Look, I’m a writer. I make up nonsense and lies for a living. I don’t know what you think you’ll get out of this, but okay… If you insist.
For the most complete picture, we have to go back a while. All the way to 1978, to be precise. As I expect you to know, this is the year Van Halen’s first album was released. Five months after that, I was born, which has to account for something, I’m sure.
Then a whole bunch of things happened, mostly for Van Halen, and now we’re here.
I’m a self-published author and I’m Dutch (like half of Van Halen). Having spent a lot of time on the internet, I know I need to explain this does not mean I’m German. That would be Deutsch. I am from the Netherlands, which you’ll recognize as the first country to get wet when the oceans rise, making Germany prime beachfront property. Do with that tip what you will.
I’ve tried out several hobbies, such as the guitar (like, ehm, whatshisname? Eddie something-or-other), and archery (nope, just ran out of Van Halen references). I was most known for not being very good at either, so I spent the last twenty-something years playing video games, which was a lot of fun.
Due to the fact that I turned out to be ridiculously efficient with making time to play video games, I played so much that I ran out of games to play, so like a good misguided boy I went back to a concept I had for a video game of my own and planned on making it real.
This seems like an excellent moment to paraphrase Douglas Adams. This was widely regarded as a bad move.
Lacking any kind of relevant skill, I sat and stared at the unfinished flowchart about a guy accidentally selling his soul for a car.
That’s about it in a nutshell. Some 120k words later I started to call myself a writer.
Hey, look. There’s a FAQ down here.
I’m the guy. You know, the guy whose book you read? You must have read it, because it doesn’t seem likely you just stumbled onto this site.
Who the hell are you?
Ah. Read very slowly, because I’m about to explain a Dutch pun in English. I expect you to be impressed.
I have sideburns. Like, big uns. They were supposed to grow into that situation Lemmy Kilmister had going on, but I can’t pull that off. Right, in Dutch sideburns are called bakkebaard. My name is Bakker, so it was hardly a leap to slip an R into bakkebaard and call it a day.
At the time I didn’t know a lot about self-publishing and I never assumed I would get published at all. Writing in English just seemed smart, in case I just wanted to put the story online somewhere. This way I wouldn’t have to spend time translating it to reach more readers.
It is my intention to get it translated, but I don’t want to do it myself (and can’t, if I’m doing anything else but Dutch), so I’ll have to look into translators and localisation stuff.
I’m all for translations, but I don’t know when or how yet.
Ah! That’s a license plate. In fact, it’s the license plate I have on my car in GTA Online. I haven’t been online in a long time now, but if you ever come across a Bravado Gauntlet with those plates, please don’t shoot me.
Started out with a cheap recurve bow and through some experiments I wound up at a 45# custom made longbow, because deep down inside we all wanna be Robin Hood.
You can find ‘em at
bickerstaffebows.co.uk
Completely oblivious to my lack of skill, I’ve collected about thirteen guitars, amongst which is a Jackson PS3, though I found playing it while seated a bit of a hassle. My baby is a Cadillac pink Fender Telecaster, which got me kicked out of one band because it wasn’t metal enough.
No, I made them all up. Obviously. Come on, I’m trying to be all professional and shit. Just go with it, will you?