Some of us are never going to be normal.  Sure, most people are not normal in some ways, but they still have many friends, close families, and fit into to society — my “not normal” is that even my dog ignores me, pretending to be asleep unless he hears me running the electric can opener.  My extended family ignores me, sending me generic cards on Christmas and maybe on my birthday.  Sometimes they don’t even bother to change the card and just use up a ten-pack of identical cards over a decade.  My immediate family  (wife, sons in college, daughter in high school) pretty much ignore me too.  We all live on the internet, only stopping for brief, awkward pauses to eat.

Today, society for me is the internet.  It isn’t that different from regular society.  It is a society where I am hated for sucking at online games instead of real games.  It is a society where I am banned from message boards for being a “troll” instead of being just being called an idiot and shunned.  I start off really trying to fit in, to be normal.  I actually try to make friends and play games to the best of my ability.  I try to have thoughtful discussions.  Over time, over the decades, the message has finally become clear – I am crazy.

Other people play games and get better at them.  I don’t.  I get too bored hiding or defending a position in some online game, so I run out throwing hand grenades and get shot to death.  My team hates me for that.  I made them lose.  I get bored spending hours collecting a dozen wolf pelts to make a robe or a hundred chunks of gold ore to smelt and make into a belt, so my avatar never looks cool.  Instead, my avatar looks just like me in high school wearing my Sears blue jeans and generic sneakers — uncool.  Shunned again.

My last hope was the message boards.  Some sounded interesting, like the ones where people think they are witches and warlocks.  I was intrigued, so I started asking them questions about magic, such as, had they actually ever done anything magical.  Why sure, of course they had!  So then all I asked for was a little proof, you know, like turn me into a newt or something.  Suddenly, I’m a troll.  Banned.  Over and over, board after board.  Weirdo doesn’t get it — banned.

So why do I write what I write?  I write books because so far no one has found a way to stop me.  I’m sure some people would like to.  My detective novel certainly isn’t going to make readers of that genre very happy.  My novel about a spiritual guy will not get me any New Age followers.  I write what I write because I can’t write anything normal, apparently.

For the background of my stories I only have my own dysfunctional upbringing to draw upon.  That is why my stories are full of strange, disconnected, and deluded characters.  It’s what I know.  I can’t write normal characters or interactions.  I couldn’t correctly portray normal, connected, mentally healthy human beings if I tried.

Why do I attempt to be humorous?  Because it is the best I have to offer.  I have always been funny to some people, who took my general cluelessness, wild imaginings, and hare-brained ideas as jokes.  At least temporarily, there could be a kind of connection.  My protagonists, emotionally distant but seeking connection and meaning, those clueless characters are me, bumbling along cluelessly or charging around recklessly, they are me.