While going through my parents' papers some time ago, I came across a collection of old report cards from elementary through high school. Paraphrasing what was on almost every one of them, they read, “William could be a much better student if only he didn’t daydream so much.

Being bored in school is nothing new, but rather than act out, I retreated inside my head where I made up stories in which I was the hero. Always a voracious reader, my first attempt at a novel was when I was ten. It was called “Wild Apache!”  It concerned a ten-year-old boy (surprise) who got a pinto pony for his birthday. Alas, it remains unfinished. Nor did my parents get the hint and buy me a pony.

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A seminal event in my life occurred in 1969 when I was seventeen. Along with my best friend, Man of Letters, Andris Taskans, I attended the World Science Fiction Convention in St. Louis, Missouri over Labor Day weekend. There I encountered many of my favorite writers – in person - as well as hundreds of wannabes. These “Giants” of Science Fiction and Fantasy turned out to be very human and amazingly accessible. For the first time in my life I didn’t feel out of place. There were thousands of people just as weird as me.

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There, I joined the Church of All Worlds Inc, modeled after the Church of All Worlds in Robert A Heinlein's classic novel, Stranger in a Strange Land. However, that journey is a tale for another time. Getting back to writing . . .

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I said to myself, “Self, if these people can write, why can’t you?” Of course, the simple answer is, I was but seventeen and had little or no life experience to draw from. That didn’t stop me from writing, though. Poems, songs and short stories flowed from my pen and typewriter, all pretty bad. Fortunately, few have survived the ravages of time.

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But as I got older, I got better. I read books on writing. I let better writers critique my work. I occasionally got published. I even got paid a couple of times, which made me a Professional Writer. Sure, there were dry spells. Still are. But I am still driven to write.

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Why, you ask? Well, you didn’t really but I’m going to tell you anyway. I like to make people laugh. I like to make people think. I love to entertain. If someone reads one of my novels in fifty or 100 years, I will have achieved some measure of immortality. Over two decades ago, an article I wrote – only a few paragraphs long - was published in a niche magazine. A few years later, a woman who read it told me it affected her profoundly and changed how she looked at Love. I wasn’t paid for that article, but her words rewarded me in a way that was far better than gold. One day, I hope to achieve that effect with one of my novels and acquire some gold, too.