Creative Corner

That's strange...an i got added to my handle, so I never got pinged.

Anywho, I guess I'll catch up on the thread and then figure out how to answer the challenge. :P

Challenge: Valentino is the one with lore!

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In the last seven months, I have...

• Killed off at least four storyseeds (though I may still have one ghostwritten)
• Been through a roof replacement
• Been through a bathtub replacement
• Discovered that a certain antibiotic makes me into a useless facsimile of a human being for most of a month
• Suffered through cat drama (ongoing--that also explains why I no longer have a cat in my sig) and run up vet bills
• Continued to doubt whether I will ever write a novel again

But at least I have my School of Rock ticket! xD

Whew - It's been a very busy month. I'm supposed to be retired and enjoying my leisure, n'est-ce pas? I did set up a mandala shop - link is in my profile. That's been keeping me busy. What an adventure! I need to learn about layers and masking and all that fun stuff. For now, everything is in one layer, which works until someone wants a tiny change... Sigh. My most recent dragon is Cecropia. I've been working on her bio and, as usual, part of the adventure is frustrating me. I want to put all the buttersnake options on one row in her bio, but I don't want to have to reduce each one individually then set them all up side by side. I need to learn how to get them into one 'scene' and then reduce the pack all at once. Unfortunately, the art program I have - Krita - has instructions written in a language I don't understand. It looks like American but ...??? Anyway, here she is: my beautiful new dragon. [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=43809833] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/438099/43809833_350.png[/img] [/url] and her mandala: [img]https://i.imgur.com/UpPDS5L.png[/img]

Open question: Anyone read any Terry Pratchett?

Finished Moving Pictures after a year (Good story, pacing is intentionally terrible because Hollywood satire) and started Witches abroad.

Anyone have a favourite?

Or want to critique\discuss Moving Pictures?

@The13Inquisitor

It's all Small Gods, Guards! Guards, Feet of Clay and Sourcery and Hogfather. But I'm very much a City Watch sort of person ;D. A lot of people find they like the Witches books more (personal faves Carpe Jugulum and Lords and Ladies, the Tiffany Aching books are excellent too.

Really, all of Prachett's stuff is gold. I'm very grateful that aside from The Wit and Wisdom of the Discworld, the rest of my collection survived the hurricane.

Moving Pictures was fairly forgettable for me, as far as a Discworld book goes, but it was a good introduction to the slow modernization of Ankh-Morpork, combining magic and tech in all the right ways. I did like the shout-outs to other classic movies though.

@Amut

I think my favourite of those references was the King Kong inversion.

Witches Abroad is going well. Gollum just got whacked over the head. Out of everything that I've read so far in Discworld, that's probably the most unexpected thing that's happened.

@micahjaguar I went and hoard-sold a bunch of stuff (mainly familiars) so now my treasure is...almost where it used to be. The fact that I sold most of my AH dragons doesn't hurt either. :p Though no amount of treasure I have is ever enough for my plans. XP Ah well. I'll keep working at it. As for Flameforgers...I will probably not be able to participate anyway, due to being on vacation at that time, where I will not have internet access, at least for the majority of the trip (we are going to be camping). But the skins aren't fully retired anymore anyway, so it's not as much pressure. I probably still will never get all of them - due to how rarely they drop from Joxar's spare inventory - but, who knows. *shrug* anyway, on to showing off babies...before they aren't babies anymore. XP [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=43924799] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/439248/43924799_350.png[/img] [/url] Cobalt/Twilight/Pearl Female I'm tempted to keep this one. [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=43924798] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/439248/43924798_350.png[/img] [/url] Obsidian/Storm/Lavendar Male Tempted to keep this one, too, but I have too many male ridgies already. [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=43924084] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/439241/43924084_350.png[/img] [/url] Aqua/Spearmint/Flaxen Male [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=43924086] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/439241/43924086_350.png[/img] [/url] Lapis/Sky/Orange Male [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=43924088] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/439241/43924088_350.png[/img] [/url] Caribbian/Ivory/Sunshine Male [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=43924797] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/439248/43924797_350.png[/img] [/url] Lavendar/Navy/Coral Male 'Course, by the time people see this, they may already be adults. XD'

Oh goodness I'm late!
first of all, hi everybody! I've been trying my best to enjoy the rest of my summer vacation before classes start up again and that's been going rather well. I've gone to see a lot of movies with my family, played games with friends, started re-reading some manga...and I wrote too, of course!

