From the “you thought we forgot” files…

Abel G. Peña is the author of numerous Star Wars projects, including “History of the Mandalorians” (Star Wars Insider #80), “Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties” (StarWars.com), “The Dark Forces Saga” (Wizards.com), Vader: The Ultimate Guide, and the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide.  He writes the StarWars.com VIP blog Only Sith Deal In Absolutes! (http://blogs.starwars.com/abelgpena) and maintains his own personal website at www.abelgpena.com.

Read our interview with Peña after the jump…

You’re known for not only contributing swaths of new “Easter eggs” or “nuggets” of continuity to the universe, but also for fleshing out numerous backgrounds and details of already-established people, places and things: Maarek Stele, Sarcev Quest, the Azur-Jamins, Darth Ruin, Iron Knights, Cularin system, and two of my personal favorites Lumiya and Cronal. While your contributions may not be as “widely read” as others, you have certainly gathered a large gathering of fans. To what do you attribute your success in this area and why do fans latch onto you as they do?
I attribute my successful infiltration of various parts of the Star Wars universe to a few things.  First, and perhaps foremost, I’m simply thoroughly familiar with the gamut of Star Wars lore—new and old, different media, the good, the bad, and the Hutt pornography.  That means that I have a wider spectrum from which to plum ideas for expatiation—some of which are, we could say, “hidden” in the ultraviolet and infrared ranges.  Secondly, I worship at the altar of imagination.  I idolize uniqueness of thought, uniqueness of mental and emotional expression.  So I try to take these “hidden” ideas and develop them in ways that are interesting to me.  I have a strong craving to behold unconventional creations.  As science fantasy, Star Wars lends itself broadly to the conceivable execution of the logically impossible.  Robot warlocks?  Check.  Genetics terrorists?  Check.  Solipsistic necromancers?  Check.  If no one else will permutate these radical, even silly, ideas, then it falls to me for the sake of my own sanity and amusement.

Third, my passion for Star Wars and continuity is acute.  I can guess why that is, and my answer will be mostly a convenient fabrication.  I can safely say this much:  I’m inclined to the epic quality of the Star Wars story and I’m the kind of guy that likes both the concept of interconnectivity and a problem that looks impossible to tackle.

The concept of “the impossible” has always been intriguing to me.  I don’t, per se, believe in it.  I don’t mean simply in a New Age, positive-attitude kind of way, though that is a side effect, but in a metaphysical or epistemological sense.  As a philosophical skeptic, perhaps that’s not saying much, but openly asserting this disbelief seems to me something worth saying.  For all practical purposes, the formula for success is simple, if almost impossible to convey.  “Never give up” is as simply as anyone has ever said it.  Put another way, I believe in myself and believe the writing I do to be important.  I think many people feel this kind of instinct within themselves, but don’t always know how or feel free to manifest it.  Then when they see someone else successfully manifest it, they feel represented.  I believe that fan projection of self-identification has helped grant me a great deal of the success I’ve experienced.  This goes a good way toward explaining why the Star Wars fanbase has been drawn to my work:  I am one of them, and they sense it.

As such, I think I have a sixth sense about what hard core fans would find cool in a story.  It’s an instinct you can’t fake.  I eat, breathe, and am Star Wars.  How, or rather, why did I evolve into this figure?  I don’t know.  Star Wars just touched my life to that degree.  I think, because Star Wars fans sense that I am one of them, then I represent something other than myself:  I am the fanboy who “made it.”  They root for me because if one of us makes it, it’s as if all and any of us—so deeply wrapped up in this ridiculously powerful story that has become such a huge part of our lives for reasons we can barely fathom—can really be Luke Skywalker.

So there’s an identification by the fan, both with the work itself and with its author.  I am grateful.  I owe you everything.

What is your take on the Vergere/Jacen view of the Dark Side?
Well, I like that you capitalize “Dark Side.”  I think Matt Stover’s Traitor is the conceptual descendant of Tom Veitch’s Dark Empire.  It does what Veitch talked about wanting to do with the Force someday, the concept of “integrating the shadow.”  I think Traitor is a work of genius, and while I’ve enjoyed most of Matt Stover’s Star Wars books, that is the novel that transcended the franchise.

