I would never go so far as to call myself well-known, but the one role I've played that's received any notable degree of recognition is that of website creator/staffer. The main thing I've learned about internet "fame" is that ninety percent of it comes from simply sticking around, and by those standards, I've done pretty well; a tradition I hope to continue here and via my blog.
The Unofficial New Jedi Order Homepage - my first (serious) website. Back in the summer of '99 (ah, the good ol' days...), word was starting to get around that Del Rey, having obtained the Star Wars publishing license (did I mention I'm a bit of a Star Wars fan?) from Bantam, had a big project planned called the New Jedi Order, a series of close to twenty books, written by a number of authors both new and familiar to SW, that would be released over a period of four years. I myself was just getting into the world of Star Wars, having first seen the movies during their Special Edition re-release less than two years earlier, and I was captivated by the notion of a big series, especially with the rumor that a main character was going to be killed off—something unheard of in the Bantam era. Having only just begun my exposure to the internet, as well, I thought it would be cool to make a website dedicated to the series, collecting and reporting on every little bit of info available.
UNJOH's old-school navbar
Three years and a couple hundred thousand hits later, I was still at it - the site was averaging a few hundred visitors a day, the forums were active and interesting, and I even had my own hate group! Nothing says you've made it like people dedicating part of their day to writing derogatory fiction about you. Anyway, the site went through four different homes in its lifetime - freeservers.com, members.xoom.com, unjoh.com (its own domain), and ultimately, theforce.net, aka TFN. I spent the last year of the site's run working primarily at TFN, but I'm happy to say that, alongside my "employee" Nick Hess, I kept at the NJO updates all the way through to the end of the series in October 2003. The site is still live on TFN to this day, although it's little more than an archive of all the goodness that went on. As TFN is still very much an active (and popular) website, I still hope someday to do one last reorganization of the old bird, fixing her up into the more appropriate role of a sort of New Jedi Order museum.
TheForce.Net - my relationship with TFN began as an occasional informant; sending them whatever NJO scoops happened to come my way in exchange for credit and a link in their article. In March 2001, UNJOH was recognized as their Cool Site of the Month, significantly boosting my web cred (and hit count). In June 2002, shortly after the release of Attack of the Clones, I was approached by Scott Chitwood, who co-founded TFN way back in '96, about joining up to help with the Books section. Nick and I gladly came aboard, bringing UNJOH along with us, and the site's been my Star Wars home ever since.
My first news post!
At first, I kept mostly to the Books page, doing the usual news posts much like I had at UNJOH (only now with an audience of thousands), as well as writing reviews for all the books and conducting the occasional VIP interview. Eventually I branched off into the Comics section, as well; our little group of posters essentially became TFN's Expanded Universe staff. Following that development, I began working on probably my favorite contribution to TFN's repertoire: the EU Roundtable series. Relying for the first time upon the involvement and coordination of several people instead of just myself and one or two others, I started doing Roundtables as an attempt to capture the unscripted, conversational style of shows like Politically Incorrect. The first series of four Roundtables, debuting in August and September of 2004, went exceptionally well; I managed to organize and moderate four unique and interesting chats, ranging from broad discussions to one-on-one debates, and still maintain a consistent weekly release schedule. The feature was well-received, and an open call for guests attracted over fifty interested parties from all corners of SW fandom, but things started going a lot less smoothly. Between my imminent college graduation later that year, and frequent internet connection issues, the new chats were slow in coming; when they did happen, I had trouble even making it to all of them. Nevertheless, one year to the day after the last Roundtable of Series 1 had been posted, Series 2 began going live. Even with the chats already done (only three this time, though), I still only managed to maintain a release schedule of every ten days or so. By that point, I knew better than to make any promises about future series, but I was still too much a fan of the concept to abandon it completely; rather than running groups of Roundtables all at once, I've maintained essentially an "I'll do it when it strikes me" attitude since then. Series 3 did eventually begin in March 2006, and a second chat is slated to go live in late May. Beyond that, anything can happen; at the very least, I intend to keep doing news and reviews for the site for the indefinite future.
Blogs - if you're reading this, chances are you're either a reader from one of the aforementioned websites, an acquaintance of mine, or someone who's read my blog. Like with the EU Roundtables, I've learned to avoid making definite statements about future projects whenever possible, but my goal is to do weekly posts (or columns, as I like to think of them) at either my main blog or the Star Wars-specific one hosted at Starwars.com for as long as possible. The key to being a good writer is to do it regularly, and as I said before, ninety percent of fame (or infamy, as the case may be) comes from sticking around, so if I can manage to keep at it, and build up a respectable readership, who knows where I might go from there...