Hi. My name’s James and I’m addicted to story. It started innocently enough, just a few movies at friends’ houses, books at school, getting the harder stuff from my older sisters and their boyfriends. Once I was hooked, I couldn’t get enough. I needed more, and in purer form and higher quantities. Soon I was on to whole book series and the seemingly endless RPG titles. It wasn’t enough to simply watch a movie anymore, I needed to know everything about it: minor characters’ names who weren’t even mentioned in the film, production notes, and trivia. Oh my, the trivia.
This is when I started dealing my own stuff. Nothing big, but enough to support my habit and that of my story junky friends. I shared fan fiction with fellow nerds, I invented boardgames, I added my own voiceover to MST3K, made movies on the family camcorder… I created, and it felt good.
Then I had what every veteran writer will identify as the “gateway thought” — not merely away from the innocent-enough world of story, but into parallel universes, into painfully deep philosophic thought, the kind that turns a dreamer into a cynic. I thought, “These stories should be better, I can do better.”
I know there are other people out there, like me, addicted to story, who make their living off writing — whole cartels dedicated to story and story production — and soon, they shall know my name.
Oh, and sometimes I tweet: Follow @JamesSchannep
Author James Schannep 