EPT
When Teamliquid announced that they were looking to expand their writing roster, I was almost unreasonably excited. I've loved Starcraft since sometime late 2009- early 2010, watching both Brood War and Starcraft II but never really diverting all my free time to the e-Sports scene until mid-2011. Originally I was planning on writing regular tournament recaps to put it in my blog, and while I did write a lot of recaps (I think I have 40-something stored on my laptop), I never ended up posting them. I'm a very critical towards my writing and everything I do, and I never felt that my writing could even hold a candle to the content regularly put out by TL.
Anyway, when the announcement came I figured "Whatever, stranger things have happened" and sent in an application, to which I received a positive response from Waxangel two-or-so weeks later. Knowing Wax' post history, I was almost sure it was some really mean joke (which actually would still be my first reaction today as well), but for some reason, someone had actually liked what I'd sent in. I was put in touch with monk, and he suggested starting my trial with writing Proleagie recaps along with Pokebunny.
With GSL starting up, there was suddenly a lot of things to write. Everyone on the TL writing roster is really dedicated and put huge amounts of work into churning out quality previews/recaps/articles, with very few benefits. But that's alright for all of them, because (I don't know about Fionn, he might just be too lazy to quit) Starcraft is their passion and they really (maybe) like the community and want to give something in return, which is really great. And although they all (I think I'm the worst) whine a lot, the job usually gets done and great, quality content is put out.
In between Proleague, GSL, the MLG showdowns, foreign tournaments and other articles (and school/work for most of us), it's really insane that a handful of writers can put out as much content as TL does on a regular basis with the level of quality that is maintained, and it's what has impressed me most so far about writing on Teamliquid. I'm not a veteran of the scene or the site for that matter, but it feels great to know that I (help others) add something to the site and the community in return for everything us Starcraft fans learn to take for granted.
Lastly, if you love Starcraft and writing - send monk or Wax a PM. There is a lot to write about, and there is still room for more dedicated writers. kollin and I came in pretty late in comparison to the other writers, but you learn how things work pretty quickly. They're a friendly bunch (except Wax, fuck that guy - he even likes RorO -.-) with a burning passion for Starcraft - and I can say with complete honesty that so far this experience has been one of the best and most entertaining experiences in my life.
But no blog of this sort is complete without a few dirty facts, so here you go:
Fionn is probably the laziest guy on the writing staff, showing up at weird times or really late because he forgot that France is not in the same timezone as Los Angeles; but that doesn't really matter because he puts out the best content out of all the writers on Teamliquid with (seemingly) no effort.
Waxangel is really bad mannered. And also, he likes Roro so fuck him.
"monk has so much knowledge" was my first reaction when I began writing Proleague recaps. Things about players, early tournament results, tendencies in playstyles and various other things - most of the time he knows most of it. Most of the time he also knows when I've forgotten about something.
kollin doesn't know anything about this game because he thinks Mvp is cooler than Life
Pokebunny has time management that is roughly as bad as mine. Meaning it's really terrible. But that's allright, because he's a gosu and pretty good at Starcraft.
TheEmulator is the friendliestest guy on all of TL, probably
heyoka is that guy who shows up when Wax disappears and doesn't really know what's going on, but it's okay because he has a cool twitter feed. But seriously, he doesn't put brackets around write-up titles which means he probably doesn't know much about how things work around here
