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So, I must admit to everybody right now, I am really not sure whether or not I will really be posting much on DeviantART by way of stories. There are several reasons for this:
1. Pay-to-win. It seems to me that on DeviantART, if you have a subscription and a bunch of fancy, flashy doodads on your page, people will flock to your stuff and you'll get loads of hits and exposure.
2. Whore-to-win. Similar to number 1, but this point stems off of how hard it is to actually have a voice on D.A. Much of the time, the only reason why I was able to even rake in views for any of my crappy, older writings is because I simply spammed the crap out of the forums. This, to me, is basically along the lines of fishing with dynamite. You don't actually know where the fish are, but if you blast a large enough area of water, you're bound to get something. This leads me to my next point:
3. Vapid feedback. I've noticed this a lot on DeviantART. It isn't particularly any one person's fault per se, but the issue stems from the fact that prose artists are given a very marginalized platform to show their work on. Unless you have a shoddy, fan-art story that community members will latch on to (simply because they recognize the characters, mind you, not because the writing is actually good) a horrible piece of flash fiction, or a very short free verse poem, your writing will not be seen or commented on.
If, by some miracle the prose you manage to craft IS commented on, it will be something to the effect of "kewl stayreh. i lyke how u had characters n' stuff." The feedback that D.A. produces (On a whole, grand scheme kind of level) isn't particularly the most rewarding or fulfilling.
4. Copyright. Since I'm actually trying to get back into the swing of things and potentially publish something of my own later on down the road, I'd rather not display some of my more prized writings on this website. Due to points 1, 2, and 3, I doubt very sincerely that a court would rule in my favor should a work of mine get pawned off of here and published by somebody else. I could cite the creative commons license that the website puts on everything, but due to DeviantART's downhill slope, I feel like the CC license that this site provides has really lost a massive portion of its credibility.
Over the course of time, I've tried several things to try and spur the interest of people with my writings:
A. I tried to have a point based system where people would answer questions / provide feedback and turn in their accrued points for rewards (Just so I could gauge who read and who didn't). This project was a cataclysmic failure, as not a single person participated in it.
B. I've purchased premium memberships in the past, and created polls for people to vote on, but the relationship between "Seriousness of the poll" and "Voter turnout" was rather disturbing. If my polls were related to what flavor of ice cream you most enjoy, I would get high voter participation. But if my poll related to how people reacted to a character that I'm trying to develop, I'd get *a* vote, or maybe two.
So, although purchasing these premium memberships solve problem number 1, problem number 3 decides to manifest, kick me in the balls, and lead to this initiative down the path to cataclysmic failure.
C. One thing that I tried in order to resolve problem number 4 was PDF formatting. Rather than copy and paste text from Microsoft word and have DeviantART's abysmally shitty format software rape my story and mug it for every indent, special character, footnote, and otherwise significant typographical keystroke, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. When I thought of this idea, I remember saying something to the effect of "Hey great! With PDFs, I not only can protect my stories with encrypted documents, but I can also make the stories easier to read for people by having the proper formatting and a customizable viewing experience via adobe reader."
It sounded great in theory, but then I came across the issue of the download button. For some reason, no matter how many times I put a label on my stories, descriptions, journals, polls, notes, and preview pictures that said "THIS IS NOT THE STORY. CLICK THE DOWNLOAD BUTTON TO THE RIGHT >>>>>>" people just simply wouldn't do it. I'm not sure if people didn't read any of my labels, if they just (somehow) didn't get it, or maybe they were willingly ignorant. Whatever the reason, my list of people reading was easily cut by 2/3rds of my original readers.
I consider this initiative to be my greatest and most damaging cataclysmic failures. And not by a small margin, either.
With all of this evidence in mind, I am not entirely sure of where to go from here. Because of these points, I feel like DeviantART really didn't help my writing in any kind of progressive manner. Sure, the people I've met on here were nice, and I've made a few friends along the way. However, college and actual face-to-face workshop with my stories have shed the hard truth on my writing. I had good imagination with my stories when I started out, but I ultimately sucked pretty hardcore when it came to writing.
