I can't point to a moment or incident that made me see that this business, this putting down words on paper, was what I would do for the rest of my lucid life. But apparently, that is my calling.

A community is a small group working together. Community scales by adding groups, and building connections between them, not enlarging them.

I wrote when I was a young teen, but I didn't put an eye on the available markets until I was seventeen. The next ten years felt like a self-centered experiment in personal abuse.

The burden of intelligence: you can always imagine all those wonderful places where you can never belong.

I would like to say that I have software that allows me to model worlds to a high degree of scientific plausibility. I'd also like to be six foot two and fifteen years into my reign as Emperor of Europa. The simple truth is that past the character's name and a long history of making my own body cover distances, I did very little in the way of targeted research.

Before I was reading science fiction, I read Hemingway. Farewell to Arms was my first adult novel that said not everything ends well. It was one of those times where reading has meant a great deal to me, in terms of my development - an insight came from that book.

For honest insight into who you are, don't ask yourself what your priorities are for next week. Ask what your priorities were last week.