I never started out writing short stories. Or even poems. In my mind, when I sat down to write at the ripe old age of twelve (spiral bound notebook and pen in hand) I was writing a frakking novel. It’s always been novels. Not to say that they’ve always been good novels, of course; simply, this is how my brain thinks. And that’s not surprising, really. I read more novels than anything else. I am a very choosy reader, but when a book takes hold of me I am in for the long haul. I know characters that have changed me for life; I have seen landscapes in print that…