IMP Profile - Michael Martinez

You can always leave yourself high and dry when you're creating a Web site about a group of people you've been involved with. Why is that? Because when it comes time to include yourself you sit there and think, "How egotistical am I going to seem in writing a profile about myself?"

A faux profile might make it seem like someone else interviewed me but since all the IMPs gave up waiting for this Web site, they wouldn't be fooled. So here is a quick recap just from me to you.

I moved from Houston to Seattle in late 2006 to take a job with an Internet marketing company. Although I have not been writing anything related to science fiction and fantasy off the Web, I've been writing a great deal about search engine optimization theory and have created a few new Web sites.

If you found Xenite.Org, then you know I still have a network of Web sites. My official personal Web site is Michael-Martinez.com although I don't keep it updated as much as I should.

And despite the fact I've created this site about the IMPs, I'm sorry to say that I am really not active with the group any more. But maybe one day we can all get together for a reunion crit or something. I joined the IMPs in 1993, if I recall correctly. Like so many others, I was waiting to be accepted into the Writer's Workshop.

I never had much of an opportunity to interact with TGR, but I do recall one night where we were logged into an IMPchat on Compuserve with about a dozen people and comments stopped popping up.

After a while I hit a period key (.) just to make sure my connection was still live. I saw the period come up but no one said anything. So I hit it again. After a while, Resnik typed in, "Is he going to do that all night?"

I did actually make a sale while I was active in the Compuserve IMPs. The story was "Tindler's Vision" and Through the Corridor... bought it...for their second issue, which was never published. Since then I have sold only non-fiction or work-for-hire fiction projects.

I wrote IMPcrits for a fair number of tales, but the one I remember most vividly began with a hero walking along a road in a largely unformed world. He questioned why he was doing what he was doing and a disembodied voice (the writer of his story) began responding, changing things (and the character) as the story unfolded. It was a cute idea but not fully developed. Or was that the Writer's Workshop?...I don't remember...sorry.

Quite a few IMPs took a go at my fiction. They usually complimented me on my technical execution but often said something like, "This idea isn't clear" or "this seems like a cliche".

In fact, I often wrote in cliches as I was trying to rewrite some well-developed cliches. I think now that it takes a very seasoned writer to redevelop a well-developed cliche.

Many of the early IMPs masy recall Ewan Grantham's Radius, an electronic magazine that was distributed by email. Ewan was well ahead of his time. He sold advertising and paid the writers a decent per-word fee. The story I remember most vividly was written by Martin Crumpton. It was about an airliner that was about to crash and one of the passengers had a deck of cards. He gambled with God to spare the lives of the passengers and crew.

About The Xenite IMP Site

I wanted to create a Web site that would recognize not only the efforts that other IMP writers had made but also the fact that not every writer's group fades into obscurity.

My experiences with the IMPs had a profound effect on everything I have done as a writer since the mid-1990s. I have often wondered whether I would have ever been published or found any recognition as a writer without them.

The IMPs deserve more than to be a pleasant memory we who once ravaged whole worlds in our imaginations jointly share. When you look at all the books and stories that IMPs have published, I think you'll agree that we achieved something worth remembering.

And may new generations of IMPs go forth and build grander vistas. There is also room for more names on this site.