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carriagelamp · 4 years ago

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November 2020: A Months of Familiarity

This November ended up being a month of me either rereading old favourites, exploring new books by favourite authors, or a mix of both.

…Be prepared for so much Terry Prachett, I found his audiobooks on Libby last month and since that I’ve been unstoppable.

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

The first of my Terry Practhett books to mention! I chose to include this one on my list because it’s a beautiful stand alone novel, perfect to read if you’ve never touched on of Pratchett’s works before, and is often overlooked.

The book is about Maurice, an “amazing” cat by his own admission, who has teamed up with a stupid boy and his very own plague of rats. The moneymaking scheme is simple: set the rats loose on a town and after causing a panic let the boy stroll in and offer to play his pipe and lead them away… for a fee. This is working well, until Maurice, the boy, and the rats arrive in the town Bad Blintz. Here the rats are beginning to question the morality of their work, the boy gets entangled with a young, mischievous local girl, and they’re all shocked to find out that the town already has a real rat infestation… or so the rat catchers claim. Things quickly turn sinister and deadly as the group is forced to confront not only the cruelty of humanity, but something even more sinister living in the small, dark, hidden place of the town.

This is a YA book, unlike some of Pratchett’s other novels, so it’s a quick, fun read, while still having all of his dry wit and heavy, complicated thoughts about society, morality, belief, and what it means to be a person. It’s a genuine delight to see Maurice and the rats, recently made sentient by wizards’ rubbish, struggle to come to terms with who they were and who they are now.

Black Pearl Ponies: Red Star & Wildflower

Y’all it ain’t a secret at this point that I enjoy a stupid horse girl book, right? I picked up the first two books of the Black Pearl Ponies books from the library on a whim and they were basically what they promised. Girl lives with family on ranch, father helps train horses, girl goes on pony adventures with ponies. A particular focus is given to horse welfare and care. Very mediocre but a nice thoughtless covid read if you, like me, get a craving for animals books written for seven year olds from time to time. Plus this comes with the added humour of it being written, as far as I can tell, by a British author who thinks all Americans are stetson wearing cowboys which I find unreasonably funny.

Crenshaw

I love Katherine Applegate’s work; I read the Endling series earlier this year and they are overwhelmingly good. Crenshaw was also an enjoyable read, though not my favourite by her. It read a little bit like a book I read last fall, No Fixed Address, which was also a very good read though not my usual genre. Crenshaw is about a boy, Jackson, whose family, though close-knit and loving, is experiencing financial difficulties and struggle with food scarcity, homelessness, and all the instability and stress that results from this. During this tumultuous time, Jackson is surprised by the reappearance of a tall, bipedal, snarky cat — Crenshaw, his old imaginary friend. This is a charming book that blends genuine, real world hardships with whimsy and magical realism.

The Enemy Above: A Novel of WWII

Since it was Rememberance Day this month, I decided to pick up a holocaust novel. This book is about 12-year-old Anton, a young Jewish boy who finds himself fleeing from his Polish farm in the middle of the night with his old grandma when a German raiding party that attacks their village in an effort to make the countryside “judenfrei”. The book is, perhaps, not the most well-fleshed out, but it’s fast-paced and exciting for a child/YA audience that’s being introduced to holocaust literature, without trying to downplay the absolutely horror and brutality of the Nazis. It manages to strike a satisfying balance between fear, tragedy, and hope.

“Everything he had heard was true. He was just a twelve-year-old boy and yet they hunted him. He had broken no laws, done nothing wrong. He was simply born Jewish. How could anyone want to kill him for it?”

Gregor the Overlander

Somehow I never knew that Suzanne Collins wrote anything other than The Hunger Games? I stumbled across this series at a used bookstore and was first taken by the cover and then shocked when I realized I recognized the author’s name. Well The Hunger Games was such a good read, how could I not pick up a book with people riding on a giant fucking bat?

Such a good choice. I’m almost done book two and bought book three today after work. It is exactly the sort of low fantasy that I live for, when a fantasy world lives so close to the real world that you can practically touch it. I also love the fact that while all the wild fantastical elements are happening, you still have the main character taking care of his toddler sister the whole time. It’s at times charming, hilarious, and nerve-wracking!

It’s about Gregor, a normal kid who’s doing his best to help his mom take care of his two younger siblings ever since his father disappeared years ago. Gregor expected months of boredom when he agrees to stay home over the summer instead of going to camp like his sister in order to watch his baby sister, Boots, and their grandma while his mom is at work. He never could have expected that a simple trip to the apartment’s laundry room would lead to both him and Boots tumbling miles beneath the earth into the pitch black Underland, a place filled with giant rats and bugs and people with translucent skin who fly through the massive caverns on huge bats. He also could have never expected that he would get wrapped up in a deadly prophecy that would force him to travel into distant, dark lands into the waiting claws of an overwhelming enemy.

Kings, Queens, and In-Between

A Canadian queer novel that I’ve seen trumpeted everywhere. Libraries, classrooms, bookstore, this book got so much hype (and has such a pleasing cover) that I had to get my hands on it. Now, I’ve got to admit that it’s not really my genre; I don’t love realistic fiction. But that being said, it’s a fun, heart-warming, queer romp through that explores gender, sexuality, love, family, friendship… there’s a lot of lovable, quirky, complicated characters that get thrown together in unexpected ways at a local summer carnival. While there’s tension and misunderstandings and mistakes, this is overall a very optimistic and loving novel, and would be a great read if you want a queer novel that reads like cotton candy.

Love, The Tiger

This book is the graphic novel equivalent of a nature documentary. There’s no text, but you follow a day in the life of a tiger as it moves through the jungle on the quest for food. The art is honestly beyond outstanding, and though it’s a really quick read it is so very worth it. I’ve also read Love, The Lion in this series (also good, though a bit more confusing imho) as well as one of the books from his other series Little Tails which is still very nature and education based, though for a slightly younger audience.

Making Money

More Pratchett! Making Money was the first Discworld book I ever read, and it’s one of my most reread ones — it’s an ultimate comfort read! This is technically the sequel to Going Postal (another book I reread this month), in which conman Moist Von Lipwig is saved from a rightful death at the noose in exchange for agreeing to work for the city. Going Postal sees Moist narrowly dodging death in many varied forms as he tries to get the Anhk-Morpork postal service back on its feet and get the drifts of dead, whispering letters moving again. In Making Money things at the post office have become… too easy. Moist is bored, restless, until he finds himself thrust into a new job: head of the Royal Mint. There he has been given not only charge of the biggest bank in Anhk-Morpork, but also a dog with a price on its head, a lethal family with all the money in the world out for his blood, and the fear that his secret past life may be on the verge of being exposed to everyone, all while he’s desperately trying to make money…

The Moist series is honestly an example of Pratchett at his absolute best imo, and the amount of humour, wit, adventure, and scathing commentary he can build around a bank is outstanding. Cannot recommend enough.

The One And Only Ivan

Another book I’ve been hearing everyone talk about, as well as another Katherine Applegate book. It’s been on my radar for a while, but with the sequel and a movie coming out, it had everything at a fever pitch and I finally picked it up. Fantastic read, I definitely enjoyed it more than Crenshaw. This book was based off the true story of Ivan, a gorilla taken from his home in the jungle and sold to the owner of a mall, where he spent years of his life growing from child to adult silverback in a small, concrete enclosure. In this fictionalized version, everything changes for Ivan and his friends, when a new baby elephant is bought to help revitalize the mall attractions and Ivan makes a promise he doesn’t know how to keep: to protect this baby, and keep her from living the life Ivan and his friends were forced to. This book made me very emotional. Applegate’s picture book that goes along with it is also a great companion read.

