The first thing I remember writing was a sci-fi short story when I was nine or ten. It was called Planet X, if I remember correctly. It involved a young protagonist who was abducted by a space ship and later awoke to find himself near his house. When he went inside, however, his mother didn’t recognize him, and he went on to discover that he had been transported to a parallel planet in which he didn’t exist. He proceeded to track down the people responsible and secure a happy ending.

I know I wrote other things before that, but it in particular sparked a formative excitement in me. I have always been a ravenous reader, and the realization that I could produce what I was consuming was exhilarating. It was the start of many failed attempts at getting a book written.

In high school I discovered a perverse love for writing essays. One of my favorites was entitled A Discourse on the Finer Points of the Art Popularly known as “B.S.–ing,” According to the Infinite Knowledge and Wisdom of the Author, stated herein. It was a self-referential work, itself an ultra-verbose work of nonsense. I don’t know whether it was out of admiration, humor, or exhaustion, but my teacher awarded me with an A. My high-schooler ego liked to think it was the first, but I now suspect the last. Either way, this discovery was a spark similar to the earlier one, and I fell in love with the essay as a medium, seeking it out in the works of the authors I respect. I hope, with great deference, to be able to add something to that beloved tradition.

This all goes to say that I have been more or less continually involved in writing throughout my life. I have identified a major fault running through all of it, though: it has been created in a box. Besides school work, most of my writing has been a private labour. I love to write, and it does me much good to get it all out, but I’ve been compelled lately to make my work available to a wider audience, to both impose my perspectives and invite critique, in the hopes that both I and my reader can be improved.

I’m taking another swing at producing a novel. In the mean time, since I get easily distracted by new ideas, this will be a place for those distractions, in the form of essays, short stories, smaller passages, and, I hope, candid conversations with my readers. Please use each posts’s comments section to share with me your thoughts on the topics on which I write, and feel free to contact me (about any topic) using the links in the heading.