Longtime readers of this blog (oh, there you two are) will recognize

that I haven’t posted anything about my creative writing in a few

months. That’s mostly because I haven’t been doing any. Crisis of

confidence, really. I didn’t know what kind of science fiction to

write, what angle to take, or who my audience would be. This is death

for a writer, especially one with an inferiority complex the size of

Outer Mongolia. (Read: big. Also, terrified of Genghis Khan.)

Well, thanks to my unknowing and almost certainly unwillingly conscripted Jedi Master, John Scalzi, I now have a mission statement:

“What we need are people who are unapologetically writing science fiction — and are unapologetically writing science fiction for people who have never read science fiction before. You want new people to read science fiction? You want SF books to matter to the masses? Then do some goddamned outreach,

people. Write an intelligent, fascinating, moving piece of science

fiction for the reader who has always thought science fiction was

something that happened to other people.”

The above is actually part of a much larger rant by Scalzi on the state

of contemporary SF, which is worthy of read in its entirety. As for me,

I’m off to answer the call. It should only take about half a decade to

whip myself into shape for the task, but at least I know where I’m

going now.