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FAQ
Where has your Star Wars work appeared?
My official Star Wars work has appeared in a lot of publications, including Vader: The Ultimate Guide,
The Official Star Wars Website, Star Wars Insider, Dungeon/Polyhedron Magazine, The Official Wizards of the Coast Website, Star Wars Gamer, and The Official Star Wars Fact Files.
What books/novels have you written?
I was one of several authors commissioned for Vader: The Ultimate Guide, the travel anthology Italy From a Backpack, and the e-book anthology Reach for the Stars! Award-Winning Promotional Plans To Jump Start Your Branding Career. I have also worked as a consultant on a number of Star Wars books, including the New York Times bestseller The New Essential Guide to Characters, The New Essential Chronology, and The New Essential Guide to Droids.
I'm currently writing a book of novellas and short stories, as well as my novel The Warrior’s Code, which focuses on the bodybuilding subculture in sunny Southern California.
How did you become an official Star Wars author? How can I become one?
A combination of persistence, luck, and hard work. The short version of the story is that in the year 2000 the magazine Star Wars Gamer was soliciting writers via its website when it was first going into publication; I pitched something and was rejected. I followed up this rejection with another pitch that was accepted. From then on, I used my Star Wars publishing credit as leverage to get more Star Wars work, ad infinitum.
This summary does zero justice to the real struggle of publishing professionally. Here’s the truth: I’ve been writing creatively since I was at least six years old. Before becoming an “official” Star Wars writer, I’d written dozens of stories and poems, published a couple things in my high school newspaper, attempted two novels (and failed), made clumsy, naïve and unprofessional pitches and submissions to several publications, wrote fan fiction, essays, and editorials for several popular Star Wars websites for several years, and finally got something (a poem) published in a local literary journal. Then I got rejected by Star Wars Gamer, then I got my next pitch accepted. And this was actually less of a struggle than the average writer goes through in order to get published.
My best advice for becoming a Star Wars author: just get published first. Anywhere and as often as possible. Local newspapers, high school and college newspapers, small-run literary journals, fansites, your own website and blogs. This means writing a lot and submitting a lot. That also means investing a lot of time and effort aside from whatever obligations you already have (job, family, school) and a lot of rejections. It’s hard work and can really fuck with your ego and self-esteem.
So you better love to write or be a masochist, and preferably both.
Is that really your back in that photo? Is it photoshopped?
Yes, it is my back, and no, it isn’t photoshopped. It is some of the best lighting I’ve ever posed in, though.
Who the hell is Halagad Ventor? Why does he look like you?
Halagad Ventor has become my Star Wars alter ego. He was originally a character introduced in the roleplaying module Domain of Evil by Jim Bambra. When I first got onto the Internet in the late 90s, I adopted his name as my AOL screenname and have used it ever since. As a joke and tribute, Joe Corroney, who often illustrates my Star Wars work, collaborated with my friend and co-author Dan Wallace to make Halagad’s official likeness in my image.
For more details of Halagad's exploits, go here.
What is a philodoxer?
The word philodoxer was coined by the Greek philosopher Plato, who used it negatively. The word shares the root "philos" (which means "love") with philosopher. However,
whereas "sophia" stands for "wisdom" (making philosopher literally translate as "lover of wisdom"), "doxa" means "opinion" or "belief" (making philodoxer translate literally as
"lover of opinion").
Because wisdom is regarded as representative of actual knowledge, while opinions can be held whether a person has the facts straight or not, Plato presented
philodoxy as philosophy's antithesis, rooted in irrationality instead of reason. However, by the the time I was through with my formal philosophical studies, I'd come to think
of the two concepts as having far more in common than most philosophers will admit. I named my columns "The Philodoxer" as an homage and jab at good ol' Plato.
What is solipsism?
Solipsism is a concept popularized after the philosopher and mathematician René Descartes "proved" in his Meditations on First Philosophy that he ("I") definitely existed
because he was capable of thought, famously summarized in the phrase, "I think therefore I am."
However, while Descartes wanted to use this conclusion as a starting point toward
proving the existence of God, many believed Descartes failed in his ultimate task and really only succeeded in proving that he himself existed. Ironically, the arguments Descartes
used in his Meditations were taken alone to create an impossible yet superficially attractive concept called solipsism, which goes something like this: if I can only prove that I exist,
then obviously I am all that certainly exists. Paradoxically, if you arrive at this same conclusion and you are anyone other than Descartes, the concept becomes absurd.
The subtitling of one of my columns as a "Solipsism Edition" is an elaboration on my "philodoxer" joke (see above).
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