Maneki Neko
Administrator

Creativecommons had a search engine... ? XD That's news to me lol I've always looked at the StockXchange site for photos and just looked at the ones that allow commercial and non. But using the CC search doesn't sound like a bad idea, now that you mention it exists.

Oh, I was surprised today when I saw the featured games scroll and saw SDMIA there~ xD It was funny because my page apparently loaded with some delay, so chrome 'kindly' tried to rush the script to catch up to its position and scrolled by real fast like 3-4 times before settling at normal speed, and I was all "Wait what- what was thaaaat D:"
So yeah, thanks for the feature! I'm 2 out of 3 on my games! I feel all kinds of speshul. XD (Randomly, may I suggest, perhaps not for right now, but surely for when more features are made, a sub-forum to archive all featured game announcements? Just an idea, since it may be nice to not have announcements crowd with too many of them while keeping a neat archive of what was popular)

You actually catch up after two days off tumblr? <_< I never do....
I work in cycles through sites that require that kind of attention and have follows/watches (visit every day! don't visit in a month! visit sporadically!) And to top it off, I have a habit of being follow-happy in blogs that reblog a bunch of fandom stuff or many artists I like and so on... So catching up is nearly impossible.
But, I do browse friend tumblrs when I'm either expecting something or remember tumblr exists at all (or similarly). xD And on those days I'm -veeeery- bored I'll browse through the random people I follow and don't know (depending on what strikes the mood). lol DA is just the same: go to DA > get 198773 news in dashboard > delete ALL > check some other day manually.
XD *is a disaster keeping up with the amount of postings*

I see~ I never really use flickr to find royalty free photos xD I guess because I see it more as a just post-and-share-your-pics site... but I guess it'd be a good place for that. xD

That's a nice little link, thanks! I haven't had a chance to research yet since I had a bunch of other stuff to find online that took rpecedence (and now my dad is practically kicking me off the net ¬¬ long story short: I hate my internet provider beacuse if we use the router I can't post anywhere so we have to take turns. /endrant)
So thank you~ x)

Ffff I spent the entire morning on the map and posted it on my tumblr lol 8D
I love mapsssss, I love old mapsssss..... I can't get distracted with mapsssssssss <_<;;;

Haha, yeah I guess there's no real harm in keeping to it. Of course, I don't expect to write the whole thing in five days (but I was hoping to kick it to some 20k at least for camp nano xD)
Besides, as I said, it's likely I'll run into the same problems with other stories, though... I could try for some short stories when I hit harder walls with the novel, I suppose.

Curious, what are you using fr covers? Stock photos or art?
Cover templates work though, besides it gives it a nice consistent feel.

lol I just don't really know what I'm doing with my writing I think. At first I was stuck because I lacked a plot, so I went and made a plot outline of sorts, which brought a conflict I'm not sure how to get through, so I decided to put off that part, but then I realized that I don't know where they're standing. Doh. XD
So, since it's somewhat moving along, last night/this morning I spent out fleshing out the basic characters and making a map. Yes. Making. A. Map. Why, I dunno. XD I needed to visualize a basic outline of the countries and ended up making a whole fancy map. <_< And now I'm stuck pondering, how do you know how long by horse does it take from one place to another? (thought never occurred to me before lol).
Ahem, but anyway, I guess it's moving along somewhat, and I should be happy about that. The few scenes I have are skeletons for the most, pretty lame looking, they need more meat. *sigh* is it too sad that I'm already thinking of switching to an easier story? XD (though I'm sure I'll hit the same road bumps if I do... )

Ah, Strumpet, yes! I wasn't sure how to spell it and was a bit lazy to look it up last night. <_<; (I kept thinking 'trumpet', but that sounded wrong). But yes, that's the book. And On Writing was a pretty amazing book, once I overlooked the whole deal with his babysitter. <_<

Yes, you should definitely get a Goodreads account. And then link me. And then I'd friend you. It will only give you stuff to do every day if you get obsessed with the trivias or book discussions on groups. xD Otherwise, likely you'll visit mostly when you start or finish reading a book.

THIS IS THE BEST THING EVEERRRRRR!!!!! If I could reblog this I would, hahahaha. XDDD;

XDDD Well said. Very well said.

Ohhh, cover making........... HATE. lol It's rather hard to make one that actually looks like a real cover. I tried. I failed. I tried again, and failed again. I gave up.

I am sort of doing that with scenes right now. I have a bunch of scenes written out of order that I have to arrange once I type them up, and some notes here and there to expand or explain... I kinda know what I want the main of the conflict to be, I'm just still struggling with how to make it happen. *sigh* This writing thing is complex business.
And now I have the sudden whim to change one of my character's description fully because the one I gave doesn't fit him, in my opinion... (thank god I only have few scenes written!)

