The year was 1990. I’d taken a leave of absence from work, and moved from New Jersey to Virginia, to a little town where no one I knew lived and only one or two people I knew had even heard of. (I’ll tell that whole story later.) I’d been in Ashland for a few months, living on savings and nothing else, while working on my first book.

Suddenly: crisis.

Oh, no: This wasn’t the sort of crisis which threatened life or even limb. Governments would not stand or fall depending on the outcome; there was no weeping or gnashing of teeth involved. (Well, perhaps a little gnashing of teeth. But all of that was highly localized.) No, it was just the late 20th-century WASP preoccupation which loomed as every calendar year rolled, inexorably, to its end: What in the hell was I going to get everybody for Christmas?

I couldn’t afford to buy anything. I had no handicraft skills. (There would be no handknit scarves, no lathe-turned lamps.) And although I’d moved several hours away from everyone in my family, I’d moved only several hours away: it wasn’t like I could count on my simple, y’know, being there to be gift enough to assuage my conscience.

When it got right down to it, in fact, unless my family wanted databases built or COBOL, Fortran, or C programs written, I had absolutely nothing to give them.

But, hmm, I could write a little…
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