On the Fall of Legends and 2016

I'm writing this as I hastily get ready to attend a New Year's party so, you'll need to forgive me if there are any grammatical errors. For those who know I literally just finished my second round (and the third round over all with Anthony's input) of edits to Q-16 and the Lord of the Unfinished Tower. I felt I needed to say something regarding the things that I learned this year and the lessons I hope all of us will carry forward into 2017.

We've lost many icons this year, people that many of you reading this grew up with as did I myself. It seems as though a third of the stars has literally been swept from the heavens and Armageddon could be at our door but I want to point out something. They gave us bodies of work that are here with us long after to enjoy. Be it literature, films, music or inventions, these people aspired to leave something behind. And here is the challenge I have for you. Aim to do the same. Not all of us are obviously going to achieve stardom in our lives but we can do one thing and that is be a hero for someone who needs it. This can come in something as small as the form of a kind word. If you are artistically inclined, then show it. Don't hide it. That song, story or script you write can inspire someone else down the line and so on just like the icons we lost did for us.

Many have asked me where Q-16 came from and why it was described in the way it is. The description is a metaphor for the way I as a millennial felt going out into the world after school. Someone going into something so vast and mysterious that I barely understood. An inheritance from a previous generation that I had no idea how to pick up, how to use. The thing I learned is that I couldn't look at how the previous generation did it, that I had to define myself as my own person and this, if you haven't gotten this far dear reader, is the same wisdom I give to you.

Together, let us move into 2017 to bring around the birth of new icons, new stories, new art, new heroes for us to look up to and in the course of it all remember that sometimes the people worth looking up to the most could be hiding just around the corner from you.

Well, that was a hefty rant! Unknown's bane look at the time too! I should get going, but before I do, I wish all of you an amazing, awesome New Year. Let's show 2017 what we are made of!