This was an article I wrote to describe the experience of coming up with the idea for Sled Storm, developing it into a full concept and then "selling" it to the EA executive team in order to get funding ($1.5 million) to make it.

If the article reads like one big brag sheet, it's because my ego was really big back then. I had just resigned from EA and felt unrewarded for Sled Storm's success, so writing this article was my catharsis. I'd write this article differently today.

Read the article.

For two years I was the editor of The Outlet, a small quarterly newsletter funded by the Pleasantise Community Association. Pleasantside residents wrote articles, I edited them, layed them out, and got the whole works printed.

The Outlet has been around for almost thirty years, so when I took it over (after growing up reading it), I felt a great deal of responsibility to do it right. I completely overhauled it, implementing standards and raising quality to new levels.

A friend of mine was the Marketing Manager for this EA Sports videogame product. She knew I could write well, so when she got stuck trying to craft the main marketing tagline for the back of the FIFA box, she called me.

This small blurb had to combine EA Sports' branding message ("Think you're the best? Prove it.") with the FIFA product message (Soccer is a religion). Overt religious references aren't safely mixed with soccer, so this was a tough one.

View the box.

My friend Patrick was the editor of the Simon Fraser University student newspaper, The Peak. While he was going to SFU, I was working at EA - meaning I still needed somewhere to write!

I wrote only one article for The Peak (a mediocre Opinion piece on corporate sponsorship of public venues) but it was a good experience. The article itself was written in about two hours, while Pat looked over my shoulder. Reading it now is embarassing.

Read the article.

The Phoenix was the student newspaper at Port Moody Senior High School. While it had a short tradition of winning awards, it won none while I was there. I wrote and edited for The Phoenix during my stint in Journalism 12.

None of my work was any good, but it was nice to keep in touch with the newspaper life. One of the girls who worked on The Phoenix was an arch-enemy of mine. She went on to become a TV news anchor in Victoria. Argh.