Do you have any plans to expand personally on the spectrum of the Force, assuming that the upcoming novels are not doing so?
I would like to say yes.  I remember at one point, before I became officially published in Star Wars, I actively jotted down quotes about the Force I came across in the various works of literature.  I have a great love for the concept of the Force, and I think there’s room for many people to expand on it.  So, I would say, yes.  I have a specific project in mind, and, with any luck, in its small way, it should offer a “larger view” of the Force.

What are your feelings about newer material coming along and changing already established canon?
My feeling is that retcons are a necessary evil.  Changing established canon is inherently disrespectful, like disturbing someone’s resting place.  But, existence being imperfect, it turns out sometimes you’ve got to dig up a dude’s bones and put them someplace else, because if they stay where they are, well, there are plans to build a skyscraper on top of them.

So, it’s a delicate procedure.  It’s a privilege for few and a right for fewer.  As “the maker,” George Lucas will always have such a right, unconditionally.  From there, the pool stays fairly shallow.  An extensive knowledge of the expanded universe, like that of Dan Wallace, or rigorous researching skills, like those of Ryder Windham, are prerequisites for the right of making such changes.  Humility and empathy are further prerequisites.  Otherwise, you might dig up the wrong guy, or move him to an even worse place.  Assuming it was an accident, you get credit for giving it your best shot, but you still f***ed up.  If you say sorry, you get extra credit … but you still f***ed up.  You moved that poor dude’s bones into a sewer and filled his old grave with manure.  You’re lucky he’s dead, because I don’t think he’d take too kindly to that.

So, my feeling is that, any changes to established canon must be taken contextually.  What is the proposed change?  What was its intention?  Was it actually trying to fix something, or was the change made out of ignorance?  Who made it?  Taken together, the answers to these questions will determine if it’s a good fix, and whether it will thereby stand the test of time.  Suppose you have a leak in your bathroom, and assume a plumber comes to your house, let’s call him Koopa Troopa the Plumber.  Using some fancy new equipment and technology to fix the leak, he does his number, and eventually leaves rather self-satisfied with your hard-earned money.  You go have a look at the job, and the new pipes look sexy.  But upon closer inspection, you notice you’ve now got not just one leak but several leaks.  Your immediate reaction might be, “Wow, didn’t see that one coming.”  Or you might say, “Hey!  You’re a koopa troopa, fool!  You ain’t no plumber!”  What I bet you don’t say as water and waste spray your bathroom walls is, “You know, this sucks, but it’s still the newest, fanciest pipe technology there is.  I’m keepin!”

Was it a hack job because the koopa troopa didn’t know what he was doing, or was it a hatchet job because he purposely wanted to mess up your pipes?  Either, both, it really doesn’t matter.  What you do is call in the Super Mario Bros. to fix that sh*t and lay some serious pipe.

To continue the above question, sometimes being the “newer material” becomes your job… what was the most difficult piece of information you’ve ever retconned for Star Wars?
The most difficult … I’ll take it you mean in terms of creativity and not morality.  That would easily be the elaborate fix I came up with for reintegrating the old lore about Fenn Shysa and the Mandalorians’ participation in the Clone Wars for History of the Mandalorians.  Truth be told, making that fix was my inspiration for proposing that project in the first place.  I’m quite proud of that one.

If you mean morally, then it would be my swapping out of Boba Fett for his daughter Ailyn Vel in the Young Jedi Knights series.  It was the lesser evil.

What is one thing that either happened or got retconned in the EU where you looked at it and just screamed a good old “NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” (NB: This can be either something you did or something someone else did.)
That’s easy.

Because of my affection for Traitor, I let out a hearty “nooooooo!” when Jacen fell to the dark side.  Luke was always my hero in the Star Wars films, and the Jacen of Traitor and the New Jedi Order series, I felt, was the Luke of the next generation, the one that was carrying our understanding of the Force toward where it must be inevitably carried and doing a fine job of it.  He was beyond light and dark, or even that nebulous term “gray.”  That kind of complexity tends to be the domain of “high literature,” though, and Star Wars is first and foremost pop lit.  Still, I personally would’ve liked to have seen Jacen remain on the good side and for his twin sister Jaina to instead fall to the dark side.  I really liked the novel Dark Journey by Elaine Cunningham and think a female Sith Lord would’ve been refreshing, especially if Jaina’s mentor would’ve been Lumiya, another female.

