A new writer and artist

Literature & Writing I'm a writer!
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Hello everyone,

I am not sure I would dare to call myself a published writer, as the only semi-officially published printed things I co-authored were two slim brochures of collected adolescent poetry during the grammar school. I did write some short fan fiction stories on the Internet since then, though, mostly narrative table top games battle reports and stories related to PC games, namely MMORPG’s such as Age of Conan and Elder Scrolls Online.

About two decades ago, I started to slowly flesh out an idea of my own fictional world. It went forth and back, I scrapped the ideas and started over several times. The settings slowly shifted from science-fiction towards Steampunk. It didn’t really lead anywhere, though. I wanted to visualize the world, not just write about it, but my human figures drawing skills are only comparable with those of kindergarten kids. blushes

Just before Christmas 2019, I found myself a new hobby to try to fight the encroaching burn-out syndrome - 3D Art. I downloaded Daz Studio and started learning how to create rendered scenes. I then decided that I may actually finally be able to visualize my world, and I resumed working on it, with a view to write something more coherent, maybe a kinetic or even a fully fledged visual novel, depending on my Ren’Py skills.

Here are three scenes from my world I created in Daz Studio:
gcdn.daz3d.com/gallery/image/1093637/main.png
gcdn.daz3d.com/gallery/image/1093132/main.png
gcdn.daz3d.com/gallery/image/1091737/main.png

In the last few weeks I started watching Youtube videos with writing tips, such as those by Alexa Donne and Vivien Reis.

Listening to Alexa helped me to get myself to actually write the first scene of the story in full. It is only 1200+ words, but it is a start.

Vivien was the one who got me quite interested in Scrivener, although Alexa has videos on it too. I am now gradually migrating my scattered notes to a Scrivener project, and the first scene is there already, yay! I am now working on character sheets, and I am hoping some Scrivener 3 for Windows tutorials will eventually appear, because those that are available are from older or different versions and the layout is too different for me. I totally failed at even getting some downloaded character sheet templates to work. Oh, well, Rome wasn’t built in a single day either, now, was it?

I know there is a lot of work ahead of me, but I look forward to working on my, now much better organized, project. Wish me luck. And patience. Lots of patience. :laughing:

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Welcome, and nice art work!

We all have to do things that drive us forward. Your path takes you where it must. I find each person’s journey interesting, because art is so individual. You obviously have talent in your artwork. Good luck and best wishes with your writing.

As for the “only 1200+ words” for a start . . . You have to grease your literary wheels, you have to start somewhere, and then you have to stay in touch with things when they need to be slicked again so you can keep momentum. 1200 words may get you rolling, tomorrow it may be 500, or 4000, who knows?

What writers/authors rarely do is math and the realization of what’s most important when you’re starting out. Just 250 words a day–one standard size page by today’s publishing standards–is enough to write 91,250 word a year, a full book. Will it be sexy, awesome, or a success? Probably not, unless you’re a savant. But the constant repetition will hone your writing and creative muscles. Most of the “greats” took years to become so.

Enjoy the journey, and again, welcome!

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@sirmichaelot - Thank you for the welcome and for the kind words about my art. Thank you for the 250 words a day tip too. Small bites may actually do the trick.

I am more a plotter, than a pantser. I am finding Scrivener quite useful for arganizing my world as I am rendering character portraits and thinking about more than their backstories,. I am trying to come up with their goals, strengths, weaknesses, conflicts and such. I think some will surely emerge during the story too. One of the main characters has already taken a very different turn than I originally planned for her, with her conflicts and motivations.

I think have a good grip on the beginning of the story and a general idea of the final part. I now just have to fill in the remaining 75% of what awaits between the beginning and the end. Simple, really. :slight_smile:

I am thinking of checking other formats than a novel, maybe a screenplay, because I want to create a visual novel, and that is more about using the renders to tell a great part of what is happening beyond speech. I would still probably prefer to have the story completely written down, and then morph the relevant parts of it into renders and the rest into text on the screen. I don’t think I am going to be able to voice my characters, though. At best, I may be able to use some sound effects, maybe some music, if I am really lucky.

The format I plan is very different from “traditional” writing, but the story must not be underwhelming, as my planned visual novel is not meant to be played one-handed, if you know what I mean, therefore, I cannot compensate the lack of a good story with intriguing hot animated scenes.

And, yes, it is quite certainly going to suck. I still plan to my best to finish it and publish it. Every bought and not refunded copy will mean someone may have liked it. It is a hobby project and sort of a sanity maintenance tool for me, so I do not rely on any significant success, or becoming a multimillionaire because of it.

Since English is not my mother tongue, I am sure I will need to revise much of the text many times due to bad grammar and clumsy language flow, but that means I am going to get better in those fields, so… Yay!

1 Like
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It’s so cool. I also once dreamed of becoming a professional writer, but nothing came of it.

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I am not sure I would dare to call myself a professional writer, especially with my daily job heavily interfering with the time and energy I have left for my writing. Or my art while at it.