Project: Writer Forum Getting to know you well

Inspired by a B-Side song by Feeder (one of my favourite bands), I thought I'd take a forum opportunity to ask everyone to divulge a little into their own minds for a second and reveal to others their writing pasts; their passions for writing; their reasons for writing; anything you feel is of relevance, especially any projects that fit in nicely.

I suppose I should start.

Hello. My full name is Russell Laurence Buxcey. I don't have any particular pen names, but I attribute myself under different web-user names, such as 'aka_rusty' or simply 'Russ'. They may change over time, they may not.
I was born in a small village called Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, in the tolerable country of the United Kingdom. Anyone who has heard of Stansted Airport may see a clear connection here and you are right to a point - stansted mountfitchet is only a village, the airport itself sits somewhere between Essex and neighbouring Hertforshire.

I started writing when I was probably about 12, 13, 14, something like that. I have always had greater writing ability, made up for the fact that as a child I was very withdrawn, shy and socially-inept. But I learnt over the years to break free of my enclosure and have managed to take my writing ability forward.

It seems that since then I have always wanted to be a writer. I tend to write from my own imagination, which seems to habituate itself within the sci-fi genre, although sometimes it spreads further to fantasy. The only thing I have ever had published was two magazine articles in my local newspaper that, funnily enough, concerned writing. I do not really count these as successes though, as I had a lot of help with this from my English teacher at the time. I thank him for his consistent support.

Originally I wrote sci-fi stories, but then it seemed about two or three years ago I started doing poetry, or novetry (novice poetry) as I call it. They spurned from my emotions, mainly from a break-up in progress that consisted of a lot of pain, anger and guilt. Poetry was a release for me. But soon I found other moments in life where my emotions would get the better of me and I would be back to the writing table. The result of my poetry is a collection I have finished, called 'Below Conscious, Above Mind'. It consists of 42 so-called poems that have grown towards my last collection that I am especially proud of, 'Break and Employ'. I feel there is a level of maturity that has grown across the two years of writing this collection. I would love it if someone would take the time to read this collection.

My other projects include my 'Self-Existence' saga, starting with Journey of a Fallen, which some of you might be familiar with. I also have a pending novel, 'The Writer and The Artist', my only novel to have ever completed a second draft. I also have a humourous series called 'My Retail Rant', which is basically about me and how crap my retail job is.

Oh yeah, I also do some painting too. The main picture of the group is one of mine.

I apologise for the long-winded thread and I commend anyone who managed to read it all. I hope you all find this writing group somewhat beneficial to your writing careers, or for your writing pleasures.