It’s already mind-blowing to accept that the Sith kept from killing each other for a thousand years in this borderline, Nietzschesque method of apprenticeship they created.  Yet, that’s the story.  It indicates that the Sith genuinely learned something of humility and cooperation, traits commonly deemed as being enlightened qualities.  Now imagine that it’s two women plotting to take over the universe.  It’s like saying, what if two women worked as a team of serial killers?  Sounds pretty damn scary and interesting to me, simply because I can’t think of a precedent for it.  The Sith are top of the food chain, and I’d like to see what a female master and apprentice duo can do, simply because we never have.  There’s that idea fetish.

How will The Clone Wars TV series be incorporated into the timeline and canon of other Clone Wars material (books, game, older TV series, comics, etc.)?
That’s a question more appropriate for continuity administrator Leland Chee.  For my part, I promise to do whatever I can to smooth over the rough edges.  I’m working on a project now.

Are you going to write an episode of the Clone Wars?  Are you interested in doing so?
I have no such plans, but I am enjoying that series very much, and I wouldn’t say no if offered.

If you were given carte blanche to do one thing you always wanted to do to/in/with the Expanded Universe, what would it be?
Over the years, I’ve mentioned specific projects I’d like to do, including a Mara Jade Vs. Lumiya comic and Boba Fett Vs. Fenn Shysa comic.  I’m still open to those.  However, the end-all project would be to tell the story of the Jedi Master turned Sith solipsist Darth Ruin, kicking off the era of the thousand-years-long New Sith Wars.  An ambitious project, but one I feel passionately about.

Is there any particular character from the Original Trilogy era that you want to see again/plan to return to the Expanded Universe?
Yes, actually.  I would like to know what happened to the character Domina Tagge from the Marvel Star Wars comics series.  I remember in an interview I conducted with writer Jo Duffy several years ago, she mentioned intending to bring back the character in the post-Return of the Jedi series, but that never materialized because the run was cut short.  I don’t have any major plans to bring back the character myself, but I am intrigued by her eventual fate.

Besides her, there are one or two others.

Is it possible that Halagad Ventor had some offspring hidden somewhere that survived into the post-Return of the Jedi timeframe and if so will they also look uncannily like you?
Ha!  Well, it’s possible, but I myself wouldn’t write hidden offspring into Halagad’s story.  He joined the Jedi rather late, so he might’ve cast his genes around a bit beforehand, but I think that would be a cheap way to keep myself “alive” now that Halagad’s become my Star Wars alter ego.  There are more than enough prequel-era Jedi Knights that have had children despite the ban on attachments.  Halagad can die childless.  It isn’t helpful to his story arc.

What is your personal favorite Star Wars Trilogy release—theatrical, special, or DVD?
It’s difficult to say.  It’s fascinating in and of itself that there are so many versions.  It’s easy to say the theatrical version, but if that is true, it’s not by an especially wide margin.  I respect George Lucas’ artistic prerogative in modifying the movies as he sees fit, and that plays into my opinion.  That said, I’d just be grateful if all versions remain available for research and nostalgia purposes with the caveat that the latest version indicates what George considers his (currently) definitive vision.

I guess if I could pick and choose, I would combine the DVD version of Star Wars (a.k.a. A New Hope) with the theatrical versions of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.  I’m a sucker for “Lapti Nek” and “Yub Nub.”

I don’t envy the filmmaker.  That medium can be very unforgiving.  I especially do not envy George’s task in following his instincts and tweaking such a beloved series of films.  Films can be such titanic things, with so much money involved, so many people involved, and so many things out of your control that can go wrong.  It’s so easy for all those “wrongs” to bother you indefinitely after you put it in the can.

I read a discussion once for the Star Wars Fanboy Association about Grand Admiral Thrawn’s promotion record. Was the New Essential Chronology the final answer?
I think so.  I believe Dan Wallace and I actually implemented the “secret promotion” theory regarding Thrawn as far back as the Grand Admirals piece we wrote together for Star Wars Insider.  It was the only explanation that seemed to work with the various depictions of Thrawn’s rank in different sources.  Of course, maybe Tim Zahn will come back with some kind of interesting twist on the whole thing, which, as Thrawn’s creator, is his right.

