A Goodreads user
asked
Andrew Rowe:
Awesome book , can't wait for the sequel :D. How did you get into writing?
Andrew Rowe
When I was in elementary school, I read the Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I also played a bunch of Dungeons and Dragons. Those inspired me to write my own little stories when I was a child.
I also got started on my earliest attempts at game development in elementary school (through a program called Unlimited Adventures, based on SSI's Gold Box D&D games).
By middle school, I was running D&D campaigns, and eventually playing in live-action role-playing games.
In college, I responded to an open call for submissions by White Wolf. I submitted a couple monster ideas which made it into one of the Scarred Lands RPG books. That helped me make a connection with White Wolf. After that, I ended up writing for their World of Warcraft tabletop RPG line.
From there, it was a jump over to working directly for Blizzard. While I wasn't in the writing department, I let them know that I'd done some writing for the setting before, and Micky Neilson tapped me to do a few writing jobs here and there. Micky was a huge inspiration and a great mentor.
I eventually decided I wanted to write full-time, so I left Blizzard and wrote a couple books. I submitted these books to agents and accrued *hundreds* of rejections.
I went back to working in the gaming industry, having failed to publish anything. But I kept writing.
I worked at a couple more companies after that. While I was at Obsidian, I finally decided I was done trying to go through the traditional agent and publisher route. I self-published Forging Divinity, and it was a great success (by first time self-published novel standards). It wasn't enough to make a living on, though, so I kept working in gaming.
Sufficiently Advanced Magic is my third published novel - but it's the eighth book I've written. It took me eight books to get to the point where I'm finally writing full-time. It hasn't been easy, but it's ultimately been very rewarding.
I also got started on my earliest attempts at game development in elementary school (through a program called Unlimited Adventures, based on SSI's Gold Box D&D games).
By middle school, I was running D&D campaigns, and eventually playing in live-action role-playing games.
In college, I responded to an open call for submissions by White Wolf. I submitted a couple monster ideas which made it into one of the Scarred Lands RPG books. That helped me make a connection with White Wolf. After that, I ended up writing for their World of Warcraft tabletop RPG line.
From there, it was a jump over to working directly for Blizzard. While I wasn't in the writing department, I let them know that I'd done some writing for the setting before, and Micky Neilson tapped me to do a few writing jobs here and there. Micky was a huge inspiration and a great mentor.
I eventually decided I wanted to write full-time, so I left Blizzard and wrote a couple books. I submitted these books to agents and accrued *hundreds* of rejections.
I went back to working in the gaming industry, having failed to publish anything. But I kept writing.
I worked at a couple more companies after that. While I was at Obsidian, I finally decided I was done trying to go through the traditional agent and publisher route. I self-published Forging Divinity, and it was a great success (by first time self-published novel standards). It wasn't enough to make a living on, though, so I kept working in gaming.
Sufficiently Advanced Magic is my third published novel - but it's the eighth book I've written. It took me eight books to get to the point where I'm finally writing full-time. It hasn't been easy, but it's ultimately been very rewarding.
More Answered Questions
Jon Brandon
asked
Andrew Rowe:
I have been reading and writing since I was a teen. Everything I have written has been poetry, microfiction, and short stories. Now, I want to do more, to expand and write a whole series of books. I know what I want to write, but not how to write it. The first chapters I have written seem, to me, shallow and underwhelming for my vision. Could you offer any advice, how did you get your own books to match your vision?
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