Well, are you actually a designer? Generally it's the designer who starts a project, regardless of whether they are also a programmer or an artist or what.

I'm not a programmer, either, and I've always wanted to try one of these tools Jbadams suggests: http://clicktobegin.net/tools/how-to-make-games-without-programming/ or http://clicktobegin.net/tools/more-ways-to-make-games-without-programming/.

Someday...

You can always lay the groundwork for a project of your own without knowing how to code. Lots of management and decisions that can (and often should) be made before a line of code is written.

Make friends with programmers, find one who shares a similar vision or otherwise jives with your general idea and goal, and drag them into your web so that you can put them to work as your complete slave. Pat them on the head, give them food, praise them, and tell them they're doing all the work, are a god, etc... (Or better yet, just work with them and function as a team of equals)

It seems a bit difficult to start on a very programming heavy project as an artist/writer.

I'm not telling you to give up on the game you have in mind, but maybe you should start off with something more focused on writing and art to prove that you can actual deliver a decent project. Then maybe you could try working on your bigger project with the programmers you worked with during your smaller ones.

That's just my input, not that I have any knowledge about this stuff.

I think the team of equals option might work better. Just a hunch. Lol.

Well essentially, this project I'm talking about is a fantasy simulation/sandbox game in the vein of spore where the player creates a race and levels them up from an individual to a ruler of a realm. That's the jest of it, but starting off it would be working towards building an engine from scratch that would support the gameplay, so the artwork would be more of something to bring into play once the engine was in the works.

So what is the best way to make friends with programmers? I'm getting prepped to head to SCAD for a BFA in Sequential Art, but that's not gonna be till next spring/fall, so I'd like to go ahead and find someway to get my boots wet.

That is not a good starter project. It is, as overactor says, very programming-heavy. It also doesn't seem directly related to sequential art, unless I'm not understanding the term correctly. I've heard the term sequential art used pretty much exclusively used to refer to 2D comics/manga/graphic novels/slideshows. Spore is a 3D game with procedurally generated graphics. Are you a 3D artist or a 2D artist? You should choose a game concept that plays to your strengths, the same way you would apply for jobs for which you had relevant skills and interests.

Also, a minor correction "That's the jest of it" the word you want here is gist. Jest is a joke. Gist is a vague outline of meaning.