A: I am six feet, seven and 1/2 inches tall.
Q: Do you play basketball?
A: No, no I do not. However, if I had a nickel for every time someone asked if I did, I could give away my stories for free.
I do, however, have one hobby based on my height -- namely, using the heads of people about a foot shorter than me as arm rests. This includes my mother and my girlfriend (much to their displeasure).
Q: Why "On The Bird"?
A: It's a World of Warcraft reference, actually. I started playing the game about six years ago as a sort of sanity saver during law school (because lord knows every law student needs one!), and back before there were flying mounts, the only way to get anywhere was through gryphon flights. These flights insisted on taking you past every stop on the way from Point A to Point B, and so they could get extremely long, especially when you were flying from one end of a continent to another.
A person on such a flight was referred to as being "on the bird," and so I named my blog that in parody of my hatred of long World of Warcraft gryphon flights.
Q: What made you decide to write a book?
A: Partly, the fact that the economy sucks.
But I've also been a fantasy nerd for most of my life. I went through my Star Wars phase, then my Ender's Game phase, then I devoured all three of the Star Trek spinoffs (Enterprise does NOT count), and for the last few years I've been obsessively watching Joss Whedon shows over and over. (Binge Whedoning?)
After all of this passive observing of other people's storytelling, I decided to do some of my own by running roleplaying games -- especially World of Darkness and Big Eyes, Small Mouth. It took a while to get good, but I discovered that I was a halfway decent plotter. The epiphany came when, on several occasions, I would use plot points in my RPGs and then, shortly thereafter, they would appear in shows I watch! (The most notable example being Fringe, where this happened several times. Great show, by the way, I highly recommend it.)
So that was when I realized that maybe I was good enough at making fiction to play in the big leagues.
To sum up, it was some combination of experience, ego, and the economy.
Q: Any advice for our viewers at home?
A: Yes. Make the Bad Horse gleeful, or he'll make you his mare.
You HAD to put in the Bad Horse reference. Bwahahaha! Nice. =)
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