It was a twenty-minute walk from my house to my elementary school, a trek I made six times a day: morning, lunchtime, and afternoon. I was an only child and a solitary sort of kid, and spent the time making up stories in my head. Some of these stories would take me day to complete, others two or three weeks. When I reached “The End,” I’d start another one.

I kept that practice up as an adult commuting from home to work; sometimes it was the only thing that kept me sane during Toronto’s gridlocked traffic. I’m not sure when I first found out that writing stories in your head wasn’t a common practice. I just believed everyone did it.

Unfortunately, none of those stories ended up on paper until 2003, when my local library was offering a 12-week Creative Writing Workshop led by Barry Dempster, an award-winning author and…