I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screens: as Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, more than 20 years before the Kindle turned up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is.

What need, Dunstan wondered, could someone have of the storm-filled eggshells?

Hey, that's life, flick it off if you can't take a joke.

There are lots of artists in the world. But there's only one you. And the only person who has your point of view is you. If you decide not to make things, all you've done is deprive the world of all the stuff that only you could have brought to it.

Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were.