My day job exists in a strange state of flux. There is only black and white, no shades between. I deal in actual fact, method, motive, and circumstance.

But yet, everything is painted over with this strange gray haze. Good guys do bad things, sometimes bad guys do good things. Smart people make dumb decisions, and generally ignorant people end up doing things so off the wall bloody fricken’ genius that it would just make your head spin.

I exist in the here and now, the actual reality of fictional realism. Things that happen defy logic, exist without rhyme or reason. They’re just accepted as existing, simply because they are.

But even in the end of it, we’re all guided by black and white. Yet, while there is only one right way to do things, there’s an infinite number of wrong ways to do the right thing.

And so exist my characters. There is no defined archetype. They exist because they do. And the things they do, they do because they want to. Whether guided by logic, madness, revenge, or even lust. Heck, I’ve been known to find some strange demonic presence skulking about in the corner of a character’s bedroom, guiding their hand in all that is achieved.

I’ve heard the modern era of fiction’s gray bemoaned by the archetypical fiction writers. There’s nothing wrong stylistically.

But, we live in troubled times. And the greatest fiction often mimics society at the time of its writing.

Don’t be afraid to try something new.

Because even in the gray, you might find your gold.