Don't be afraid of the dark. Shine!

Not every puzzle is intended to be solved. Some are in place to test your limits. Others are, in fact, not puzzles at all.

I relished the sweet sense of keeping a unique secret in my mind - a wonderful magical universe that I could go to any time, any place, and no one had to know. It was my personal place, better than any I've read about in any other book. And when I wrote, I was in the process of pulling that personal universe out of nothing and into the cold reality of the greater world.

I also find the desert a wonderful metaphor for desolation and yet the exact counterpart of the ocean with its hidden depths. Both are vast, harsh, implacable, homogenous to the untrained eye, and beautiful. Bothallow the wind to roam on the surface. And both serve as wonderful vehicles for human survival stories.

Creativity is not so much a boundless well, but an all-you-can-eat buffet of elements for your creative endeavor. Eventually you've eaten your fill, and it's time to digest and then make something. But at some point, it will be time to return to the restaurant.

Fantasy plunders the well of our deepest selves for existent truth instead of creating new truths out of the illusory fabric of recent events or the flow of society.

If Music is a Place -- then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple.