The Power of Making Something

Felicia Day doesn't know me. She probably never will. This blog and the content I make online exist largely thanks to her.

I always had an entrepreneur's spirit. In my early twenties (almost twenty years ago), when everyone around me was playing StarCraft, I was making maps for it. When everyone wrote on forums, I wanted to start a forum.

And then, one day, Felicia came into my life through Dragon Age II. As a whole, I wasn't in love with that game as much as I loved Inquisition or Dragon Age: Origins, but I still played all of it and the DLCs that came out for it.

One of those DLCs was Mark of the Assassin, which introduced Tallis, Felicia's character.

Out of curiosity, I started Googling Felicia and discovered a lot of essays she wrote about building community locally. I don't really have citations for those anymore. But I do remember one where she wrote about renting space in a local community to create real-life events. She spoke about their importance. About the human element of making something instead of just being online.

Not that online is bad; it's just that real-life events have more impact.

That inspired me so much, and I carried that with me for years. Not because I had some grand plans to start a community, but because I wanted those human connections. Felicia talked about physical spaces, but a digital community is better than no community, so that's what I chose to build. Life is way more fun when you have someone to talk to about your latest mission in Mass Effect, or the latest book in the Cosmere. Or how shitty PlayStation is behaving now that they want to get rid of physical discs.

I kept going. First I started other blogs. Those never paid off. Then, in 2019, I started writing on Medium, which taught me a lot about publishing, but never gave me the community I wanted. I did build a community of writers called Medium Dreamers on Facebook, which is still active today. That group has 2700 members now.

In 2020, when the pandemic hit, I started a YouTube channel, which grew into a nerdy podcast that carried on without me. And now we're here, on this blog. This is my personal space where I write things like this that someone may find one day. Something in me that sounds a lot like Felicia says Keep going. So I do.

So, thank you, Felicia! You'll probably never read this, but I want you to know there are many of us you inspired over the years. You've always been such a positive light everywhere you go, and I'm sure you'll keep going so much further.

Sending love from the other side of the globe ❤️