I miss that thing I used to do when I first started out where I would just spontaneously generate ideas and try things and see where they'd go.
— Tim Pratt
Fictional realms are usually terrible places to vacation, as they tend to be full of monsters and conflicts - Narnia and Middle-earth would both be good places to get killed - but I wouldn't mind visiting the worlds of Iain M. Banks's 'Culture.' You'd just have a hard time getting me to leave.
Family lore says I was named after the song 'Timothy' by The Buoys, a lovely little ditty about three guys who get trapped in a cave-in and resort to cannibalism; they eat Timothy.
I love drafting like I love eating ice cream or having sex; I love revising like I love doing logic puzzles; I love line-editing like I love perfectly organizing a bookshelf; I hate reviewing copyedits and the second round of proofreading because, by then, I'm getting pretty tired of my own words. They all have their own challenges, though.
I know I felt like I was ready to be an adult long before the rest of the world agreed. I'd already realized that a lot of grown-ups didn't know any more than I did, and some of them were even dumber than I was, and even the ones who were smarter weren't using their smarts for things I necessarily considered worthwhile.
It got to the point where most of my time went toward writing novels. I would still occasionally write short stories, but only when I was commissioned by an editor to write for a themed anthology or special issue.
When I was working on a Victorian-era novel, to get in the mood, I read several historical novels set in approximately the same period and place, and really enjoyed the detective novels of John Dickson Carr.
I almost drowned in a hot tub at a writing workshop once after I had some drinks without accounting for how the high elevation would impact my tolerance.
As I got older, I had more experience with borders. Some literal - living in the dramatically blue misty mountains on the line between North Carolina and Tennessee, and living in California - home to expats, transplants, and refugees from both sides of innumerable borders.
I didn't grow up on any sort of border; more in the middle of nowhere, in rural eastern North Carolina.
I'm a competent novelist. I'm getting better. But I'm a really good short story writer.
Once, my writing-avoidance behavior involved me mixing up a cleaning concoction and getting some ancient stains out of the carpet. My wife liked that one.
Stories are really important to people and can really change the way they understand, and even live, their lives. As such, I don't agree much with people who say, 'Calm down, it's just a story.'
Life is full of borders. Some of them, once crossed, can never be crossed again in the other direction. But there are new countries to discover across every one.
