Sixteen
Most days, I’ll walk to work, which takes about twenty-five minutes. I’ll follow a roundabout route home to add another ten or fifteen minutes to the walk. Being unable to run and limited with what I can do due to the damage to my right leg, walking’s one of the few things I can do as exercise. It also helps to spend some physical energy. Getting to sleep is never easy, but it’s always harder on days I don’t walk. Like many writers, I’m a tea-drinker. The schedule at work is regimented: it’ll usually be three throughout the workday (two in the morning, and one in the afternoon). Once I…
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…