Ranma ½

I realized that our library had the 2-in-1 editions of Ranma ½ and honestly that was it for me. This has been a favourite series of mine since I was in middle school and realized that the creator of Inuyasha had written other things. It is unapologetically ridiculous and larger-than-life and you have to love the shameless joy it has at being ludicrous. It does start to feel a little repetitive the further into the series you go, but at the moment, with covid, I find I have a huge tolerance for rereading slightly repetitive things so long as they make me happy. And boy howdy does the vaguely queer undertones, endless pining, and relentless slapstick of Ranma ½ make me happy. This is classic manga y’all and if you’ve never read it you should!

The basic premise, for anyone that doesn’t is that of an bonkers martial arts comedy. It follows Ranma and his father who, while training in China, fell into cursed springs. Each spring has the tragic legend of a person or animal who drowned in it, and if someone falls in they inevitably turn into that creature any time they’re doused in cold water. Ranma had the misfortune of falling into “The Spring of Drowned Girl” and, indeed, turns into a girl anytime he’s hit with cold water. Things continue to spiral out of control when Ranma meets his arranged fiancée, Akane, who is as exasperated by this situation as Ranma. Both would rather be fighting people than worrying about things like romance. And don’t worry, there is lots and lots and lots and lots of some of the goofiest martial arts fights that you can imagine for a bunch of high schoolers.

Through the Woods

A beautiful and creepy Canadian graphic novel. I honestly really don’t even know how to describe it in a way that does it justice. It’s a collection of short horror stories, with beautiful, flowing art style that draws you in and sends chills down your spine. I’ll let the art doing the talk, and honestly beg you to go find a way to read this graphic novel:

The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner: And Other Stories

The last Terry Pratchett book on my list (though shout out to the others I’ve listened to this month: Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, Men At Arms, and Snuff) and one that I actually physically, rather than listening to the audiobook. I included this one because unlike the others, this was a Pratchett book I had never read before. It collects a number of Pratchett’s short stories that had been written for children over a number of years. These weren’t necessarily my favourite examples of Pratchett’s writing (I prefer his longer work that can really dive into social issues) but it was such a quick, easy, fun read that you can’t really help but be charmed by it. I liked the stories that took place in “the wild wild west (of Wales)” in particular.

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oddlyunadventurous · 4 years ago

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BOOK REPORT 2020

I’ve always been a sparse reader but 2018 and 19 had me accelerate my reading habits to the point that I think I’ve read the most books this year that I ever had. I suppose I’ll count them all here, just to make sure!! I said something or other about the Moomin books at the end of last year’s Inkt*b*r so, this being the month of traditions, let’s make a new one by tallying up my literary “yays” and “nays” at the end of the season.

Video game text boxes don’t count, online publication articles don’t count, psych/aesthetic papers and 1000 page biosemiotic textbooks don’t count, but they have sure pursued me in my sleep during the year as well. This list is really mostly for my benefit (and no I won’t get a Goodreads account tyvm), so under the cut you’ll find a list of titles in roughly the order I read them, along with short notes. I’ve done longer reviews of these books elsewhere and I need not bore you with them here.

K. Stanislavski - An Actor Prepares (1936) I started reading this book in 2012, then dropped it because I couldn’t understand it at the time. Kostya attends acting school and gets lessons from The Director. He learns to sleep like his cat.

K. Stanislavski - Building a Character (1949) Supposed to have been published along the first one in a single volume. Kostya continues his lessons. A lot of thoughts on walking, gaits, eloquent speech, phrasing, etc. Both these books are wonderful looks into the author’s artistic life. It’s very heartfelt and down to earth, considering it’s quasi-fiction made to edutain. Very inspiring.

M. Polanyi - The Tacit Dimension (1966) A book on the origin of knowledge, the integrated performance of skills, the emergence of life and other phenomena in the universe, marginal control between levels of reality, the moral death of the communist regime caused by the unbridled lucidity of the Enlightenment, the responsibilities of science, and thoughts about open societies of the future. This is one of the two shortest books I’ve read in the list, it covers all of this under 130 pages and manages to do it well.

