Scott Lochmueller: “It's also kind of a world immersion thing – when I arrange them, I can picture myself in the world they represent.”

Scott Lochmueller lives in Columbia. He spoke with the Missouri on Mic team at a pop-up event at Paquin Tower in March.

Scott loves creative worlds – whether of his own or someone else’ creation. He spoke about his love of fantasy, collecting action figures and writing.

Scott Lochmueller: When I was about five – this was quite a while ago now – I was at the grocery store with my mom, and there was like a small toy display, and I saw something I wanted – it was an old Ninja Turtles action figure.

I said, “Hey, Mom, can I get that?” And I was expecting her to say “No,” but she said, “Yeah,” and she got it for me, and I was so happy. That's one of my favorite memories of my mom. She's very good to us kids. She was a very sweet woman.

Even today, I actually do have toy collecting as a hobby.

I've always been a little fidgety with my hands, and when I was growing up – I don't think that was quite as recognized as it is now because a lot of people have like little fidget toys and such to carry around with them. That wasn't really a thing back in the 90s.

So, I just kind of kept collecting action figures, mechanical things and would play with them with my hands to keep my hands occupied, and I also liked the storytelling aspect, you know, fantastical characters from fantastical worlds having a piece of that.

It's also kind of a world immersion thing where – when I arrange them, it's like I can picture myself in the world they represent.

Lately, I've been doing some creative writing. I've been trying to do that on and off for a few years, and I just got back into it. I’ve never published anything. It’s just something I like to do.

I like to read. I like to learn about the world. I like to follow the news. I like to learn about religious and political issues. Those kinds of things.

So, without going too far into – it's just kind of a kind of a science fiction for young teens about someone who is kind of recruited into sort of a superhero organization and what that involves and learning that life – going to different areas.

So, it's just kind of an adventure action kind of thing.

You know, it's a project I've been trying to do on and off for a long time. So, I've had a lot of false starts, and recently, I've been getting a bit more traction with it.

So, I enjoy sitting down with it – working through the details of the world and the characters.

It's a lot of brain work, because like, “Well, where did they go next? What do they find when they get there? What do they do about it?”

You know? And you kind of have a basic idea of what that should involve, but when you get into it, there's all kinds of little details you have to work out.

So, yeah, I’m just early in the process of a restart – it’s pretty completely changed from the prior version I mentioned.

Some of the core ideas are still there, but the story direction and things are fairly different.