Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm an inveterate collector of... well, everything, it seems sometimes! But one person put it best when they said what I really have is a collection of collections. I liked that; it was accurate and succinct and easier to say than admit all of the miscellanea I have gathered in my travels. I'd never considered much of what I collected to be of any great value, but each addition to my various collections always made me smile, so that result made the collecting worthwhile. It was as I was adding to one of my many collections this weekend that I realized I did have one collection I'd never even thought about - and it is my most valuable one of all...

Each year at Gallifrey convention, we get a rotating group of the Doctor Who novelists and writers. About three or four return virtually every year and I consider them dear friends. They are accompanied by an ever-changing group of about another five or six different writers at a time who seem to cycle through each few years. And in that time they release new books which I collect and read and by the time they return to the convention, I have a new stack of books to get signed. And that's always good fun - both the reading and the getting-signed part. But I seem to have developed a behavior that I didn't really recognize until this year - each year that I have the time, I try to get to know at least one or two of the writers that I hadn't previously spent time with. Sometimes that means stopping to chat in the hallway between panels, sometimes sitting with them at signings, sometimes going out to a meal with them. When it happened yet again this year, it suddenly occurred to me - I have a new collection: I collect Writers That I Know.

Now, this does make sense, WriterGroupie that I am. I really do think it's the coolest thing in the world to be able to walk into a bookstore, or sit down in front of the TV and see the words "Written By" and be able to smile and say, I KNOW that person! Hurray! To some it might seem like name-dropping, but that's not it. It's the fact that I can connect this creation that I enjoy (be it book or TV episode or play) with someone who I've met, talked to and perhaps have a special memory of a conversation or moment experienced with that person. I just think that's the coolest thing in the world. Because of course, I think writers are the world's true magicians - they can make anything happen with the right combination of words. It's a skill I continue to aspire to, but in the meantime, I continue to enjoy the opportunity to read someone's words or listen to an actor perform them and say, hey, that's a Writer I Know. And that's a collection that's simply priceless.