New Year’s Eve tomorrow, and I’m contemplating the end of the year, the end of a comic book script, and the end of a novel, all of which require the tying up of loose ends, while leaving the promise of more adventures yet to come. In stories, there’s never really a final moment—I mean, there is; a last line, a last page—but for the writer, the reader, the possibilities continue; and if the story and the characters are particularly strong, then the urgency of what you want to come next takes on a life of its own. Like real life, in general.
I’m rambling, I know. Of course, here’s something else: I applied to the Air Force JAG Corp after law school, contemplating a future as both an attorney and a military officer. Basic training, deployment, the whole nine yards. I thought about the FBI too—though for reasons that aren’t clear to me now, I never did apply there. Obviously, I wasn’t hired. Just as obviously, if I had been, I wouldn’t be writing books for a living. I would be writing, I know that, but not like this. Maybe not ever like this.
So. I like fate. I like chance, and luck, and the occasional, remarkable, outcome.
And I wish you an abundance of all those things—the very best of destiny—in this upcoming year.