Yet, nobody on D.A. told me this with any level of constructive criticism. The only responses that I seemed to constantly get were "dis ish good." or "u f***ing suck you f***ing f**got. im gunna *** *** ***** and **** ****."
My reluctance to even post on this site anymore is by no means set in stone. If somebody has an alternative solution or can propose an idea of how to handle all the nonsense that I put up above, I'd be more than willing to have a discussion on the matter. However, as it stands, I feel like my little hiatus from DeviantART may last a bit longer, until I compose more pieces of scrap writing that I am not particularly attached to.
For now though, I will continue to work more on the prospects of combining my "Forge of the Glass Ants" storyline with "The 13 Royal Plagues" into some kind of composite novel. This feels like it could lead to some very interesting dynamics and plot development.
As I said, nothing in this post is set in stone. I'd be happy to discuss these issues at length with people. But, as DeviantART's "artistic" paradigm stands right now, I just can't justify being a writer on here for the time being.
Best regards,
Michael
1. Pay-to-win. It seems to me that on DeviantART, if you have a subscription and a bunch of fancy, flashy doodads on your page, people will flock to your stuff and you'll get loads of hits and exposure.
2. Whore-to-win. Similar to number 1, but this point stems off of how hard it is to actually have a voice on D.A. Much of the time, the only reason why I was able to even rake in views for any of my crappy, older writings is because I simply spammed the crap out of the forums. This, to me, is basically along the lines of fishing with dynamite. You don't actually know where the fish are, but if you blast a large enough area of water, you're bound to get something. This leads me to my next point:
3. Vapid feedback. I've noticed this a lot on DeviantART. It isn't particularly any one person's fault per se, but the issue stems from the fact that prose artists are given a very marginalized platform to show their work on. Unless you have a shoddy, fan-art story that community members will latch on to (simply because they recognize the characters, mind you, not because the writing is actually good) a horrible piece of flash fiction, or a very short free verse poem, your writing will not be seen or commented on.
If, by some miracle the prose you manage to craft IS commented on, it will be something to the effect of "kewl stayreh. i lyke how u had characters n' stuff." The feedback that D.A. produces (On a whole, grand scheme kind of level) isn't particularly the most rewarding or fulfilling.
4. Copyright. Since I'm actually trying to get back into the swing of things and potentially publish something of my own later on down the road, I'd rather not display some of my more prized writings on this website. Due to points 1, 2, and 3, I doubt very sincerely that a court would rule in my favor should a work of mine get pawned off of here and published by somebody else. I could cite the creative commons license that the website puts on everything, but due to DeviantART's downhill slope, I feel like the CC license that this site provides has really lost a massive portion of its credibility.
Over the course of time, I've tried several things to try and spur the interest of people with my writings:
A. I tried to have a point based system where people would answer questions / provide feedback and turn in their accrued points for rewards (Just so I could gauge who read and who didn't). This project was a cataclysmic failure, as not a single person participated in it.
B. I've purchased premium memberships in the past, and created polls for people to vote on, but the relationship between "Seriousness of the poll" and "Voter turnout" was rather disturbing. If my polls were related to what flavor of ice cream you most enjoy, I would get high voter participation. But if my poll related to how people reacted to a character that I'm trying to develop, I'd get *a* vote, or maybe two.
So, although purchasing these premium memberships solve problem number 1, problem number 3 decides to manifest, kick me in the balls, and lead to this initiative down the path to cataclysmic failure.
C. One thing that I tried in order to resolve problem number 4 was PDF formatting. Rather than copy and paste text from Microsoft word and have DeviantART's abysmally shitty format software rape my story and mug it for every indent, special character, footnote, and otherwise significant typographical keystroke, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. When I thought of this idea, I remember saying something to the effect of "Hey great! With PDFs, I not only can protect my stories with encrypted documents, but I can also make the stories easier to read for people by having the proper formatting and a customizable viewing experience via adobe reader."
