After dropping out of grad school to write full time for a year, I decided to apply to Bungie on the strength of my writing portfolio and my work on the Blue Planet mod for FreeSpace Open. During my interview I was asked a question of philosophy - I won't spoil it (I'm ginger about breaching The Mystery), but it required me to identify an item that had value in three distinct psychological categories.

In the weeks before my interview, my partner wrote to her father, who used to play Marathon with Louis Wu. He'd kept his old Marathon tshirts out of sentimental value, and he shipped one out to me along with a good luck note. My partner, who's a sartorial genius, retailored the shirt for my Adonis-like physique, and I ended up wearing it under my traditional flannel to the interview.

Return to the moment of the fateful question: I sat in terrified paralysis for a moment, then tried a response using (I shit you not) the novel Twilight as an example. Sensing immediate disaster, I floundered, cast about -

- realized that the SHIRT fit! I leapt up out of my chair, ripped off my flannel overshirt, and, thumping the Marathon logo at my breast, cried "It's here! I have it!"

Needless to say, I got the job, and I'll be puttering off to Seattle to work at Bungie as a writer. Thanks to everyone on HBO for our intermittent but ferocious story discussions - it's been a blast. I should probably go say hi over on DBO, since I suspect a bunch of regulars have jumped ship.

*Louis Wu cannot get you a job writing for Destiny, don't bug him