Ten years ago, I was just getting started on "The Goldenlea," a rather pedestrian medieval low-fantasy story. I knew scant little about the genre; I had read a couple of "Redwall" books when I was younger but for the most part, I wanted to keep it as free from outside influences as possible.

It didn't work out. I think, in hindsight, if I'd read other low fantasy books (or other books in general) more often it might have been a thousand times better. I did have a very limited grasp of literature, at least, but I had many friends who put me to shame.

I also didn't have much in the way of philosophical themes in my books up to and including "Cirrostratus." There was a political element, for sure, but that was diffuse and coded and generally not well developed.

I had a brief flirtation with weird fiction in 2009-2011, and with contemporary fiction in 2010-2011, but I felt like the well ran dry at some point. "One Could Do Better" is a "good" book, but not a "great" book by any measure; it's indulgent and ultimately, rather inane and a bit of an author tract.

Ten years later, my writing has shifted dramatically. I've moved in a decidedly more sci-fi direction with my work, and I've been moving away from political material into a more philosophical direction. If I mention anything political, it's auxiliary to the story and not the other way around. I make a conscious effort to avoid polemics while still putting everything into an ideological framework that makes sense.

I'm particularly interested in Gnostic themes. I guess a long-standing interest in the occult and in Christian and Jewish mysticism (going back at least to my first foray into amateur theology in 2004-2006) has finally flourished into something worth putting to paper, and personal experiences and the work of writers like Philip K. Dick have certainly helped. I had initially ignored these ideas because I felt that "everything you know is wrong" is a cliche that died a hard death with "The Matrix." It was only when I discovered that there is a well of untapped or barely-explored possibilities there for intriguing fiction that the real watershed moment hit.

But in ten years, where will I be? Will I have put all that behind me and begin writing strident author tracts extolling Aristotelian reason as the highest form of thought and industry as the highest form of achievement? Will I have moved deeper into mysticism and begin setting my stories in lovingly-detailed settings based on India and Southeast Asia, with themes borrowed from Vedic texts and Zen Buddhism? Will I lean more in shamanic direction and begin writing more work with indigenous characters?

It's hard to say... ten years is a long time. I'll be just shy of 40 by then, and I'll have lived and seen so much in that time just as I've lived and seen so much in the previous ten years. What developments will shape me? What ideas will influence me? Where will I be living and what will I be doing to support myself? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Most writers really complete their process of maturation by 35 though, so maybe my style will be set in only five years? I'd like to think I'll produce my best work starting fairly soon.

Or maybe life will deal me a bad hand. Maybe I'll fall off a bicycle and get hit by a car, and spend the rest of my life in long-term care? Maybe something will put me off writing entirely? Or maybe I simply won't be around? I do have to contend with a genetic risk for aneurysm and skin cancer, plus statistically things like mental health and gender dysphoria put me in several risk groups for suicide, hate crimes, and health problems other people don't have to worry about. I might be only a memory at 40... that's sobering to think about.

I think that last point- the constant specter of mortality- always looms over me, and much of the time I spend typing away frantically at my books, there's a thought in the back of my mind that I need to finish this novel before I end up being killed or dying of some kind of vascular incident or hate crime, or before my mental health gives out completely and I either can no longer keep from harming myself or can no longer write coherently. I think that last possibility scares me more than being dead, honestly.

Maybe living under that specter has become a feature of my work, but maybe at some point it won't be. I'm still youngish, I've got a lot ahead of me still, but when that changes will I still be writing about life, death, and a longing to understand ultimate reality? Or will my writing become stale, bland, and cynical as I stop worrying and learn to love the bomb?

I guess only time will tell. But it would be nice to know where I'm going with this so I could plan accordingly.