Raeshelle Rose

In kindergarten, I read at a third grade level. Not because I had to, but because my love of reading was so great. I was enraptured by the stories told and it was then that I realized that I wanted to make my own stories.

I wanted to be a novelist.

It started with fanfiction. Let's just say that my eleven year old self was in love with a certain anime character. I've since deleted all record of those stories, but the fanfiction community and the writing itself made me a better writer. And it also made me love anime and Japanese culture even more.

I wanted to be a mangaka.

I then realized that I wasn't Japanese, so I wanted to make comic books. It turns out that I'm not the best artist and for a while, I didn't know what I wanted to be.

My father formally introduced me to video games around age twelve. I thought they were a horrible waste of time, but I went along with it.

Games weren't that bad.

It wasn't until I played BioWare's Dragon Age Origins when I was thirteen that I was completely swept off my feet by the amount of storytelling and seemingly endless possibilities.

It had a huge impact on me. Dragon Age made me feel important and loved at a time where it seemed like the world hated me. I felt like the ultimate champion against the demons of my depression. I felt that I could be myself in the world of Thedas and for that, I am eternally grateful.

But, I wasn't sure if I could make games.

I'd never heard of a woman making games before. I wasn't even sure how I could learn to make games, so it sat as an unreachable possibility for a time while I was encouraged to find a "real job".

Despite it all, I still wanted to be a game designer.

I wanted to craft a story that would have just as much of an impact on someone else as Dragon Age had on me.

So here I am, at age eighteen, about to graduate high school and begin studying game design at college.

I couldn't be happier. My lifelong love of storytelling drove me to a new found passion.

So, I made a blog for others that love storytelling just as much as I do. I named it "Nom de Bloom" after the phrase nom de plume and Shakespeare's famous "a rose by any other name... "

It's also a semi pun on my last name, Rose.

I like puns.

Stay Curious,

Rae