B. Rainov - Eros and Thanatos (1971) A communist propaganda book attacking western mass media and escapist culture. It gets no points for being correct, as the author mostly swiped the truths from french philosophers. Very variable in its intellectual prowess, almost as if it picks its arguments in order to push an agenda. Informative but also infuriating. Also expectedly homophobic.

J. Hoffmeyer - Signs of Meaning in the Universe (1997) A somewhat pop-sciency book about biosemiotics. Forgettable but also humbly written and explicative.

A. Noë - Varieties of Presence (2012) An unimpressive book about sensory perception. Noë’s theory on sensorimotor action is worth considering but the book is poorly edited and mostly spent arguing with peers.

E. Fudge - Quick Cattle & Dying Wishes (2018) A look into a registry of last wills and testaments from the period 1630 - 1650 in Essex. The book is about early modern people’s relationship to their animals and what they meant to them in life, as well as in death. Fudge’s argumentation is sharp and her style is modern. Being a scholarly book it is really overwhelming with the footnotes sometimes, but otherwise satisfying. One gets beautiful glimpses of family relationships, thoughts and feelings that people now dead for 400 years once held.

G. Márquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) The Buendia family get all their sons killed. The Banana Company sucks. People love each other. A lot happens, generally. It is a hundred years, after all. The upper class sucks.

K. Polanyi - The Great Transformation (1944) The Industrial Revolution sucked. England sucks. It reduced all its workers to subhuman wretches. Every single decision made after the empiricists made labour and land fictional commodities has been a band-aid to the essential contradiction that the market economy wants to annihilate its human host. Laissez-faire sucks. It caused WW1. Fuck everything. Fun book.

R. Coyne - Peirce of Architects (2019) Talks about architecture and the ideas of logician/father of pragmatism Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Informative about both. Brisk and not very in-depth, but to its benefit rather than its detriment.

R. Williams - Culture and Society (1958) A survey of the 18th and 19th century England, and the emergence of the concept of “culture” as defence against the horrors that the Industrial Revolution inflicted upon society. Consists of some two dozen outlines of contributors to the romanticist tradition, from Adam Smith, through Ruskin, to Orwell, their beliefs, contributions and literary works. Very eloquent and interesting.

E. Fudge - Brutal Reasoning (2006) A fantastic book about much: early modern views of the difference between a human and an animal, the Christian discourse of reason, the logical fallacies that lead to its implosion, the advantageous use of dehumanisation by imperialists in other to genocide natives, Montague and Shakespeare, and the ethical hell of animal murder that led Descartes to deem animals as machines so as to allow his buddies to perform live vivisections on dogs without feeling guilty about it (this is the real reason, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise). There is even space for an entire chapter about an intelligent horse who could tell a virgin from a whore and learned Latin at Oxford. This is my favorite book I read this year, so it gets an extra long review.

R. Williams - The Long Revolution (1961) A sequel to Culture and Society that’s worse. The start and end are brilliant but the middle sags. It contains some historical reviews of English cultural elements, like the newspaper industry, the Standard English vernacular and the realist novel of the 19th century, but honestly if the book was just about about the creative state (intro) and Marxism (outro) it would’ve been fine, if not better.

P. Klee - The Thinking Eye (1956 & 1964) Bauhaus boy in 1920s Germany! Love you Klee, xoxo. You really have to read his thoughts to understand his work imho. You can appreciate it just fine on the surface level, but his completely eccentric (though very self-consistently logical and sharp) views on art creation open a new outlook into his primitive approach.

F D.K. Ching - Architecture: Form, Space & Order (1979) A staple book for architecture students. Or so I hear. Steeped in gestalt psychology. Very good, though not necessarily stuff I don’t know already. Very nice looking pencil illustrations, Ching looks to be an accomplished technical draughtsman.