Is Lord Cronal actually Legacy of the Force’s White Eyes? I ask this with all sincerity and with the knowledge that such an answer may constitute a massive detonation of the implant LucasFilm had implanted.
I’d say it’s less likely given Cronal/Blackhole’s appearance in the novel Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, though personally I would’ve still said no even before that.  Of course, I also said it was unlikely Blackhole and Lord Shadowspawn would be one and the same after Lucasfilm rejected my original consolidation of those two.

Still, now that Cronal’s backstory has been revealed, I say let White Eyes be his own man.  Cool dictates that one man can only be shoehorned into so many roles.  White Eyes can be the new Blackhole in spirit.

Will we ever have the privilege of getting to meet Vongerella (outside of your work) and if you are allowed to say, what do you envision her activities as being post-Dark Forces Saga?
I can’t say whether Vongerella will appear in works by other Star Wars authors.  I myself have fleshed out her story considerably over the years, but whether that will ever see print is a mystery.

How much of the “day to day” LucasFilm transpiring are you aware of?  Or asked another way, do you know of stories and details that are being developed right now, or are you only brought in when they need something written?
Sometimes I’m aware of coming projects, because they affect or tie into something I’m doing, but I’m not privy to, say, what’s going to happen in the next season of the Clone Wars, or what the outcome of the Fate of the Jedi series will be.  Sometimes authors or illustrators will ask me about elements from my work, like when artist Chris Trevas asked for details about what Darth Cognus and Darth Millennial should look like so he could produce images for the Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia.  I gave specific descriptions for those characters and was greatly impressed with what he turned out, especially Millennial.  I asked him to put the symbol of the Secret Order in Millennial’s palm, as an homage to Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Chris is an outstanding artist.

How hard is it to keep track of the always-extending continuity and timeline of Star Wars? Why do some who are invited into the Expanded Universe fail at this? Why do some flourish? When something like a novel, or magazine article, or a video game gets published, how strict are the continuity checks it has to go through? Are they as stringent as say, a proofreading process for a novel/article?
Keeping track of continuity has become at once more complicated and simpler in recent years.  It’s more complicated because it’s almost impossible for one person to not only keep up with but to memorize all the important and idiosyncratic bits of new lore that are being established simultaneously across such an expansive timeline.  With major storylines now going on in the “ancient” Star Wars eras of the Knights of the Old Republic and the post-New Sith Wars, the Clone Wars, the Dark Times, the Rebellion, the New Republic, and Legacy, it’s not really something a single fan (or author) can tackle in his or her spare time anymore.

However, with the release of the Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia and the rise of Wookieepedia, we are also seeing collaboration on an unseen scale, both in terms of teamwork and between the official and fan capacities, to keep continuity simultaneously manageable and accessible.  That’s a monumental feat possible only because of the widespread degree of passion that the story of Star Wars inspires.  I mean, I love the Terminator, Aliens, and Predator franchises, Star Trek is cool too, but, to borrow a tagline, brother, there can be only one.  Star Trek was the precursor; Matrix was a neat trick, and Lord of the Rings, for a time, was king.  But Star Wars is our heart and soul.  Star Wars is legend.

So, you ask why do some Star Wars authors work well with continuity?  The first reason is a passion for what you’re doing.  That drives you to do your best and to reject morally offensive compromises.  Now, compromises are inevitable, because fighting to win every time will get you killed fairly quick—that, to me, is an empowering but simplistic philosophy employed by ye of little or no game.  To know what is morally offensive, you must know yourself and face your fears, after which you can begin to trust your instincts.

The second reason, speaking personally, is that I have a deep respect and love of humanity and ideas.  Do I think there are stupid people and stupid ideas out there?  In the right context, I couldn’t deny it.  But in this context, I will, and I deny it when I approach writing Star Wars.  I’m not a fan of every individual bit of lore established as part of the Star Wars universe, but taken as a whole, I think there is no experiment in modern storytelling so stunning as this decades-long round robin.  And in that context of respect and awe is how I approach my work and the work of every other of my inherited co-contributors to the universe.  Some contributors perhaps do the minimum of research to fulfill their contracts because it’s little more than a job.  If I believed that, I would never be writing Star Wars.  This is a legacy.

