So sorry. So sorry. Dad, so sorry. So sorry, Dad. "I'll fix it in the morning." (It's alright, it's o.k.). So sorry. So sorry, Dad. So sorry. So sorry, Dad. "I'll fix it in the morning." (It's alright, it's o.k.). "It'll be easy." - "Swell Song" -- Hissanol, 4th And Back

My pen name is Soviet Inclination. It has no real significance, other than I think it's clever and funny.

I am an academic: I have a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies, and am finishing up a Master of Arts in History. I am a historian: I study change (or lack thereof) over time. I am an orientalist scholar: I have a passion for the history, languages, and cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, focusing it mainly on the Ottoman Empire and the Levant, circa 1300 to the present. But most of all, I am a writer: I craft with the pen, the keyboard; I research at the library, the archive; I weave words, I craft arguments that I answer. I am no longer aspiring: I simply am.

My stories are, to this day, usually inspired by music and various aspects of "underground" and "mainstream" popular culture. Music is a big inspiration to my writing... Joy Division, the Germs, Ash, Matthew Sweet, Blur, Hüsker Dü, Nomeansno. A simple song can produce writing, which is why several or my works are short and list a musical influence in them.

In addition, given the bustle of academic life, my works are generally shorts. Because they are influenced more by music and my state of mind than by the desire to create a fanfic-proper, sometimes they are only nominally "fanfic"--in other words, I might borrow the characters from a series to make a story but the rest of the story is independent from the series itself. I haven't written an actual piece of fan fiction in the proper sense since my high school days, and would like to get back into it one day... but that day has not come yet. It will soon. But not yet.

Most of my works, as well as others' works, are on my personal website. Which is defunct but still online until I decide to get rid of it once and for all. I haven't updated it since 2006. I have a myspace and a facebook profile, you have but to ask if you want access to them.