H. Wölfflin - Principles of Art History (1915) A strong contender for second place in the tier list. The book examines the transition between Classical to Baroque in Italy and Germany (and all the Germany clones, like the Netherlands). It is a systematic, precise aesthetic treatise that reveals much by conceptualizing and grouping characteristic art features in which the two styles differ, then explaining their bearing on their decorative content as well as the outlook on life that they embody. Lovely.

M. Porter - Windows of the Soul: The Art of Physiognomy in European Culture 1470-1780 (2005) A historiographical treatise about early modern views on physiognomy. The book deals mainly with the extant literature on the subject and tries to gleam what it could mean for the customs at the time - palmistry reading, occultism, persecution of the “gypsies” and the Christian scientific project of attaining meaning. Macro- and microcosms, as above so below, hermeticism, that sort of stuff. It’s an interesting read but it’s too long, the quality of writing varies greatly from chapter to chapter, and it is far too expensive. Wouldn’t recommend it.

S. C.Figueiredo - Inventing Comics: A New Translation of Rodolphe Töpffer's Reflections on Graphic Storytelling, Media Rhetorics, & Aesthetic Practice (2017) This is the shortest book I read, mainly translating Töpffer’s 1845 "Essay on Physiognomy" along with giving his biography and some other paraphernalia. It’s not worth the price for the content contained within, but Töpffer is the father of the modern comic book, so I thought I’d learn what his philosophy was. On that front, at least, very interesting! If only I knew French I’d save myself the trouble and read the original, which is now public domain.

D. Bayles - Art & Fear (1985) A useless self-help book. Not entirely bullshit but completely banal from all angles. Shouldn’t even be on this list but I did read it, so...

I. Allende - The House of the Spirits (1982) A child rapist gets a redemption arc. Well, kind of. All women are queens. Men are awful. The poor are wretches and it’s their fault. Oh no, the communists are going to take our land! Pinochet’s concentration camps sucked. Overall a better magical realism book than 100 Years of Solitude, to be honest. Very well written characters.

R. Arnheim -To the Rescue of Art: Twenty-Six Essays (1992) What it says on the tin. Wide range of subjects, from art appreciation, to schizophrenic and autistic child art, to gestalt psychology, to philosophy of science, to Picasso’s Guernica and the fate of abstract art, to reflections on the 20th century and the writer’s life in pre-nazi Germany and America. I love Arnheim, I’ve read many of his books and I’m glad I picked this one up.

R. Arnheim - Film as Art (1957) A book about cinematography, one of his earliest, actually, mostly a personal translation from an original German book he published in 1933. Somewhat outdated, but foundational. Not as informative to me but I don’t regret reading it.

G. E. Lessing - Laocoon; or, On the Limits of Painting and Poetry (1766) A book by a greekaboo about a fucking dumb poem and a statue of a naked dad and his two sons getting fucked by snakes. It’s misogynistic and authoritarian in several places, and altogether awfully full of itself. 100 pages of interesting observations stretched over 400 pages of boring Greco-Roman literary discourse.

L. Tolstoy - Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (1852, 1854, 1856) One story serialized in a magazine then later collated in three separate books. Aristocrat boy grows up in pre-revolution Russia. A very, very relatable coming-of-age story. Tolstoy is a lovely writer.

F. Dostoevsky - Poor Folk (1846) An epistolary novel consisting of letters between literally Dobby from Harry Potter and his maybe-niece, whom he wants to fuck. Starts bad, gets better by the end. A bit rough and tumble for Dostoevsky’s first, so I forgive him for wasting my time a little bit. A decent character study of the middle/lower classes, at least.

L. Tolstoy - Family Happiness (1859) An amazing romance novel for the skill employed in writing it. It is very short yet delivers so much emotion. Rather simple narrative at its core, but executed with such bravado one cannot help but be impressed.

