How to Become a Writer
It starts with the question you get asked when you’re young, and the answer that comes into your head is something to do with books, maybe? It starts with being shy, and moving around a lot all through your childhood. It starts with the trinity of SF from your childhood: Star Wars, Buck Rodgers, and G-Force. It starts with David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune, which you saw far too young because you liked science fiction and there was no home video back then, so it wasn’t like you could just watch Star Wars again. It starts with hearing your dad read The Hobbit in his classroom. It starts with the soundtrack of your pre-teen years, inherited from your father: Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, Queen singing Flash, the Rocky Horror soundtrack. It starts with your first William Gibson short story at fourteen and having your mind blown. With Neil Gaiman comics at sixteen, which blow your mind again. With
