Somewhere in the darkness.

At lunch, I went to my usual Blimpie, had my usual tuna sandwich and sat at my usual table with my usual Living section of the AJC.

Next to me, the owner's 13-year-old nephew, whom I'd never met before, was writing down a list of commands.

"Power surge," "life surge," "water surge" ...

I asked him, after the owner sat with him (and she knows me), what he was working on.

And he told me this long, long idea he had for the mythology behind a computer game he was dreaming up. About a 13-year-old boy who's dark and quiet, who doesn't know how to talk to people, isn't very popular and has special powers that few people notice.

So I started asking him questions about his project, offering him questions about his characters and what their tasks and goals might be.

And, in the process, I told him about outlining the story, developing individual characters and knowing kinda where you want to go and kinda letting it just go there in its own time.

He asked me if I was a game designer.

"No," I said, and I hesitated. "I'm a writer."

"You mean, like novels and stories?" he asked.

"Yeah," I lied.

He told me I helped him. I told him that I didn't point out anything to him that wasn't already there.