As a novelist, I am prone to obsessions. These are what I call “creative outbursts.” And as strange or off-putting as my creative outbursts may be to my family and friends, I’ve learned to follow them. ... So yeah, I’ve learned to follow my creative outbursts, even if that means spending my hard-earned PTO at a UFO conference in Houston, which is what I did last weekend. This wasn’t just any old tin foil hat convention at a Hampton Inn; this was “The Archives of the Impossible!” hosted by Houston’s brainy little jewel, Rice University. The speaker list had more...