F. Dostoevsky - The Double (1846) In which the Author starts swinging. A pathetic, neurodivergent old man gets used and abused by the people around him and nobody cares. Satirical and biting, better than his first.

A. Lindgren - Pippi Longstocking (1945) I last read this when I was 6 years old so I thought I’d refresh my memory. I remember disliking the book then and I can see why. Pippi’s kind of an asshole. Still very enjoyable to read. I know it’s meant for a younger audience’s reading level yet I cannot help comparing it with Tove Jansson’s books and how much better the prose in there is. Sorry.

***

I think that about rounds them up! That’s about 30 books, give or take. For next year I’m hoping to:

Finish Tolstoy’s and Dostoevsky’s bibliographies

Read more econ and marxist writing (low personal priority but i have to, in THIS economy *rolls eyes*)

Finish the Tintin and Moomin comics, as well as Jhonen Vasquez’s collection of edgy humor

Read more about botany and biology in general

Get started on Faulkner’s and William Golding’s bibliographies

Read more children’s books

Search for more Latin American fiction from the Boom

Read more psych/aesthetics/pedagogy literature, which seems to have become my main area of interest

Thanks for sticking till the end of the list, hope you’ve learned something and maybe you’ll pick one of these up if it took your interest. I don’t have to be a philistine just because I’m drawing video game fanart! Bye now!

#books #book report #reading #2020 #blogging #i'm busy reading i'll go back to drawing in a bit #not art

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comicteaparty · 4 years ago

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July 4th-July 10th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from July 4th, 2020 to July 10th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What was an unexpected aspect of making webcomics you didn’t realize before making one yourself?

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

How much our comic and it's story we're going to change during the years of creation was the biggest and most jarring aspect for sure. There's scripts and thumbs that were all made before we ventured out to make GJS with paths completely different from what we initially thought we would take that have completely changed how we approach not only writing but reading webcomics too. Webcomics as a medium have the biggest connection to time, whether it be production or the consumption, they have this opportunity to exist and transform in the long hours it takes to enjoy and read them. It's honestly one of the biggest advantages imho. To see a story slowly unfold, listening to ur audience reactions, peer critiques, or new inspiration can make such a drastic and intense impact on a long form work- its both jaw dropping and humbling to be apart of!(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

For me it was the community aspect of comics. I knew a community existed on the reader side of things (comments!), but I didn't expect the creator side to be how it is! I don't know why, but for some reason I kind of always thought that all of us were sort of throwing our comics out from the void... I guess that was me looking at comics from a reader's point of view! But as soon as I started making comics, I started meeting people who made them too... and it's been incredible!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@deo I never really understood what an internet community or internet friends were until I started making a webcomic

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, I had been in (and quickly decided to not be in 0_0) gaming communities, but nothing really as wonderful as what I've found through comics. Closest I had gotten other than that was comments on social media

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

Community definitely one of the big things, much like Deo pointed. I was kinda expecting to have get connections through readers, but it's much more with other creators, which is super satisfying in it's own way. Also gonna second Krispy's comment about how time affects how you see your story's past and future. A lot of things changed in the past four years that made my comic change as well and having so much time to think each individual scene allows them to be much more complex and interesting than they would when I first thought them through. Having the time really helps. This also kinda touches the topic of personal change too, which affects how I write and what feels most important to focus on and that's interesting to think about as well

eliushi [Keyspace]

How long things will take, the longer the story goes on! I started out being able to complete a page in 2h but then I found more I wanted to try on each page (colours, layout, composition etc) and even wanted to extend certain scenes. With 500 pages planned, I definitely thought I’d be farther along by now, heading into AWT’s first year anniversary in a month. That being said, I’m also enjoying the ride and it’s all thanks to the great community here and making connections with other comics folks/readers. I never expected to get comments and so each one has been a treasure to read.

