A (New) New Beginning

I have fiercely resisted blogging for many years now. I guess I’ve made three or four half-hearted attempts at it, but I’ve just never been able to wrap my head around the thought of people paying attention to, or really even remotely caring about, what I do with my days.

I still can’t. My days are either boring, or cannot be discussed thanks to non-disclosure agreements, or involve personal stuff that I wouldn’t discuss in a public forum anyway. In truth, most of my working hours consist of short bursts of machine-gun typing interspersed with long stretches of staring out the window. A reality star in the making I am not.

BUT...just recently I got an e-mail from a fellow named Romeal Watson. (That’s pronounced “Ra-mel,” for those of you who, like me, weren’t sure.) Romeal had just finished playing the video game PROTOTYPE 2, and saw that I was credited as writing the story and script. He looked me up and asked, very politely, if he might throw a few questions my way, as he was interested in maybe getting into writing for video games.

So I wrote back and said, “Sure, I’m always up for some friendly brain-picking,” and off we went. He asked a lot of intelligent questions, I did my best to answer them, and over the course of several back-and-forths a good time was had by all.

But then Romeal made a comment that threw me a little. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I didn’t really think you’d write back to me at all, much less give me as much information as you did.” He went on to say that there were tons of people out there who would love to be able to ask questions of a working writer who comes across as laid-back and humble as I do. (There’s where I had him fooled -- I’m neither laid-back nor humble, just dull.)

And it hit me: that’s what I could do a blog about. I’ve been writing for a little better than two decades now, and have lived through a lot of experiences and lessons, some great, some painful.  (Some VERY painful.) If I could share part of what I went through, and maybe help out somebody else who’s treading the same path I did, why shouldn’t I do that? Whywouldn’t I do that?

So here’s what I intend to do: several times a week, starting way back at the beginning of my career, I’m going to write about how I got where I am today -- OR, if somebody has asked a question, I’ll try my hardest to provide a good answer. There may even be some amusing anecdotes thrown in here and there, though probably not too amusing, thanks to the libel laws.

I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’d be a pretentious douchebag if I did. But I am a guy who earns a living by making crap up and getting paid for it, so, if you think I might know something you’d like to know, just sing out.

-- Dan