My name is Corin.  I’m writing Giving Ground to entertain my friends.

I’ve been married 13 years and have two children we adopted from China.

I’m a dilettante who’s managed to muddle through.  I dropped out of college after my first semester because I wasn’t sure what I would do with an English Lit degree that was costing me so much money.  At the time, I was submitting work to literary journals and had a great writing group helping me improve my poetry.   I didn’t want to teach so I decided that I’d go back to college when I needed a degree for something.

So from 19-28, I worked odd jobs to pay rent.  I was an assistant manager at a theater.  I worked as a receptionist for the local paper.  Then, I took being a dilettante to a whole new level when I discovered temping and realized that I didn’t have to stay at any job for more than a week at a time.  That started getting old when I reached the point where I was picking up dry cleaning for executives after hours instead of calling it a day at 5pm.

I wrote a lot in my 20’s until I met my wife, Torrie.  Starving artist is romantic when you’re single, but I grew tired of Ramen noodles and I wanted to buy her nice things and take her places that required crossing an ocean.

When I was 26, Torrie helped me buy my first computer.  I immediately taught myself was how to turn it on.  A few months later, I learned HTML.  Learning Photoshop and design was much more difficult and took a few years.  I built various websites for my friend’s mother’s brother’s second niece’s friend.  I managed to build a decent enough portfolio that three years later, I wiggled my way into a well-respected design company in Denver.  It was my first full-time job in 5 years.

Around 2000, I began teaching myself programming starting with ColdFusion, ASP and then PHP because I got tired of making the logo bigger.  About 4 years ago, I taught myself C# and that’s what I do today to pay the bills.

Unfortunately, during that time, I put writing on the back burner.  This may sound pedestrian to the bohemians who stuck with their art, but I did it for the money.   More money doesn’t necessarily provide more options but it does provide you different options like adopting overseas.

As for the buying of things, meh.

My most prized possession is a signed copy of Queen of the Damned because I waited 4 hours in a Wal-Mart parking lot to see her.  Also, Anne Rice found religion again and doesn’t sign her vamp books anymore.  I wonder how she feels about  her Sleeping Beauty books.

I’m starting to write again because I can without having to worry about my mortgage.

This is where the blog comes in.