It sounded great in theory, but then I came across the issue of the download button. For some reason, no matter how many times I put a label on my stories, descriptions, journals, polls, notes, and preview pictures that said "THIS IS NOT THE STORY. CLICK THE DOWNLOAD BUTTON TO THE RIGHT >>>>>>" people just simply wouldn't do it. I'm not sure if people didn't read any of my labels, if they just (somehow) didn't get it, or maybe they were willingly ignorant. Whatever the reason, my list of people reading was easily cut by 2/3rds of my original readers.
I consider this initiative to be my greatest and most damaging cataclysmic failures. And not by a small margin, either.
With all of this evidence in mind, I am not entirely sure of where to go from here. Because of these points, I feel like DeviantART really didn't help my writing in any kind of progressive manner. Sure, the people I've met on here were nice, and I've made a few friends along the way. However, college and actual face-to-face workshop with my stories have shed the hard truth on my writing. I had good imagination with my stories when I started out, but I ultimately sucked pretty hardcore when it came to writing.
Yet, nobody on D.A. told me this with any level of constructive criticism. The only responses that I seemed to constantly get were "dis ish good." or "u f***ing suck you f***ing f**got. im gunna *** *** ***** and **** ****."
My reluctance to even post on this site anymore is by no means set in stone. If somebody has an alternative solution or can propose an idea of how to handle all the nonsense that I put up above, I'd be more than willing to have a discussion on the matter. However, as it stands, I feel like my little hiatus from DeviantART may last a bit longer, until I compose more pieces of scrap writing that I am not particularly attached to.
For now though, I will continue to work more on the prospects of combining my "Forge of the Glass Ants" storyline with "The 13 Royal Plagues" into some kind of composite novel. This feels like it could lead to some very interesting dynamics and plot development.
As I said, nothing in this post is set in stone. I'd be happy to discuss these issues at length with people. But, as DeviantART's "artistic" paradigm stands right now, I just can't justify being a writer on here for the time being.
Best regards,
Michael
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Collaborative Project
2 min read
'Ey everybody. As some people may or may not know, I recently set up the Shadow-Syndicate group to do some collaborate work with three good friends of mine, CloudyB, TwistedTranquility, and ShadeMF. TwistedTranquility and myself are horror writers, while CloudyB and SunFiltered are both visual artists. The plan is that our collaborative work follows this kind of suit:
Round 1: The two artists draw, and then TT and I both write individual stories that encapsulate both of the drawing concepts as we both see fit.
Round 2: TT and I write separate stories, and CB and SF both draw individual pictures that capture something from both of the stories as they see fit.
Round 3: Same as round 1.
Round n: So on and so forth.
At the same time, college is reaching its final stages for me. I have but one years worth of classes left, and am trying desperately hard to unplug from the distracting video-game-centric college culture that I've become so ensnared with. I'm hoping that I will be able to disable my gaming habits so that I was really start building a foundation to launch from as a writer after college. The way I figure it, I'll just update both the Tumblr as well as this site, since both have their own unique set of pros and cons. In terms of the collaboration, we may end up having guest collaborators in the far off future, but for now we think four people will suffice. I appreciate the patience and frustration, as I'm sure about 95% of my watcher base has probably abandoned D.A. or otherwise.
Regards,
Michael
Round 1: The two artists draw, and then TT and I both write individual stories that encapsulate both of the drawing concepts as we both see fit.
Round 2: TT and I write separate stories, and CB and SF both draw individual pictures that capture something from both of the stories as they see fit.
Round 3: Same as round 1.
Round n: So on and so forth.
At the same time, college is reaching its final stages for me. I have but one years worth of classes left, and am trying desperately hard to unplug from the distracting video-game-centric college culture that I've become so ensnared with. I'm hoping that I will be able to disable my gaming habits so that I was really start building a foundation to launch from as a writer after college. The way I figure it, I'll just update both the Tumblr as well as this site, since both have their own unique set of pros and cons. In terms of the collaboration, we may end up having guest collaborators in the far off future, but for now we think four people will suffice. I appreciate the patience and frustration, as I'm sure about 95% of my watcher base has probably abandoned D.A. or otherwise.
Regards,
Michael
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Set-up on Tumblr now.
