You can't have whatever you want. But to a child who must ask permission for every single thing, adulthood looks like a constant parade of every desire's satisfaction. It is a heady and terrifying place. It is the Otherworld. It is Fairyland. In fantasy, we make this literal.

Everyone has a right to cry uncle on a genre every once in awhile. I've done it myself. Sometimes you just can't bear another gear or pair of wings or vampire teeth. You go on a fast, and sometimes you come back, and sometimes you don't.

Just about every science whiz can tell you how he or she took apart the TV or the radio when they were kids just to see how it worked. To see what the world was made of. Well, when I was a kid, I took apart fairy tales to see how they worked. To see what the world was made of.

Every writing teacher I ever had except for one told me I was an awful writer, had no idea what I was doing, and should stop immediately. It only took the one to tell me something different to light a fire under me.