Stories are important when you’re a kid.

I should know; I spent half my childhood glued to the TV, and the other half glued to a book. I loved them all—even the horror stories, which made me cry. But I read them anyway, because I was kind of dumb when I was younger.

Why do we like stories so much, I wonder? Well, it’s how we learn about the world. It’s how we discover what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. It’s how a kid gets to find out new ideas, new concepts that you can’t really see when you look out the window.

But mostly? I think stories are important because they’re fun. Because they make you happy. We can go on and on for ages about how they’re how we develop, mentally and emotionally, and how they help us become what we are—but in the end most children only read because they really like dragons. That’s it. It’s just a really cool thing, is all.

And you know what? That’s perfectly fine.

Because when you’re a kid, all that matters is that you have fun. Stories are a part of it. As a kid, I read books because they were fun, they made me happy, and that’s all I needed. Nowadays, I write stories because they’re fun, and they make me happy, and that’s still all I need.

A Hell of a Time was written in one go. I was still in college back then, dealing with my final exams, and my stress levels were off the charts. So, at one point, I simply sat down and started typing. Tap, tap, tap, against the keyboard—and then the story was done.

It was cathartic. I was extremely busy, extremely stressed, and sitting down to write something for myself? It was like magic.

A Hell of a Time was one of my first stories. Looking back at it now, I still had a long way to go back then. But it’s an important story for me, because of how and when I wrote it, and I hope it managed to make you smile.

Writing this story was an act of having fun for the sake of having fun, and I think sometimes we forget how important that is. Especially when we grow up—children, I’m glad to see, still have that covered.