A friend once asked me, “Can you, in a word, sum up what writing is like.” Tough question. Crazy might be the first, best word. Who in their right mind would take up writing? It’s an endless activity, mostly carried out in solitude, and the readers are the ones in the driver’s seat once you let it out into the world! … Yet, who doesn’t take up storytelling? Storytelling is how we explore our place in the world, and how we create new worlds. Who doesn’t want to know where they stand, and who doesn’t want to dream?
Today, I consider myself a writer, not because I’m starting to publish, but because I care so much about how thoughts are phrased and whether it’s good enough, which it never is. My journey as a storyteller started, however, during my career as a scientist, and the scientist remains in me. I find myself occasionally looking at the act of writing as I perform it or as others do so. So, On Writing, explores the act of being …
A story usually comes to me as an image – for example, an imaginary man standing in line inspired The Open Door in my short story collection (to be published by Adelaide Books in May, 2019) – or, as a single thought or feeling – such as, a creative anti-hero scientist who blends fact with fantasy in a political climate focused on pragmatism, which led to my novel, Jellyfish Have Eyes. I never know how these initial thoughts will develop into stories, or even if they will remain as first conceived. 