Ah yes, Lackey, I've read some of her stuff (How come you don't have a Goodreads account? /random moment XD) Yeah, it's not a bad idea to write Romantic Fantasy, I just was aiming for something else. Gotta love it when stories (and characters) turn in all sort of weird ways and get far, far away from what you expected.

That's a good working structure! I particularly like the 'sex' parts. lol But yes, I see more or less the general idea of it. I think I would normally go through establishing characters, get them together, get them to sex... and now what? the end? more sex? So it's helpful to read that structure line.
I'd heard the same about titillation, though I have a problem I think, deciding whether the scenes of sex I introduce (or want to introduce) are considered that or not (because in my opinion, there's a very good chance that one could do without the scene regardless in a good part of the cases- a fade to black if you will). So I'm always sitting there pondering and end up writing nothing.

I read a few advice books (On Writing and How To Be A Sex Writing somethingortheother come to mind lol), but still have several to read, and a lot of practice to be had.

I like ramblings. Ramble on. And again, thank you for all the advice you're giving me. <3

lol, money burns a hole even through virtual pockets!

Ugh, I know how you feel with the friend-with-a-life. Ah, my friend also falls asleep a lot on harder days. I feel really bad xD (it's one of those things were you wish you lived close to go bang on their door and drag them to bed lol), but there's not much one can do when living so far away ('cause then if we lived closer, even if we couldn't RP, at least we could maybe meet up and chat in person or something, just hang around).
I half-dread the day she gets a bf, even if I'll be happy for her.

Hm, do all those sites check the ebooks to make sure they're err.. visually appealing? XD Or are you left to the task? I guess considering it's PoD or such you're probably left to the task of checking it yourself.

I'll check out Agatha Christie's book, thanks for the recommendation~

That sounds like a good way to go about editing things. So far I've not typed any of the (lame) four pages on the computer, but I figure I'll be making a first edit when I do, and probably re-edit a couple times after that. I'm almost certain there's a couple things I'll have to go back and change to have it all fit properly by the end. If I ever reach the end.
Sometimes I feel like I'm just beating around the bush and not able to grasp the main line of plot to make it interesting, and I wonder if it's just me or just an untrue feeling. xD I'll likely have my friend read it once I have some more fleshed out and edited at least once, ask her if she finds it interesting or not.
I kinda... wanted to write an erotic fantasy book, but somehow I think it's ending up less erotic and more fantasy... <_<; (then again, I proooobably don't have more than 5k words in yet, if my crap-math-estimates are alright, so maybe it's too soon to tell;but I think I got caught up with the 'omg intrigue' and forgot the build up for relationships xD)

I looove reading (erotica too xD). I'd offer to read, but I won't be any god as far as grammar and not sure at all that I'm any good at giving proper criticism. More or less like you, I've felt somewhat ok about giving art advice, because you can just really tell when an arm is bent completely the wrong way or the like and don't need to be a great artist for that xDDDDD, but writing just seems harder.
But I wanna read anyway.

But yes, I can see why you'd want to have your penname secret. I'm not yet to the point where I think it matters much since I haven't published anything. xD I'm not even 'hiding' my romance/erotica/gay erotica reading on goodreads so I think I'm a bit past the point where I don't want it associated with such 'naughty stuff'. xDDD
I figure I'm an adult, if they don't like what I read (or write) they can look the other way. xD

I actually have an editor friend, but she's Spanish speaking and anti-writing-in-English for stories, so she won't want to edit me (or even be fluent enough to do it, since I'm writing in English because Spanish gay erotica makes me snort with laughter, I don't know why, it's not even out of embarrassment, I just think it sounds somewhat ridiculous xD while in English I feel a sense of detachment to the words... or something).
But if you wrote in Spanish I'd totally introduce you two.

Maaaay I ask, if you don't mind sharing trade secrets, how you structure the short stories, since I'm interested in writing some as well? As in, how much plot (is there plot?) before the erotica part, and the like. I just don't know for sure how to go about them to make them erotica but not borderline porn lol. (I think I get caught again with wanting to do too much in too little, because I think something 'smaller' won't fill up more than so many words to make it an average short story).

That's a lot of penname's you('ll) have. xD

By the way, you know you're an awesome advice giver? You should charge for it, or write a series of advice blogs or something.

17k words lol (it seems so far away~ I'm only on 2k, if I'm lucky, I haven't officially re-counted yet, might surprise myself xD)
Ohh, 50 dollars *_* What I would do with 50 dollars...... (blow it on stuff before I can save up anything, obviously xD)... that's pretty awesome though, for no advertising (surely, the Amazon thing is helping a lot- that's through Smashwords, right? or are you doing it directly on the Amazon site?). If you're getting good reviews and all I think you should leave the price as is.

