About me... I was born & raised in Las Vegas. I've done far too much schooling mostly in the hard sciences and psychology, but settled as an Ultrasound Technologist and am currently working in the Salem, OR area. Insofar as writing goes I'm pretty much self-taught, though I was also devouring Wheel of Time when I was eleven, so take that as you will. I've traveled a ridiculous amount (mostly internationally), and have a slew of hobbies both current and abandoned; I suppose, if nothing else, it makes for a good range of experience to draw from. Playing with kittens in Athens and getting lost for the sake of seeing what you manage to stumble across in France/Italy/Germany/Greece/Sweden/Japan/etc. as a child/teenager has far more application to writing than you might imagine.

Recast Steel Series

Survival is complete now, and I am working on the sequel, Sedition, at any opportunity I get. Sedition has maybe four chapters left, I think, and then we're onto the final story arc, Succession. I work full time and have a number of certifications left to complete, however, so it might not be as often as either you or I would like (for more details, consider the latest updates, listed below). More details of what's coming can be found in the author notes of individual chapters as I sort them out.

That said, I've been looking forward to the story developing into what it finally is for quite some time now, and I'm probably my most excited fangirl by far.

7/31/14:

I have Ch. 12 fully planned and probably 1/3 or half written. It fought me for a while, and in my defense, I got to manage house & play mom for my twelve-year-old sister since my mom managed to take a rather bad shoulder injury in March. She's now doing significantly better & I'm almost done with my certifications which will open up a /ton/ of time (I've completed two and am taking the 3rd in a week). At least, that's the theory.

8/4/14:

I must amend: Job hunting appears to be done with. It seems nigh comical to leave the previous update note as is. Hopefully the insanity of moving over 1,000 miles the day after finish my exams won't tucker me out too horrifically... and wow, a regular schedule sounds absolutely brilliant. Pay's certainly nothing to be scoffed at either (though at this point, ANY pay would be great), so things are looking up, provided I don't die from the five or so utter meltdowns I'm sure I'll have before Saturday gets here. What a Monday, man... But awesome. Utterly fantastic.

11/24/14:

eyes the previous update* Well then. I'm no longer fresh out of school, and am working a regular job that still gives me time to write, which should be evidenced by the fact that I've had two updates inside three months. Let's see if I can keep it up, right? I'm about to start Chapter 14, and have come to the conclusion that Sedition will probably total around 17 chapters before we move on to the final step of the waltz this trilogy composes, which has tentatively been named "Succession".

1/23/15:

Last day at my current job is in a week, and then it's time to head up to Oregon. It'll be nice to not be in the middle of nowhere (I literally have to drive three hours to find a store that sells more than groceries). I now have a slew of letters after my name, and for all that I still have one more certification to get to, it's hardly urgent. Chapter 14 is moving along now that both testing and the holidays are past, and hopefully it'll be ready to post before Valentine's Day.

11/6/15:

Ch. 15 is about 1/4 written, and has been for a bit. However, I've been doing travel work, contracting to different jobs across the country and going alone (no husband, no support) to these facilities when I do this. I have a LOT of food allergies, and if I have no support network, I therefore have to cook everything I eat myself - this takes away most of my free time just on its own. Most facilities have a tendency to mistreat travel techs, due to the fact that they have to pay them more and have no reason to consider what we think of them in the long-term; travel workers are, frankly, expendable by their very nature. It's temp work, for healthcare. I have considerable health issues that my dietary restrictions don't completely resolve; I have joint damage, and I'm pretty sure I've actually torn a tendon in my knee. Therefore, when I do get free time, I'm usually either in so much pain I can't focus (because I can't take hardcore pain medications at work, for obvious reasons), or I'm on pain killers, which make it extremely hard to focus.

This is NOT to say that I've given up and am not going to finish; far from it. I'm just at a very hard point in my life, and I'm working on it. I think about my story all the time, and I'm hopeful that as soon as next week, I'll /actually/ start making progress on it. My current assignment is only 1 hr from home (traffic permitting...) so I'm finally home again, with my husband's support; he's handling food and otherwise being a fantastic house husband. This job is the first one I've ever had where they're NOT trying to run me ragged just because they can (8 hour shifts turning into 11 hour, working 5 days straight with a cumulative of 5 hours sleep in there from a series of nap caught when possible, 76 hour work weeks, etc.). The shift is actually even one that matches my natural circadian rhythm (nocturnal), and on some nights, might even leave spare time while I'm on shift to write. I'm back home, so I can actually /pursue/ medical treatment, instead of trying to communicate with my physician from another state.

I've been running on empty just to survive lately. I'm /just/ starting to come back into my own. I apologize for the delays, but real life IS kinda important, and this is a hobby. A hobby that I feel indescribably hollow if i can't DO - writing is one of the greatest experiences of my entire life - but food and sleep and paying the bills still takes priority.

Believe me, I'm really tired of living my damn life as a trial by fire of nothing ever settling out, constantly fighting for a little security and stability... But the fact that I've been through this kind of this crap is one of the things that's given me the life experience to write the way I do. Every single one of my characters are a facet of something I've been through or seen - the unfortunate thing is that trying to make my life work has been in the same state of psychotic limbo as Jake was putting himself through - since July. It's really hard to write the resolution of that panning out, as awesome as it is, when time and pain are the hounds snapping at your heels if you take a moment to try to breath, instead of continuing to struggle your way out of the mire. Seeing as that IS ending next week for the short term, and possibly improving even more as we're likely to move closer in February if this is permanent, I should be writing more than a paragraph here or there soon.

So, that's a life update, and I'll try not to disappoint. I'm always game to talk, but please, the accusations that I've quit on you all are rather asinine. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm physically incapable of dropping this story incomplete. Life has just been rather hardcore for the past 4 months, and it wasn't exactly all roses before either. I'm not a teenager who can pull an all-nighter and damn the consequences anymore. If I go to work wretchedly sleep deprived, it's not like with a class or a low end job, where a mistake only falls on your report - if I make a mistake, it hurts someone. So any of this, as much as I wish I could devote more time to it, MUST come after securing the sanctity of my patients.

The One-Shots

Honestly, I would take down some of these if it weren't an odd point of history and a painful sort of "I grew up!" pride. They were quickly written "Challenge" fics, and are terribly slapdash.

I have on the other hand, decided to simply take down one of them anyway. If you don't know which one, good. It was a writing experiment I completed for kicks and is utterly cringe-worthy.

I love to chit chat, just for fun or I can give writing advice if you want. I have this terribly bad habit of talking on messengers to distract myself from the big pile of work I ought to be doing. Life is all about distractions, honestly.

Mail: NikoJAM.rdms@gmail.com

AIM: MuseNiko

Facebook: Niko Mackenzie

Philosophies of Life:
"Think every possible angle you can imagine on the situation, get everyone else's, then know that you've missed at least five others."

"Take what you get, live what you learn, and pray to whatever deity cares to grace you with faith that you don't fuck up too bad."