I'm a Christian author from Kentucky (they do exist). I started my "career" in writing in 8th grade when I started jotting down the most stupidest mysteries ever conceived. In fact, they were so dumb I gave them away to a friend who has hopefully lost them by now. After 8th grade I thought the whole writing thing was just a phase (though I should note I was also writing poetry and songs,which I was praying was not a phase!). But then midway through my first semester as a freshman in a small Christian school in Kentucky (they also exist) I returned to the familiar ground of writing goofball mysteries involving real people. But this time I realized something thanks to their popularity. I thought, "you know, if someone with the IQ of an alarm clock could read and understand this, maybe I could get these published someday!" So the first thing I did when I got home that day was "test run" a story on my alarm clock. It was speechless.
Overjoyed, I continued writing The School-Time Mysteries (creative, right?). Each school year I pushed myself more and the quality improved. My sophomore year I began my first real novel, The Stalking Shadow, based on the series. I finished it a year later and kept plugging away at the short stories. By the time of my high school graduation, I was wrapping up the humorous mystery series and trying to branch out and put some other ideas under my belt. By "other ideas" I mean "one story" but it was a start. Over the last years of high school I was starting to gain a hunk of story concepts that will keep me quite busy for the next few years.
Within the second month of my first college semester at a Christian college in Kentucky (it does exist), I broke away from mysteries and turned to fantasy. Less than a year later, I finished Plethora, a cross between The Princess Bride and The Hobbit. Living up to its name, it features a young couple whisked away into a whimsical fantasy world where they encounter a variety of cultures and must save a King at war. It's part satirical, part action, part romance, part mystery (I couldn't resist), part religious, part etc.
Now my next task is to somehow get that story published! And I reckon that that'll be quite a challenge, but God will provide and until then I will wait patiently.
So that's my sweet "writing bio"..now to some influences. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his great detective Sherlock Holmes were my earliest inspirations (as evidenced by the mysteries). But along the way C.S. Lewis, William Goldman, H.G. Wells, Louis L'Amour, J.R.R. Tolkien and even Dave Barry have joined these hallowed ranks.