Craig P Miller

Human beings are so changeable. While it's a myth that the entire body renews itself every seven years, guts cells renew every four to five days, skin cells every two to four weeks, red blood cells every three to four months and bone cells can take up to ten years to renew. Of course, for better or worse, many neurons in the brain are with you from birth to death. So, looking at a picture of myself from a few years ago, can I really say that's me?

My long-term neurons tell me that these pictures are of me, but they also say that the two caricatures, too. What about that historical doppelganger? A brief glance would say that I am John Dalton, too, even though my long-term neurons would deny it. But they also deny the little cutie with the blond curls. I have no recollection of me when I was crawling around the back yard. Is it really me? Maybe.

Before labeling myself as an author, I labeled myself as a farm labourer, a cleaner at an abattoir, a salesman, a radio announcer-voice-over artist, a storeman, a videotape operator, a video tape editor and a CGI artist and teacher. While interesting, most of those descriptions miss out on the more important parts of being me. I'm a son, and a brother, and I've been a boyfriend and a husband, too. Not sure that covers everything either. At the moment, I'm a son and carer for my one hundred-year-old mother. (I must be doing something right.) but all these roles overlay, and too often, stifle the homunculus that observes and absorbs everything of note.

So, am I just memories? Was my infantile homunculus tabula rasa? A blank slate that sensory impression are recorded upon? Maybe a little more than completely blank. Humans are filled with potential, and instincts beyond holding tight to mummy, and suckling. Those long-term neurons are reinforced and strengthened by a combination of nature and nurture. Some memories imprint because of repetition. Mind and muscle synchronise. Some Memories imprint because of the intensity of the moment. Meanwhile, the mundane flow of one day into the next accumulate like geological layers of silt.

So, will the real Craig Miller please stand up?

That being said, my unreliable memory can tell you a few things.
After living in Aotearoa - New Zealand for thirty-five years I have returned to the great west island - Australia. Between writing, plotting, revising, and more writing I've been my mother's primary carer. She turned one hundred earlier this year - 2025 - so I must be doing something right.

If my soggy gap-riddle memory serves me correctly, the first science fiction book I read was "Red Planet" by Robert Heinlein. Hartwell primary school had few science fiction novels, so I devoured all the myths, legends and fairy stories. From there, my little addiction led me to spend my lunch money on a tram trip into Camberwell and the municipal library. I was in heaven!

I made several not-really-serious attempts to write, half-filling various note pads with my artless, inarticulate, chicken scratchings. How were books written before typewriters? I know I couldn't marshal my thoughts into a half-coherent narrative until the PC age. Even so, it took me years to bring "Freya's Flight" forth.