Desnik

An unexpected aspect of making webcomics is how much people respond to them. I figured I'd be creating into a void but I met so many people as a result of publishing my dinosaur comic

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Ditto on the webcomic community. I didn't realize how far reaching it was to have a community that supports each other. And I've enjoyed meeting so many wonderful and creative people who raised each other up. Another thing I didn't expect, however, was how invested I got into my comic.(edited)

At first I was doing it mostly for fun. But the more I delved into it, the easier it was to get sucked into my story and want to draw it out. And as a result taking it a lot more seriously.

Desnik

yeah sometimes I miss my dinosaur comic even though I had some pretty good reasons for moving on. It was created out of desperation and evolved into something that made me feel good about myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

How much work and time it takes to keep a weekly update going with no backlog

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah same

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

For me, I didn't realize how much it would affect my life to make comics, and vice versa. In a weird way, I didn't know how interrelated the two were, or how easily life could interfere with my comic, or the inverse.

eliushi [Keyspace]

Making comics became a lifestyle for me

@Haruh2 (Colony Life) When I had no backlog I was updating every two weeks with 7 pages per update; so about 14h of work. But this is with a finished script. I am also told I work fast.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

omg

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

That's soooo much, Eli!

That's at least twice as much as I do (edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I hadn't realized how much I put myself into my comic! My friends who read it have all said that it's incredibly in my voice and reflects my opinions and worldviews Before I shared it with people I hadn't thought of it in that way at all

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

As an artist, I didn't expect how my comic production and mindset will change. Once I started comics, it brought out my ideas from thoughts to a physical form. I start to invest more time into it. Each project evolved through each chapter. How to balance script writing to a polished piece. I put alot of time and research in my works. It makes me glad to hear other creators do the same. I'm not the crazy artist who's wasting her time. One of the positive change was meeting other creators, how we give advice and receive praise.(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

The support has been amazing. It makes the work less lonely

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Fish, oh for sure! I didn't realize until recently how much my characters are all just facets of myself!

eliushi [Keyspace]

(I don’t work that quickly anymore and I’m making big changes to the format soon so it’s going to be a Transition)

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I've been in school with art students who never made comics, so when I came to CTP discord, reading comic discussions. It was comforting and fun. I enjoy the cooperation our group has, helping each other.

eliushi [Keyspace]

I like to commiserate about the unique challenges comics have

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahaha, yeahhhhh

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I agree, it's different from illustrations. Different approach(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

I am perpetually balancing time spent on a panel vs how much time the reader will spend on it

Vs illustration: lemme make all the details

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Oh I agree, each panel takes longer than it takes to read it. Hence I dislike when readers call manga creators 'lazy'

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

how much time does it take to read one of my pages?

20 seconds?(edited)

haha

e.e

wait is that emoji supposed to be someone rolling their eyes??

i jsut looked it up

i might've been using it wrong this whole time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Pacing

It's way different than in novels, and definitely came as a shock at the start

eliushi [Keyspace]

Yeah have to play to the strength of the medium. Still imagining AWT as an animated movie written from a novel, in the format of a comic

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Haha, same kinda

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

@eliushi [Keyspace] ah haha, that makes me feel better about my update habits, but thats a good goal for me to shoot for now that im learning a new way to make long comics specifically

cAPSLOCK (Tailslide)

I completely underestimated the amount of effort that would have to go into formatting, website design and maintenance, etc. If I got to do it again, a little more research beforehand probably would’ve saved me a lot of time and hassle.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I really overestimated the "if you build it they will come" aspect of webcomics lol. Like, you actually have to work to advertise your comic in order for people to read it. Nobody ever got hundreds of readers just from posting their comic onto some hosting site without doing major marketing work.(edited)

dako

yeah, I feel that

I've never really been an advertising type before my comic, im learning to just get used to it