1 min read
Ahoy! To whom it may concern, I'm just dropping a quick note to inform you I've set up a make-shift base of operations over on Ye Ol' Tumblr:
archiveoftheslumbergod.tumblr.…
There are 3 stories that have not been posted here on my D.A. account (Not sure if I will or not, as I do enjoy comments and critiques), but I hope you enjoy the new site. I look forward to pumping out more stuff as I feel my muse trying to return to me.
Catch you all later.
archiveoftheslumbergod.tumblr.…
There are 3 stories that have not been posted here on my D.A. account (Not sure if I will or not, as I do enjoy comments and critiques), but I hope you enjoy the new site. I look forward to pumping out more stuff as I feel my muse trying to return to me.
Catch you all later.
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Livestreaming Shortly
2 min read
Hey everyone, I know that I've had a bit of setbacks in making the drawing a truly weekly thing. However, I'm trying my best to iron things out and making this a consistent, Saturday event. To compensate for this Saturday, I will be livestreaming here in about 45-60 minutes or so. I intend to hopefully finish off my piece from last week, and perhaps even finish the story from this weeks drawing. This week's winner is...
"Gameboy", submitted by
Congrats for this weeks winner! See you soon.
- Doctor Psycho
P.S. The Livestream can be found here: www.livestream.com/drpsychosli…
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Hey guys, just another reminder to submit your ideas for a potential drawing tomorrow. I still have all the submissions from last weekend's drawing (Minus the "Rain" Prompt, as that was the winner of the last round), so be sure to submit something new for a drawing! Until then, have a great Friday!
"Gameboy", submitted by
Congrats for this weeks winner! See you soon.
- Doctor Psycho
P.S. The Livestream can be found here: www.livestream.com/drpsychosli…
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hey guys, just another reminder to submit your ideas for a potential drawing tomorrow. I still have all the submissions from last weekend's drawing (Minus the "Rain" Prompt, as that was the winner of the last round), so be sure to submit something new for a drawing! Until then, have a great Friday!
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Livestreaming Shortly
2 min read
'Ello everyone. Sorry for the short delay that kept me from writing yesterday. The whole moving process out of my apartment came rather suddenly, and was forced to not only pack up all my stuff, but also clean an entire kitchen single-handedly. For those of you who may not have done so before, I recommend you have a self-cleaning oven before tackling a task such as this, because Easy-Off Oven cleaner is absolutely wretched in smell. Although I was vomiting violently into a toilet this morning due to the noxious toxins from cleaning chemicals, I will be attempting to set up my livestream here within the hour. I will post more details if I am needed to create a new account or if some other disaster occurs.
Without further ado though, I present you with the weekly drawings' winning prompt:
"Rain" Submitted by
Lets hear it for our contestant.
Now then, the rest of your prompts will remain in the jar for future drawings, but this one will be torn up and tossed out of any future drawing opportunities. I intend to clear the jar once a year to start fresh, but feel free to submit ideas as frequently as you please! More details about the livestream coming soon!
The livestream can be found at the following address: www.livestream.com/drpsychosli…
Regards,
Doctor Psycho
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Hey guys, being that today is Friday, today is the last day to submit any ideas to the drawing jar for tomorrow's writing exercise. I'll see if I can't get a livestream, xfire, or another program running for the event.
There are already 8 submissions to the jar by various individuals, but lets see if we can't broaden the pool a little, eh?
Without further ado though, I present you with the weekly drawings' winning prompt:
"Rain" Submitted by
Lets hear it for our contestant.Now then, the rest of your prompts will remain in the jar for future drawings, but this one will be torn up and tossed out of any future drawing opportunities. I intend to clear the jar once a year to start fresh, but feel free to submit ideas as frequently as you please! More details about the livestream coming soon!
The livestream can be found at the following address: www.livestream.com/drpsychosli…
Regards,
Doctor Psycho
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hey guys, being that today is Friday, today is the last day to submit any ideas to the drawing jar for tomorrow's writing exercise. I'll see if I can't get a livestream, xfire, or another program running for the event.
There are already 8 submissions to the jar by various individuals, but lets see if we can't broaden the pool a little, eh?
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