Welcome to Gaia! ::

Well... first off, hi! I've been looking over various forums on this guild that I just joined about one or two days ago.

I am a 20 year old college student going to Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, majoring in Illustration and "minoring" in Sculpture.

When I graduate, I want to create manga, children's book, or participate in developing stories or story boards for animation of any type (cartoon, anime, tv, film).

The reason I joined this guild is because I wanted to overcome lethargy in writing, which is a difficult feat when you've been in college for two years; time just simply isn't as avaliable as it should be.

Thus far, I have one story called "In the Darkness" (which is a cliche title, I realize), that I started to write when I was a sophomore in highschool, that I would like to slowly rewrite from the beginning. In the Darkness is about a girl that has been "raised" by a cult in an abadoned church. It is so roughly based off of "The Masque of Red Death" by Edgar Allen Poe that no one could tell that is what it is based off of except for myself.
(17 chapters long/romance and horror)

Then there is the story "Niece" which started becoming a comic. It is 3 chapters long, about a girl named Niece and her uncle. They travel to the town of Newman's Burg, which has an eerie population of 57 people. This story is a mystery/comedy/romance.

Another, that I have never actually written (but have made a comic of 100 pages or so), is "SWAMPED!" and is a retelling of the Frog Prince fairytale. The story is based on a nightmare I had that scared me so badly I woke up screaming. Surprisingly, the whole story is a romantic comedy starring (surprise!) a college student majoring in art.

For myself, I have both confidence and no confidence in my writing. I like to think that my stories and the characters are very good, but I feel that me personally writing the stories, is not a very interesting read for the viewer.

When I come to this guild, I hope that I will become a useful member and be inspired by other writers to continue with my dreams of being a writer/illustrator. And maybe finish something...

What I would like to ask if anyone likes any of the three stories more than another and to help me pick one story to focus on. The one closest to being finished, but is currently very old in age, is "In the Darkness".

Hello! And happy writing!

Welcome aboard! It's lovely to have you here ^^.

"Swamped" sounds like the best thing since cake.

Wow it's weird feeling like I've actually found a good guild to be with. I just keep browsing and it feels more welcoming with each posts. Very cool.

Just to respond to... myself.... this should actually be a response on the forum that I just read, but here will do for now till I get the hang of things.

I have a dorky little pink notebook that I write down all my stories in. I write down everything in it, which has been working out really well. My dreams are where all of my stories seem to come from, and more from the nightmares rather than the dreams. I wish I was even HALF as exciting as I am in my dream worlds. I'm an amazing fighter, courageous and valient, and sometimes I can be unbelievably cruel. I can be a boy in my dreams, or even a little bird being chased by a cat ((that wasn't one of the funner (whoo made up word!) dreams I've had))

Currently, I've been completely hooked on watching Paprika by Satoshi Kon. The film is based on a science fiction story and the key concept of the film is the trandisendence of dreams. I love stories where the characters seem to flow erractically from dream to dream and scene to scene. It's very much so how I write. All most every time, I have no control over where the story is going because I am the character, just exploring a world.

I think for the sake of I've always wanted to finally FINISH "In the Darkness", that's the story I'm going to start with. Not that I don't love "SWAMPED!", but that one will have to wait it's turn for now.

I'm soooo the same way!! biggrin Sometimes I'm really lame in dreams, though, and I hate when I'm fighting a zombie and I can't move my arms. Other times, however, I am an ultimate badass. One time I killed two zombies with a big'ole 4x4 plank of wood. It was super cool.

As for the notebook, I have notebooks too! I usually print out a bunch of dorky fanart and plaster it all over, sort of a visual inspiration biggrin

I think it's good to keep updating. At least that's a form of writing in one sense or another.

In a more artistic sense, I'm taking a class called "Book Illustration" in my college. Our first assignment, due tomorrow.... *gasp* (i'm really behind) is a wordless picture book. If you think trying to have people imagine something in their minds with words is hard, try showing them the images and have them figure out the story! It's a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Some of the rules for the wordless story is that we cannot use symbols, like hearts, stars, etc, shapes that are generic, we cannot use written sound effects (no going comic book), and you cannot label places with text, such as if you have a bakery in your story, you would have to draw a piece of bread as the sign instead of text.

So mine is called, "Witch Love". It's about a lovesick witch girl who's head over heels for a wizard in her class and how she tries to court him. I don't think this is the guild where I can show that, but it's something I'm doing right now, so writing about it I shall! (like yoda, i speak)

Doing the full color illustration by tomorrow is the hardest part. I wasn't paying attention to the deadline and it snuck up on me. If I want to remotely have free time to write, I have to first finish my homework. I'm trying to be better about procrastination and for myself, the best way to beat procrastination is to become SO busy, that it's just plain NOT POSSIBLE to procrastinate.

Since joining here, I have started to look at my stories again and I've been reading other people's stories, although I'm a bit of a lone wolf and I usually don't comment on what I've read.

I'm known as the "demon critiquer" in my classes, so I don't want to ruffle any feathers. I'm not "mean", I'm just very very honest about what I think and that upsets people quite a lot. There are others in my class that like it when I critique because of my honesty, but for here in the guild, I will tread lightly and try not to upset anyone.

Well, it is four o'clock and I MUST get my wordless story finished! Good luck to everyone in your writing ventures!

Oh and I'm glad to hear that others have notebooks. It's awesome that others have a place to write down ideas too! (or labtops!)

If anyone would like to read "In the Darkness", the first chapter is in the "post your work" section or if you would like to read all I have so far, you would have to go to my deviantart account: http://crescentlady.deviantart.com/art/In-the-Darkness-Chapter-One-4968004
Woosh... If you want to see art images related to the story, just go to my gallery page and type "In the Darkness" into the search bar and it'll show you all the stories and the character images that go along with it.

I don't quite have the money to purchase the book yet, but I will soon. It's a great story! ^^

GIMPY LITTLE NOTEBOOKS FTW.

We should all take pictures of ours. All the wonderful ways we've destroyed them. They might not last, but mine saved my novel biggrin .

I've been wanting to see Paprika. I know another writer who's in love with it. And, hmm, wordless picture books... it's not quite wordless, but have you read "Clover" by CLAMP?

Dreams are a great place to get ideas. I think more writers use theirs than would ever admit to it. I mean, c'mon, it's free-form plotting time EVERY DAY. Unless you have insomnia.

No one is as hard on writers as other writers. They need to learn, damnit! Just remember to soften the blow with something positive ^^.

I am SO going to repost those "rules of crit" one of my friends shared in her LJ the the other day ^^.