Over the summer, I've mainly been focusing on my creative thesis (my novel project! I'm technically not supposed to write it write it until the Spring Semester, but I wanted to get ahead), but when I'm procrastinating taking a break I've been working on my homebrew dnd campaign, other story ideas, and even dipping my toes into fan fiction again! Honestly, I've made quite a lot of progress with my ideas over break, so I'm glad I got to have the time to really think them over c:

anyways, I also noticed @The13Inquisitor 's post about my favorite author! I love Terry Pratchett's work, but I've yet to read through all of Discworld...
I haven't read "Moving Pictures" yet, and as of now I've mainly read the City Watch series, though I also read "Reaper Man" (which was great) and "Lords and Ladies" (which was also great).
I've also read some of Pterry's non-fiction in "A Slip of the Keyboard"! He wrote a lot of good stuff, really...
Honestly, his collab with Neil Gamain, "Good Omens" is still my favorite book and it was the book that made me want to really become a writer, so it's got a really special place in my heart c:

@LilacsandFreedom:

Yeah, Reaperman was great. I can see why it gets the accolades it does. Haven't read Lords and Ladies yet, since I'm reading the series in order but i'm looking forward to it.

Sooo.... I'm trying to figure out thrillers... or horror... I'm not sure what they're called.

But I'm not sure how I'm supposed to go about it. I've gone through the complete
Poe and H.P. Lovecraft collections and I'm.... not scared?

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be feeling, since everyone talks about how scary the books are, I've got nadda. I'm like, "Oh, interesting premise./ That's a lotta slime. / Why does no one ever turn on a light? / Dude's got real weird face issues about that old guy's eye." and so on....

I think the only book that's given me the feels is Misery, but that was basically because I was reading a couple hundred pages of lovingly described physical and psychological torture.

(Mind you, I'm a gigantic scardey-cat who was a mess after watching that one episode of The Twilight Zone for a week, and was only able to watch The Exorcist in 3-minute snippets over a decade or so. The second the mirror thing happened in Poltergeist that was the end of that watch. I am a known chicken... with movies.)

I read It when I was probably way too young for it and just thought it was a cool read, Ritual of Chud and all. I think I'm reading them wrong...... help?

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Also currently trying to get a story started. The problem is I'm having a problem picking the starting point. So, what would hook you guys more into a Fantasy-type story:

A. The first arc's bad guy having a chit-chat with a "guest" who's being quite unreasonable about an objectively reasonable demand. ("Your kind has never died of hunger, but I'm sure you're getting tired of the cramps by now. If you try that again though, your other eye is joining the first.")

B. The protagonist being somewhat dickish in a way that lays out what his personal issues are to kick of a "hero's journey" arc by showing where he's stuck personally. This leads to his first initial encounter with a minor bad-guy/ possibly also the big bad and gives him a glimpse at what he wants (his goal).

C. A quieter scene that sets up some of the world and a secondary -but important- character's issues, some of their relationships and problems (B would dove-tail into this scene regardless) and brings them into contact with the protagonist from B's goals.

D. The introduction of the goal (person) for the protagonist in option B, sets up some world information, but not much else. Possibly important for showing a starting point for development with D and the protagonist from B and character C, later on. but probably the weakest start of all of them (starting with it would basically then require a time-skip and basically be a semi-prologue).


Suggestions?