The 20 Most Memorable Moments of the Expanded Universe article that you co-authored came out about mid-2005. If you had to revise it now, would you change any in light of the new material we have gotten in that approximate three and a half year period?
Well, it’s not just my call.  My co-author on 20MMM, Enrique Guerrero, and I bounced those moments off a hard core group of Expanded Universe fans.  All I’ll say is that I would be tempted to swap out or add two other moments to that list.  The obvious one is the revelation of Darth Revan’s identity in the Knights of the Old Republic videogame.  The second is Anakin’s premonition in the cave on Nelvaan in the second season of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars micro-series.  There’s been a lot of good Expanded Universe stories since then, but I think that was the last time I experienced something in the Expanded Universe that made my jaw drop and sent chills up my spine.  I suppose that one could take the slot of Anakin Vs. Asajj Ventress’ duel, while Revan’s revelation might take out one of Traitor’s slots in the 20MMM—not Ganner’s last stand.

Perhaps Obi-Wan and Anakin’s post-Geonosis reconciliation in Karen Miller’s Wild Space is a decent honorable mention.  Miller has a beautiful facility for pushing the envelope of traditional characterization in the service of riveting emotional tension.  I greatly admire Miller’s chutzpah.  She actually made Anakin and Padme’s “my darling!” and “my love!” shtick not only believable but palatable.  She brings to bare a feminine sensitivity of Herculean proportions.  On the whole, I think Wild Space is the finest Star Wars novel since Traitor.

When the heck will Vader’s Legacy see the light of day?
Sadly, I’ve just received the official word from Lucasfilm:  Vader’s Legacy is dead as Dillinger.  That said, parts may be recycled into other projects.

I think of you as a kind of Daniel Wallace-type author, always working in the background and contributing countless intriguing and exciting additions to the mythos that sometimes flesh out areas more than entire novels can do. Would you ever consider working, as Daniel Wallace often does, on Essential Guides and other types of sourcebooks? Why/why not?

Thank you, that’s very kind.  Certainly, I would consider it.  I recently co-authored the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide, and I did that because I’ve always wanted to work in that ancient era of Star Wars.  If I am drawn to the subject matter, I would certainly be interested in writing more sourcebooks.  On the surface, The Essential Guide to the Force would’ve been an ideal project.  But I think Ryder Windham did a fantastic job with that, opening up the scope of what you can do with a Star Wars book in the Essential Guide series.

What was the most rewarding work you’ve done?
That would be my work on Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties.  That came out just about exactly the way I wanted it to, because I had plenty of time to revise and cultivate my ideas, and my editor didn’t mess with it much.  That was really a culmination of a kind of writing style that I started with my first official publication, The Emperor’s Pawns.  That was also written in the primitive pre-Wookieepedia/Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia days.  Star Wars research today is unfathomably easier.  Evil Never Dies was my love letter to Star Wars.

What’s a typical project in the life of Abel G. Peña like?  Does LucasFilm come to you with concepts/topics or do you pitch it to them?  How do you approach the writing of content in different mediums?
Well, let’s see … I’ve generally come up with the ideas for my projects.  Glaring exceptions are my work on The Story of General Grievous and the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide.  I was approached by licensee editors for those.  History of the Mandalorians, Evil Never Dies, The Dark Forces Saga, The Emperor’s Pawns, Imperial Grand Admirals … those were all proposals I put forward.  So that’s how it starts, most of the time.  I get excited about an idea, and then I pitch it to the proper editor.  That editor then runs the pitch past Lucasfilm, which green lights the idea or puts the kibosh on it.  If it’s a go, then we work out the deadline, payment, and contract, and I get to work.

By different media, I can only guess you mean writing, say, source fiction, such as for the roleplaying game and a more traditional narrative, as in a short story.  The difference is primarily in how compact the writing is.  In a traditional narrative, you take your time about things, you’re setting a mood with description, revealing character and plot through dialogue and details that seem incidental.  It’s like telling someone about something cool or funny that happened to you.  With source, however, the writing becomes much more condensed.  I liken it to writing history, where you’re just getting right to the meat of a story, but because this is fictional history, you can romanticize the rhetoric.

Do you have any upcoming projects, Star Wars or otherwise?
I do.  It’s been almost impossible to write.  I’m exaggerating, of course, but only slightly.  I pitched three ideas to my editor, one about Obi-Wan, one about Mace, and this one, which was my back up-back up.  Of course, he chose the one I least wanted to write, the one I least knew how to write.

