Part of me—a small and perpetually exhausted part—would still like to write a sourcebook for the fractured fantasy setting I still roll out for Tunnels & Trolls now and then. Not to publish it for sale, as I think I missed that boat by long enough for them to have torn down the port and replaced it with holiday lets, but just to get it down in one place instead of cluttering up my head the way it has for a long, long time now.

When I was at school there was a generally accepted feeling that one day I would Write Books, because I was inventive and loved words and reading. It didn't happen, but it took me a long time to understand why not. Reading Terry Pratchett again this week reminded me: it's because I don't have any stories to tell. That was his real skill, telling stories (a compulsion, according to those who knew him). I'm confident that I could patch together a plot and some characters, but that is nowhere near the same. There's no story I need to let out, to get across. All I'd be doing would be writing.