Sam Maggs is just like any other nerd you might run into at a comic book store or a movie theatre – she just happens to get paid for it. Author of Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy, she is also a newly minted employee of Bioware (if you don’t know Bioware, then you should probably look it up – at least if you enjoy video games with mind-blowing graphics and stories, not to mention a hearty dose of cultural, racial and sexual representation).

Additionally, Maggs is a popular contributor to The Mary Sue, an online news source for all things feminist and nerdy. Does Maggs get asked for advice on how she managed to become a writer? Absolutely. "I was thinking about this the other day, because people ask me for advice all the time when I really still feel like I’m struggling to figure it out, and what’s next, and what I’m doing with my life. So I always feel kind of weird giving advice.

"But people always really want to know how to become a writer; that’s what I get asked a lot. My advice is always the same, which is the only difference between someone who wants to be a writer and a writer is just... writing. You can feel like there are a lot of hardships and things that make that difficult, but you’ve just got to do it. The cool thing about social media and Tumblr and blogs is that there are really no barriers to entry anymore. If you want to make a comic, you can make a comic. Put it on the Internet and your audience is right there. If you want to write for a blog, people are always looking for contributors. There’s a hungry audience for this stuff. You can just do it and put yourself out there – and it is really scary, and you will be terrible at it at first – but you just have to be like, that’s ok. Tomorrow will be easier; the day after that will be easier."

It’s said that one of the major differences between people who succeed and people who don’t is that successful people have failed more, and Maggs can back that up wholeheartedly. "The number of projects that I have pitched that have gone nowhere is countless. You just have to keep throwing spaghetti at the wall until something sticks, so to speak."

When she’s not occupied with her own projects, Maggs has her head down at Bioware, working as an assistant writer. "It’s exciting, because now I get to make my own video game boyfriends and girlfriends," she noted with glee. "Which is awesome. It’s the dream – really."

Did they throw her a party when she got hired? We have heard stories about legendary bashes. "Oh, God no!" she laughed. "Oh my God. I just walked in and I was like, Don’t get fired today. And that’s what I tell myself every day. So far so good."