The project seems to me a kind of rendezvous with destiny, an unspoken collusion between myself, the fans, and my editor to see this bizarre experiment in fanboyism that is my Star Wars career through to its inevitable conclusion.  For my part, I’m making the effort to rise to the occasion.  It’s been a debilitating process in a way I failed to anticipate.  But I think the end product will be acceptable.

What’s the hardest thing about your profession, and the easiest?
The hardest thing is when I disagree with edits, though that only tends to happen when an editor chooses to make considerable changes to the text and lets me find out about them only after it’s published.  The easiest thing … there really isn’t anything easy.  I guess the easiest thing is knowing that I’m doing what I love.  The craft itself isn’t easy.  Frankly, it’s frequently horrific.  Long hours, the stress of creating something stunning, and often crappy pay.  Often the only consolation is knowing that I’ve written what I felt was important and that fans have received my work with enthusiasm.  That keeps me climbing up the proverbial mountain.

If you weren’t writing Star Wars, what would you be doing? Would you be writing at all?
Yes, I believe I would.  Writing, up until this point, has not been much of a choice for me.  It is something I have felt, definitively, for the last twenty years, as something I must do.  My time as a Star Wars writer has been a kind of testing ground for the investigation of radical ideas, for the refinement of my problem-solving powers, and for poetic expression.  Star Wars has been a safe haven for me to “react” these elements.  As is the case with many writers, words are as atoms to me.

If I was not a writer, I would probably be a politician, a philosopher, or a scientist.  Those enterprises all fascinate me, just a little less than storytelling.

What are some non-Star Wars-related things that you do/are interested in?
I’m not sure how to answer this without sounding like a jerk.

I love life, alright.  There, I said it.  I’m interested in everything, and lament that life passes so quickly.  I love socializing and learning because I love ideas.  I despise bullyism, arrogance, and cowardice.  I do my best to crush these when I encounter them.

The simple answer is that I love the following:  reading, writing, traveling, working out, and people.  I am goal-driven and like achieving my ambitions.

Having started your career in the fandom, do you ever look back to the fandom for inspirations for anything you write?  Are you in the same confines as other authors are in regards to relations with the fandom?
Sure, I’m in the same confines as other authors, but look, we don’t live in a vacuum.  And the fans know it.  How many different Star Wars authors have canonized “fanon” ideas?  Wookieepedia has a lengthy page precisely dedicated to chronicling that phenomenon.

Quick story.  During the Celebration IV Star Wars convention here in Los Angeles in ‘07, I was having beers with three other Star Wars authors at a nearby bar.  At one point, I said, “You know, I only wish Mara Jade had died sooner, because then we could’ve gotten Luke and his son Ben to go on some kick-ass Lone Wolf and Cub-style adventures together.  How cool would that be?”  And right when I said that, I saw a bolt go through one of these authors’ eyes.  And I knew what it meant, because I’ve seen that look before.  Fast-forward to 2009 and some of the Star Wars fiction that’s coming out right now.

So, this kind of cross-fertilization of ideas goes on all the time.  It would be naive to think it doesn’t happen in other social contexts.  We’re not robots.  We’re products of our environment.

What is some advice for anyone aspiring to be the next you?  Do you think your rise out of the fandom can be replicated or just a case of “right place in the right time”?
There are at least two useful ways to answer your question.  You can choose the one you like.  The first is that, certainly, my rise out of the fandom is completely contextual.  It goes without saying its duplication is thoroughly improbable.  There is something inevitable in what I’ve become.  I am no fan, I am dynamite.

The second way to answer is to say there’s no question of its repeatability. It’s a matter of tenacity, skill, and faith, if only in yourself.  But then I have to ask, really, who would want to become this?

Who is “Abel G. Peña?”  I see the words and I don’t feel that he is me.  I am Abel, and that’s how I ask that people refer to me.  Who the f*ck is Abel G. Peña?  He is “The Philodoxer,” some character I created, a marketing tool.  He is an expression of my compromised existence.

So, you who aspire to be the next “Abel G. Peña,” is this what you want?  To be remembered, insofar as anyone will, as the ultimate Star Wars fanboy?  Surely, there are worse fates. But when you realize the sacrifices required to become this, you realize there are also better ones.

As I said, I don’t know that we can justifiably believe in the impossible, and, as such, we can never sell ourselves or our dreams short.  I will obtain mine.  I recommend you do the same.

NJOE thanks Mr. Peña for his time in completing this interview; comment on his answers on our message board.