I get by with a little help from my NaNoWriMo friends
When I started this journey I figured it would be something that I would attack on my own. A solitary expedition, tossing words on my white monitor with the efficiency and care of Jackson Pollock. But much to my surprise, I found friends. Sure the far away online writing buddies are nice, but I actually have honest to goodness, whisker growing, optimistic, supportive, go to a weekly update lunch, how you doing, my book sucks type of friends. So, here we stand together. Five brave and slightly insane video game employees, posed in our most common position, hunched over a keyboard, ready to tackle a giant.
Over the next 30 days I’m going to track our progress. Short, and I mean short updates will follow (come on, I have a lot of typing to do), that will hint at our successes and failure along the way. I feel honored to be counted among these bright men at work, but to be part of this exclusive group of Electronic Arts Novel Writers is a real pleasure. Thanks guys for joining in. Here’s a quick list of who and what.
Ryan Yokely: Finding Wayside. Ryan is a rebel and an animator. His Prius license plate even says so (ANIM8TOR). He started his book a while back and is using the NaNoWriMo as inspiration to finish. I know it goes against the pure blood tradition of NaNo, but that’s Ryan or ya. I’ve had the pleasure of reading his work to date and it’s really great. You can follow along on his blog at http://www.finding-wayside.com/.
Andy Busche: Andy started in the art world and was brought over to the dark art of game design. While new in this arena, Andy has proved that he is a brilliant thinker and a definitive problem solver. Visual, complex, funny, hardworking, creative – sounds like a writer to me. This is Andy’s first novel but I have a feeling it won’t be his last. Andy is working on a fantasy piece about self discover and human familiars, it’s a huge undertaking that will push him to tears and stretch him as both a writer and a game designer. Way to go Andy!
Loel Phelps: Loel and Andy have a lot in common. Loel also started out in art and quickly found his calling as a designer. He get’s story and character development inherently and his whimsical touch will surprise you. He also has the largest collection of t-shirts I’ve ever seen. He’s penning a YA sleuth novel and when he told us where he novel began we all went OOOOOh. That’ll work. You can follow along on his blog as well @ http://www.design7307.com/.
Mark Lorenzen: M Lo, as he is known by his friends, has such a rich and unique background that you could write an entire blog just about him. He has done it all in the games biz, from art to engineering to design and back again. He is currently a Development Manager at our EA Salt Lake office where he is the skeleton behind our entire project. He explained his main character, Fire Chicken, to us over lunch and we were all in stitches. There is nothing subtle about M Lo, which is surprise because he might be the most humble man I’ve ever met. No joke.
Me: I’m in the design world as well, Creative Director at EASL. I get to work with these guys every day in their various disciplines and that makes me a lucky and inspired man. I finished my first novel, The Heart of Oakville, about 2 weeks ago and I’m using NaNoWriMo to get a jumpstart on my second. I’m back to my genre bending mixed up emotional character stuff and I just can’t wait. The working title for my book is Imaginary Man and it well, stay tuned. I’m going to be blogging about it a lot over the next little bit.
That’s it. 3 designers, 1 animator and 1DM, from EA all set out on the same goal. I bet our success rate will be much higher than the national average because, well, this is what we do. We mine creativity out of the thin air everyday in our daily jobs and working long hours is as comfy as a Snuggy and a cup of hot cocoa to us. All I got left to say is – Bring it NaNoWriMo.
