MY STORY

Everyone has an origin story with character arcs, so here’s mine:

Played my first video game: Pokemon Crystal at age 4.
Discovered my love for writing when I was 7. We had a “Writer’s Workshop” session every day in school. Throughout the school year, I recall having dozens and dozens of short stories written.
For 6 years since that discovery, I drew my own comics, filling out endless piles of college-ruled notebooks. Stories ranged from school-life drama, romance, and my own spin on Pokemon, Magic Girl anime, etc.
At age 12, I began to make completely original stories through those comics, drawing inspiration from mostly Kingdom Hearts II and Final Fantasy. The main one I focused on became what my upcoming debut novel is today, after loads of changes and revisions. (I still have old notebooks with plans for plotting and characters, and some of the names and plot points remained.)
After browsing the wiki for Kingdom Hearts, I came across pictures of old concept art for characters, which inspired me to pursue designing character design. This, combined with the story, music, gameplay, drove my aspirations towards wanting to make video games.
At 12-13, I and some childhood friends began to write our own scripts for T.V. shows, ideas for short films, etc.
More ideas for character designs from different timelines such as medieval and ancient Greek/Roman mythology came to light. I wanted to have my comic be a series of games. And each game had a new cast of characters (I didn’t believe in making direct sequels and still don’t.), all taking place in the same universe, but different time periods. Each game would be interconnected one way or another.
At age 14, after writing so many scripts for shows, the idea of writing my game ideas into the form of a video game screenplay came to light. I wrote out the plots for six different games with six main casts and designed characters along with weapons.
Summer after my freshman year of high school in 2013, I wrote a 300+ page screenplay for the first game I had ideas for (which was also the first adaptation of my debut novel). This was done within one month. Needless to say, it was very rough. Every summer afterward, I wrote whatever was next in the series.
2015, I realized how difficult it was to break into the game industry as a character artist/designer. I ended up pursuing programming.
2018 was when my sixth game script was completed. Throughout winter breaks and other blocks of time off, I’d revisit my first script the most for revisions since it was my first completed story and I’d grown a lot as a writer since then.
In summer 2019, I discovered just how difficult it was to pitch a game idea within a company and get everything you want to be made. Most companies choose whatever is hottest in the market and is the most profitable. Other options included going indie and making the game myself, but making a JRPG-style game of a scale akin to Kingdom Hearts was unfeasible.
Adapting what I’ve written in the form of a book became a better-looking option. It was always an alternative I kept in mind and my life-goals were to end up in the game industry AND to publish something for the world to see, whether it was a game or a book or whatever.
After graduating college, I began the draft of my first book in December. I headed down the path towards my second life-goal.