Good evening, internet audience. My name is Nick Hilbourn and, yes, I am a father and a competent authority on parental advice. It came to my realization around 2:34 am this morning that children ask many, many questions. They are curious beings. As parents we should usually encourage these questions, although we should discourage stupid questions.

I know what you’re thinking: hey, Stephen, you’ve been with your girlfriend for about seven months now, and even though you talk about her all the time, I bet the sex is starting to cool off. Sure, I’ve heard that old cliché about relationships—the beginning is steamy and adventurous, then settles into routine. So I can imagine why you’d think that about me and Kristi.

I overheard what I think was a three-person writing group in a coffee shop the other day. There was a woman talking about all of the interesting things that had happened to her in her past, and how whenever she tried to write them down, the “voice” was wrong; it came out all wrong and it wasn’t any good. I thought, why didn’t she just write that down instead of saying it to her friends: that was, the way she told the story, just then, was surely as good as the story was ever going to be, so why not write it down, or record herself telling it and transcribe it later, and look at it to see if it’s a good story, or nearly as good as it would have been if, when you’d written it down, the voice had been right and it had been good.

Napoleon Complex. A lot of people like to throw that term around. It’s also commonly known as “Short Man Syndrome.” You know the gist: smaller guys feel an urge to compensate for their size, usually via excessive aggression. But did you know that the origin of the term Napoleon Complex is historically inaccurate? If not, read on!

I wanted to put something on paper that I would not regret throwing out later. I wanted it to be the most regrettable thing in the world– a literal literary crime to write. And when I was done, I would wash my hands of it.

But it’s never that easy.