Seven
I inherited my love of reading from one of my older brothers, and naturally – like a lot of boys – gravitated to the allure of fantasy. Reading The Lord of the Rings as a 12-year-old was as close to a divine experience as I’d ever had. It wasn’t just the story, although there’s enough in that to inspire awe and wonder. But what overwhelmed me more was the history this world contained – a history that spanned millennia and was imbued in every bit of geography, motivated every character, and contextualized every event. One of my issues with storytelling is when it feels like the story, or the world…
70,317
Year ago, I went back to school as a mature-age student to study writing and editing. Part of the course requirements, I found out, were classroom presentations and (at least) two public readings at an event the course hosted monthly. Both prospects horrified me. The course, however, understood that if you’re going to be a writer, you will at some point need to conduct yourself publicly, e.g. at a launch, or readings. Come the night I had to read, I appeared calm – years of dealing with anxiety had taught me to hide what was going on inside, but I was terrified I would mess up, and grew short of…