I realize now, after over a thousand blogs, that you should know more about me. I have been trying to write for as long as I can remember and, except for winning story-writing contest in elementary school, always failed.

As I wrote a couple of years ago, I began series of stories in Grade 5 on the Super Secret Spitball Society (SSSS), chronicling an underground gang who spat spitballs at random people. My English teacher, Mr. Bacon, wrote only one remark: “I hope not if it’s more of this, C-.”

Mr. Bacon had Andrew McIntyre read his exemplar aloud, the story of his family visiting Niagara Falls. It was good. I got that, and I realized my work was stupid and childish.

I attempted my first serious work, Vile Illuminations, in high school, and got six pages in before giving up that ghost.