I have been a writer for as long as I have been able to write, and nothing gives me as much pleasure and pain as that act. My current fantasy series, Brightling Becoming, was inspired by two things: a ghoulish image of my partner Amanda eating through the sternum of another woman, and my glimpse of a shadowy figure off the corner of our balcony. Both of these sightings were imaginings, but the first one I knew was imaginary; the second one, occuring in the wee hours of the morning when the world was asleep, I couldn't quite believe was only imagination. But I'm a bit odd like that.