"I'm interested. Send me a 1,500 to 3,000 word article with RPG stats..."

Reading those words in a response e-mail to my initial query of ideas for Star Wars Gamer was not something I ever really thought would happen. It's not that I felt that I didn't deserve the honor of contributing EU-based articles to official LFL publications. I mean, part of the reason I spent countless hours reading all the Star Wars books, comics, West End Game RPG reference materials, and video game player's guides instead of partaking in "normal" social activities for a sixteen-year old, was to prepare myself for just such an oppurtunity as the Gamer gave me.

But I didn't think I'd ever actually be able to achieve physically getting into that coveted Outer Circle of Star Wars Writers. You get so used to sitting outside that roped barrier. When it came down and LFL nodded in my direction that I had been allowed passage.. I don't know. I really felt like a Knight that had been commissioned into the Round Table. As I walked alone through those "halls" of Star Wars "Camelot" to take my place, it was all there: the glowing-white windows with sun beams pouring through.. the flock of white doves in the rafters.. I saw the doors to King Arthur's private part of the castle.. and of course there was the unseen female sopranos singing their crescendo--

Reality. I had an assignment and a deadline, and I wasn't going to let my surroundings overwhelm me. I was a Star Wars writer now, and I had work to do. Afterall, I knew my subject matter (Wraith Squadron) and I had one of Star Wars finest artists (that being J Corroney) as a tag team partner. So I had really nothing to worry about for my debut.

The article was two parts: history (or background) and gaming stats. I focused on the background info first because it made me confident. And the more confidence I built the more natural everything would flow (and I would feel). One of Wraith Squadron's challenges was that nearly every character was original. Only Wedge and Janson were hold-overs from the more noted Rogue Squadron and Episode V. So one thing I wanted the text portion of the article to accomplish was to give readers a nice reference guide that they could have as they read the books. Or if they had already read the books, then my article would act as a Wraith Squad Cliff Notes.

Wraith Squadron's info was more or less confined to the three books of the X-wing series, so research wasn't that bad. I did do a lot of re-reading paying much more attention to the character's stories. I wanted to give an overview of the character, without giving away any key story information. I wanted to give the reader a clear sense of why each character was in Wraith Squadron to begin with. Unlike Rogue Squadron, numbers and callsigns weren't important. In this way, the Wraiths were much more real than most military squadrons.

So the research went grand. I didn't have any oppurtunity to really add my own fingerprint in this article (as I did for my second official Star Wars article--which will be an upcoming blog entry). I didn't want to anyway. The authour of the Wraith books, Aaron Allston, had created a very special group of Rebel pilots and I didn't want to muck up the waters. But as with any project of this sort, there's always one snag in the fibers. In this case, her name was Shalla Nelprin...

This ends Part I. In Part II, you'll learn how Shalla "introduced" me to her creatour, and adding the !BAM! to the article.