If the world is going to burn, we might as well sing.

I am a technologist by trade. I grew up in the midst of the digital revolution when the PC was still something new and magical.

I guess for me it still is. I love how this concoction of plastic and metal can create worlds, link people across vast distances, and provide opportunities for art and knowledge to grow. I missed that memo where we were told to only use these cool and creative tools in "appropriate and approved" ways. I don't think I ever did. It helps that I was just poor enough to have to build most things myself but with enough access to resources to still adequately build those things. That is a narrow band of people, indeed, served more by luck and circumstance than talent and work, I assure you. For most of my life, my tech was always a few years (sometimes more) out of date, but it was mine.

I am a writer by practice. It is stupidly hard for me to say that, and it shouldn't be. I've been writing for most of my life. If technology is my blood, writing is my soul. The two are inseparable for me, really.

And yet, I haven't really written in a long time. That is not a complete truth, I suppose. In one sense, I have been writing. I wrote a dissertation. I wrote papers, and articles, and presentations. I still do. I like writing those things. I am good at writing those things. I was good enough to finish what I started, get the big title and that sense of accomplishment. I haven't written a short story in years, though. My poems—the reason I went back to school in the first place—have became party tricks rolled out to impress colleagues and friends. I haven't submitted so much as a piece of flash fiction since 2020.

So here we go. A step back to the craft. If there was ever a time I needed to come back this is it. I noted in a previous post that I am old man, now. I am. I am old, but I have these words swirling in my head. I have stories and poems to tell, games to write. Some are kind and gentle, others harsh and cruel, some passionate, some reserved, and I want to share them with you. The more I pretend I don't want this, the more time just slips away.

I don't pretend to think this is going to be grand success. In fact, I plan to fail a lot in 2025 - which is probably true for many of us for all sorts of horrible reasons. But hey, if the world is going to burn, we might as well sing.