I was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs. I started writing “seriously” when I was in junior high school. I wrote my first “Stephen King” story when I was 13. I don’t know if Stephen King himself was able to write his first story when he was younger than this. In any case, even if he did, he had the advantage of actually being Stephen King.
I got a degree in English with a minor in Rhetoric and History from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I worked several years in radio and television and print. I enjoyed radio, but developed an addiction to food and shelter that my radio salary just couldn’t cover. I returned to Chicagoland and worked a number of jobs which – while not satisfying from a spiritual or financial standpoint – did provide me with enough raw material to write many, many blog entries.
I am now a software consultant for a local business in Loves Park. I am married and have one twelve year old son.
I mostly write words, but I have occasionally made the foray into music. I was a news director at a small radio station for several years. I also directed and produced a number of short videos. My last stint as a journalist was covering high school sports in Belvidere and the rest of the NIC-10 for a local newspaper.
I set up a website in 1996 and wrote a number of short pieces for it until I got burned out writing everything in HTML code. A dozen years later, I found out I could write things in plain English on a new type of website called a “blog”. I recreated “The Bob Files”. Since 2008, I’ve written about 500 short pieces on sports, history, comedy, religion, work, family and fatherhood. I still add new content whenever something inspires 500 words out of me.
I discovered National Novel Writing Month in 2008. Unfortunately I discovered it about 25 days into the month. I promised myself I would give it a try the following year. In 2009, I wrote my first NaNoWriMo novel. I have since “won” in November 2010 and 2011 as well. Unfortunately, there is no National Edit Your Crappy First Draft Month… yet.
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