George Ivanoff guest blogs on Gamers' Quest!

Hello to all the readers of Wired 4 Teens. Thanks for letting me be your guest blogger today. For those of you who don’t know me from a bar a soap, I’m the author of the new teen novel, Gamers’ Quest. It’s a science fiction book with a healthy dose of fantasy elements (dragons, mages, that sort of thing) and a computer gaming story. Anyway, I thought I’d start the blog off with a little bit about how I came to write Gamers’ Quest.

It actually began as a short story, ‘Game Plan’, which was published in Trust Me! (Ford Street Publishing, 2008), an anthology edited by Paul Collins. I was inspired to write the story by a documentary about online gaming, which showed how people all over the world were immersing themselves in fantasy games to the detriment of their real lives, which they considered boring. I wanted to turn this around and ask: If a person lived in a fantastical world full of exotic dangers, what sort of computer games would s/he play?

It was only after fellow author, Meredith Costain, suggested that it would make a good basis for a novel that I stopped to think about it. And once I did stop to think about it, there was no turning back — the characters and the environment seemed well suited to a longer story.

Okay, now that the intro is out of the way, I can get to answering some of the questions that you guys sent in.

Who is your favourite author, and what books have you read lately that you liked?

My favourite authors include Carole Wilkinson, Richard Harland, Terry Dowling and John Christopher. I’ve read a lot of really good books this year. Here’s my top 5 teen books for 2009:

5. It’s Yr Life by Tempany Deckert & Tristan Bancks
4. The Slightly Skewed Life of Toby Chrysler by Paul Collins
3. Vulture’s Gate by Kirsty Murray
2. The Loblolly Boy by James Norcliffe
1. Worldshaker by Richard Harland — Actually, this book has shot into my all-time top 10!

And I’ve just started reading The Whale’s Tale by Edwina Harvey. I’m only one chapter into it, but it’s hooked me.

How long does it take to write a book?

It really depends on the book. Gamers’ Quest took about three months to write and then another few months of re-writing as it went back and forth between my publisher, my editor and me. All up there were eight drafts.

Will there be a sequel or any other books written in this world?

I planned Gamers’ Quest as a stand-alone novel. But after I finished it, I ended up writing a couple of short stories, using the characters and the world, for the book’s website. I enjoyed revisiting the characters so much that I’m now thinking about writing some more stories for the website. I don’t have any plans for a sequel to the novel… but who knows, if I get a good enough idea I may end up writing one. But for the moment, I’ve got other projects I’m working on.

Okay… that’s it for the questions.

Now, there’s just one other thing I wanted to say. The work doesn’t finish when the book is published. In fact there seems to be even more work in promoting the book than there is in writing it. I’ve put together a website for the book http://www.gamersquestbook.com and had a computer animated trailer put up on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCC-l34Fgo ; I’ve started using FaceBook and Twitter; I’ve been doing book signings and interviews, and other things like this blog — all so that people will know that I and my book exist. So, if you’ve got a spare moment or two, check out the website and the trailer. And if you’ve read the book, drop me an email and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading my guest ramblings today. :)

George

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