I began writing when I was a wee lad of seven, inspired by a particularly effective "gifted students" teacher, who took her class of five or six would-be wunderkinder, sat them in a dark classroom lit only by the overhead projector upon which she had place a glass bowl of water. We were instructed to write what we saw or felt just before she began dripping oil and food coloring into the water.

My mind suddenly exploded in an almost-frightening fit of creative energy, and before I realized what I was doing, I had scribed a page and a half long story of archetypal Good vs. Evil. I didn’t know if I had accomplished what I was supposed to in the eyes of the teacher, but I knew that what had happened was one of the most magnificent experiences of my life, and something I would spend the rest of my days seeking in one form or another.

It was a matter of days before I dug out my grandmothers old Royal typewriter and began writing my first collection of stories. From there I dabbled in a variety of genres, until eventually, tremendously inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and Howard Phillips Lovecraft, I turned to dark stories of the macabre, and horror-fiction. It was around this time that my love-affair with Stephen King began, and I devoured everything I could get my hands on of his, to the point that I was rarely without a King book in my hand, my school locker, my car, etc. My writing reflected my influences to the point of outright emulation, and so it has been ever since.

I have ventured into other realms; poetry and non-fiction, fantasy and sci-fi, technical writing and dissertations, but were I to sit down and allow my hand to scrawl across the page, it would, undoubtedly, produce some "danse macabre." Most recently my writing has been almost exclusively for the screen (aside from these blog entries, of course), and I have found myself uninspired to write in any other form.

Then along came Neil Gaiman.  I admit, embarrassingly, being a bit of a late-comer to his fandom, but my passion is right up there with the best of them.  I was awed and fascinated, humbled and frightened, and sometimes just downright devastated by the collected "Sandman" works.  Neil, dare I use the familiar… MR. GAIMAN, writes with such grace and command of language, and his tales ripple with hints of history, and allusions to literature, and the glory of those long-forgotten days when the pen was the sharpest of all weapons, and reading him often makes me feel untalented and unworthy of calling myself a writer because that is what HE is and I am not even in the same stadium that he is playing ball in.

There is a long, thin blade, about the diameter of a pencil lead, that pierces my heart like the loss of a lover when I read and finish a Neil Gaiman story.  It is another sort of "little death" – both exhilarating and annihilating all at once.  Every time I finish reading something of his, I am inspired to… do SOMETHING… sometimes write, sometimes paint, sometimes just take a walk and let it all sink in so I don’t miss a single delectable word in the tale.

And this is how I wish to touch the world.  Through the beauty and glory of recounting our flaws and foibles as well as our grace and brilliance, through stories.  Of the stage and page, screen and sound, voice and body.  For me, there is no higher calling, and if I get to traverse the same road that Neil Gaiman has trod, I will surely seek his footsteps to guide me to whatever destination awaits me.

So here I sit, gasping for breath as I am crushed by the gravity of "Fragile Things" and fearful of the "American Gods" whom I’ve yet to meet.  But "Good Omens" portend "Stardust" in my future, which I pray be guided by "Angels and Visitations" until I might, one day, reach the pinnacle of storytelling genius that he has so deftly elevated to dizzying heights and rarefied atmosphere.