Oh, of course, RPing give quite a different kind of feeling to your writing, and I love RPing too much to quit, but I do wish I could do both at the same time, properly lol.
Ah, I feel your pain with the friend-has-a-life thing. Mine is the same. Workworkwork, studystudystudy.

> I guess because it doesn't seem "official" until I type it up? So I can write on tangents without as much pressure.
That's a really good point. I've done three pages of jumping back and forth between scenes already on my binder, but I've been going slow lately since I have other stuff to do. I'm actually kind of proud that I had a breakthrough this morning and found my somewhat-of-a-plot, so I now somewhat-know where I'm possibly-going. xD But now I'm terribly scared I can't pull it off because it's a bit of intrigue and that's not something I feel very qualified at.
Hiring: good villain writer. <_<
Now I find myself in need of town/country/minorish character names (I'm a bit tired of place-holding with "C1" and "C2" for the countries xD). I guess I'll have to go t some randomizer or 7th sanctum or something...

Ah, I heard about Scrivener, but I didn't try it. I was fairly happy after yWriter (which also does ebook, I believe, I've only tried the rtf export so far).

> I'd offer, but the more I like someone as a person, the harder it is for me to give writing advice.
Haha, I know the feeling. It's always harder as a foreign writer, because I need more help with grammatical mistakes and idioms usage that I might have gotten wrong, or the like. The places I found for advice I wasn't very sure were good- some required me to critique other people to be critiqued (which I doubt highly I could do properly), others were paid, the free ones didn't always accept adult writing, etc.

I was going to post some of my snippets here on the writing area a while ago, but there's not much critiquing going on... <_<

Heh. I always make you up the word count in posting~

Questioooooon~ How do you deal with Drafts? Do you edit as you go, or do you write everything then edit? Do you ask friend's (or some forum's) opinions before publishing or just take it straight to publish? (I happen to hate reading and re-reading and re-re-reading what I write because after a point I just think it sounds even worse than when I started xD)

(because apparently I write too much... cont'd lol)


You're probably right about the second-guessing stuff, though I'm trying to overlook it and figure I'll try and deal with how stupid it sounds later, once I'm done. xD;
I think an outline like that would work out (but you forgot the twincest in there :P ), though when I try to think of one I always freeze up. It's probably gotta do with me thinking it sounds stupid, too xD ("They could... be transported to another dimension! Wait, that's just dumb. Try something else! Er... ")
Partly, I think I also need some friends who don't think everything I write is amaaaazinggggg lol (I really appreciate it when I need to get the boost to write more, but I'm sure it's not that amazing xDD).

And you're making lots of sense x) And not being annoying at all. I love ramblings, and it's always good to get advice!

lol, I want to read smutty romance 8DDD (And write it also, but that's besides the point xD) But yeah, do let me know if short stories like that actually sell, I've always been curious (I'm not too ashamed to say I'm a bit on the cheap side to be buying the kind <_< mostly because I'm poor and jobless atm xDDD not for lack of temptation.)

Ah! I knew it! RPs sap our writing muse! I was actually rather surprised about it. But between today and last night I managed to write a few more things, so ehhh, I'm partially happy? xD

That's sad that you've not been able to write for a month... they say one should write at least a few words every day, even when you're not feeling like it. I've never managed to myself, but that's what they say. Then again, if you overdosed... lol

I remember when I was younger I would write and write and write all goddamn day long. I swear I filled way too many binders with stuff that went nowhere. xD So in honor of good old times, I've switched back from PC to binders because I find that I can actually write a lot more when I'm doing it the old pen-and-paper style.
Randomly- Are you writing directly on the computer or old style too?
I found, curiously enough, that I have a hard time typing straight into word, so I used either wordpad or ywriter before... (I actually rather like ywriter... ), but the binder is a lot easier to the writing flow.

Aww, that's great! (both on publishing and niece ) Congrats X) Where are you publishing them on?

I keep fighting with my own writing lol, I'd give anything to be able to finish ONE book- or series of short stories to stick together- even if I ended up having to do PoD publishing (having one hardcopy of a 'book' is like my dream lol I don't even pretend it has to be bought and famous xD). I kept changing my writing blog around in the hopes of it making me want to write/post more, but really, I've not written anything past a starter in forever. (Strangely, I find that when I RP a lot, I can't write o.o )

Buuut, I was kind of proud of myself today! I did a whole 1100 words (even if it was just a starter)! That's a record, I have a hard time going over 600 in one sit. (And I tied it in with a previous 500-word starter, so that makes progress).
Now if only I knew where the story was going... I really need to work on making some very basic plot first, but they all sound stupid in my head. xD