Needles (on There's A Story Somewhere In That Haystack)

I’m good at building things in my head. People, places, worlds, all spinning freely away from my imagination to hang in the air around my mind’s eye like constellations sparkling in the night sky. Sometimes they start as an idea; an image or a description or a snippet of dialogue, a small thing that begins as a tiny spark and require some nurturing to grow strong enough to take wing and join the rest of the stars; sometimes they leap from my subconscious fully-formed or nearly, requiring only the gentlest of nudges to be off, rocketing away on a trajectory that I can barely control and only mostly follow.

Both kinds have their perks and flaws, but getting them out into the æther where I can access them late isn’t the hard part. The hard part, the bit I’ve always had trouble with, is figuring out where they’re going. I can set up conflict just fine –and I often even discover some measure of it is built into the things I create- but resolving it is a problem.

So, in an astoundingly arrogant simile to NASA and SETI projects, I’m going to fling this question out into the great dark void and see if anyone answers it:

How do you find the endings to your stories?

Manifesto (on Page 5)

People call it plastic crack. Lots of people call it a hobby, or a lifestyle, or a career, or a state of mind. Some people call it pointless. Most people call it bloody expensive. Everybody calls it Warhammer.

Warhammer is an institution, a legacy stretching back to the earliest days of tabletop cooperative and competitive games. It was around at the start of the industry, and it’ll likely be around at the end, too, if that ever comes. It’s the common denominator for war-gamers the world over, and you can get in a pick-up game just about anywhere if you know which rocks to look under.

But it’s missing something.

Terminal (on Why Japan)

I’m too young to really remember the ‘80s. I was only around for the last half of it anyway and very few of those days percolated through a young brain learning the basics of being a human. Brief flashes of locations, events that I’m not sure I actually remember so much as imagine, and a particular color of carpet that will immediately scream out its decade to any nearby observers.

Nonetheless, I am a child of the decade. Or at least I’m a child of the students of the decade, recalling flashes of the Nihonjin-owned future that we were all sure was one day going to sweep over us from the Far East in the west; faint, flickering images of a rain-soaked dystopian Los Angeles, voiceover courtesy of a young Harrison Ford, or skies above ports the color of television, turned to a dead channel.

Most people I know now say the moment has passed, that the so-called Asian Invasion that the Eighties was so sure was in it’s Double-oughts never materialized. I say look around, omae. We’re here.

Cybele (on Ostensibly Singular Possessive)

It’s Mother’s Day in my little corner of the world, and in spite of the Midterms rush and a general dearth of interesting things to say, I’m going to take a few minutes and let my hands wander my (shiny, glowing) new keyboard on the topic.

LAWS (on the Migratory Patterns of Modern Man)

I’m destined to become one of those crazy, wild-eyed extreme survivalist the-government-is-out-to-get-me types. I’m sure of it. One of these days, something is going to become the last straw and I’m going to calmly shut down my computer(s), turn off all the lights, grab by pre-prepared kit, sling a rifle over my shoulder and disappear into the mountains.

That, of course, is assuming the dam doesn’t go, or the mountain doesn’t pop, or the zompocalypse doesn’t spur it on a little earlier.

Revolutions (on Screw You, Buddy)

In a couple of hours it’ll be my birthday. That… stopped being a big event for me about ten years ago, and it’s become quite just-another-day-ish since I finally ticked up over that last legal age limit.

Honestly, hitting the quarter-century mark is probably the least of my concerns at the moment, but since I only get to do it once, I figured I’d at least commemorate the occasion by getting completely smashed looking back over the last 25 years at some of the things that have led me to where I am now, and some of the things that the April 3rds throughout history have brought the world (other than me).

Inauguration (on Perspective)

It’s the middle of March, and the quarter at school has just ended. It went well as an exercise in reestablishing long-disused patterns of thought and behavior.

I don’t really know if I’m old enough to claim the perspective of “looking back,” but I like to think I’m a bit wiser than I was at 18. I know a little more about the world, and a little more about myself. I don’t claim to know a lot about either. I’m still learning how to handle my life, and hopefully I’m making better decisions.