Life is weird. And you're to thank for it.
Let me tell you a story.
Sometimes, people think that it’s the role of the author to change the lives of their readers. That we’re meant to inspire, to leave stories and characters that linger. And it’s true. But it can also go both ways in very, very unexpected ways.
Let me tell you a story.
This one isn’t about villains and heroes, though it is about love and loss.
It’s about how you—all of you—changed my life.
Volition
I’ve spent the past decade of my life working in game design in one form or another. Either as a creative director for “immersive media” (think escape rooms on crack), or more recently in the more formal world of video games.
I was the Chief of Staff, and one of the design studio managers, for a company called Volition, makers of games like Saint’s Row and Red Faction. My job revolved around a combination of project management, staff management, and business-y-type-stuff. I loved it. I adored it. While the work wasn’t always engrossing, it was a role of service to those around me. And I loved the people I worked with. Many of them became life-long friends of mine. The kind of connection you make with people that feels like magic that could only work in a piece of fiction, until it happens to you.
Hopefully, you’ve experienced that magic for yourself.
Meanwhile, on the side, through multiple producer-y, project-management-y, and semi-design-y roles, I wrote books. Romance novels, of all things. I spun the tales that lurked in the back of my mind, hoping to get them out of my head and onto the page. Joke’s on me, though—in the vacuum left by the previous jackass, more of these assholes just keep popping up.
This is how you know me. As a writer of dark fantasy, romance, occult horror, and sexy villains. But you must understand that this part of my life was never really part of my day-to-day identity. I clocked in, had meetings, talked about how to manage the next set of projects, and clocked out.
That was, until Volition was permanently closed on August 30th, 2023.
And everything that I loved about that job was taken away from me because of the poor business decisions of some muckity-mucks in Sweden. We learned their lesson for them, and a thirty-year company was shuttered.
I still grieve its loss, if you can’t tell. I miss working with the people I loved. I thought that I would have to drift off into some other project management job and have to do the same grind that I was accustomed to.
Deus-Ex Warframe
The truly unexpected happened. The kind of shit that if I wrote it into a book, they’d call me a terrible writer.
Out of the blue I was contacted by a prominent Creative Director for a very popular video game, called Warframe, at a company called Digital Extremes. She was curious if I would be interested in writing for her, full time.
As a day job.
Me.
Writing.
As a day job.
To pay the bills.
LMAO.
You have to understand how much of a paradigm shift that caused in my head. I don’t think of myself as a writer—I really don’t—it’s just a thing I do as a hobby. I’m a moron who works in game design. I don’t write for a living, that’s ridiculous.
But I said yes.
And here I am. Doing exactly that.
Do you know how she knew to contact me? Because she was a fan of my books. She has read twenty-five or so, and wanted to bring me on because she…likes what I do. And believed I could do it.
Here was my hobby, become reality. Here was something I thought was a pipe dream, something I’d never be able to do to pay the bills, as my actual job.
I’m a writer.
It’s what I do.
Officially.
Fuck.
And it’s all because of you. Without readers, without people following along and enjoying my stories, I would’ve given up long ago. I would have abandoned this silly quest and gone on to some other pipedream.
So, if you’re reading this, chances are you’re a fan of my work. (I don’t know why you’d be here otherwise, honestly.) I can do this because of you.
If you weren’t there, I’d never have wound up in the hands of someone who could change my life.
If it wasn’t for you, these stories wouldn’t exist.
You have changed my life.
You have altered its course and made a dream come true.
So, this is for you:
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
