I'm a few peas short of a casserole, but I have a steel trap memory when it comes to retaining useless information. It's perfect for telling lies and writing fiction. I've been around the world twice and shook everybody's hand once, the second time they must have seen me coming. I was groomed ( Groomed = Boy, should write that stuff down on paper.), and urged to be a writer, by the other writers in my family, ( Letters and such.) but it never stuck, until recently. Now, I carefully construct turds from words, roll them in powdered sugar and polish them with the silk of a sow's ear, until they shine like a politician's lie. I am a writer, my tax forms say so. I can't say that I have any influences...Gun to my head...Everything I've ever read. I love the written word.  

I won a hundred dollars for an essay I wrote about farm implements.

Since I haven't really won any awards, they don't impress me, but that will probably change when I win one.