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've not really done much advertising tbh, it makes me uncomfortable

dako

it feels kinda...embarrassing? might be too harsh of a word

i dunno

Deo101 [Millennium]

its just uncomfortable idk! i feel awkward doing it

dako

yeah, same ive done it a few times on reddit but i have to force myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

it does feel, odd..hell most of the time it just feels like i open the door to my house and toss a bunch of paper to the wind hoping someone can see it

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah, I dont know if ive done anything other than posting updates on twitter and talking about it in groups like this

and twitter is mostly just me talkin to people who already read it...

idk talking about my work without being asked first makes me feel like im inserting myself where im not allowed

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Self promo got MUCH less intimidating for me when I started thinking of it like: "okay, so my comic is made for readers like me, people who share my tastes. That means I only need to answer one question: what can I say to get me to check out this comic? I don't need to impress anyone else. I just need to appeal to me." (since "me" is my target audience)

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm ^^

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

But take it with a grain of salt because I'm still not really promoing

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

exactly, thats why i find it hard to tweet about it most of the time, but i get the whole if i dont care about to talk without being asked no one else will either

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah lmao mood im like what would get me to read... hmmm... probably exactly what im doing.... I'll keep it up then :)

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea i get excited to draw out certain parts..but wouldnt want to just tweet about all the little tidbits of the story ruining it for others

Deo101 [Millennium]

sweats

dako

i made a whole side twitter for my comic cuz talking about it on my main intimidated me too much

it is my containment chamber

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

hm may do that, just to say i did it and to get my mind away from the thought

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

yeah same

Deo101 [Millennium]

My main is just whatever I want it to be idk. Its kinda for all my comics, since my comics are all I want to talk about

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

though my main is mostly just retweeting from my side twitter lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

it removes a lot of the pressure of like what if my followers dont wanna see this??

cause they wouldnt be here if they didnt wanna see it

cause its all Ive been doing the whole time

dako

thats a good point

i had my main way before my comic so most of my mutuals/followers dont follow for that

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea, it can feel abit disorienting when there is no interaction one way or another on anything you tweet (also if twitter has messed up and causes your tweets to not show up)

Deo101 [Millennium]

but yeah I dont really advertise cause it just makes me so uncomfortable >.<

dako

understandable

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm kind of somewhere in between. I advertise my comic mostly because it is all I wanna talk about, like Deo. But I also don't think it's gotten me many readers. Most of my readers came as far as I can tell because I was making something that appealed to them. (The whole "if you build it, they will come" thing.) Although, I really don't have a big audience, I do have an audience, and I am certain most of them came from me just posting.

I think it's determined a lot by luck, and also, how big your niche's audience is to begin with (and some skill tbh).

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah like I think "gay sci fi" is a p big niche so ive got a big amount of people I could potentially reach

which makes it much easier to draw people in

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm particularly lucky, I guess, that fantasy/romance has a lot of readers (also more competition, but...)

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah fantasy romance is a damn big one

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

eh i think im in an awkward void with my action/drama story (since im not doing romance drama)

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I just go with the mindset: "what makes my fantasy/romance different from the rest" and go from there.

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm

tbh I dont think my sci fi romance is doing anything special?

but im having fun so :) I dont rlly care about that hahahha

dako

having fun the most important thing

Deo101 [Millennium]

its not my goal to make somthing mindblowing ^^ truley im just here for a good time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I mean, LGBT+-inclusive sci-fi is pretty unique

I haven't seen a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's clear that your characters are people, and that's special, regardless of how common/uncommon

dako

think if i didnt love my comic as much as i do id have stopped a long time ago

Deo101 [Millennium]

thats true keiiii, thank you <3

also yeah its Sad that theres not more LGBT+ sci fi cause its like youve got aliennnssssssssssssssssssss you can do whatever you waaaaaant

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I knooowww

Deo101 [Millennium]

guess it shows what ppl want or something

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yup

Deo101 [Millennium]

off topic

so to make it back on topic

I underestimated how much people would like gay sci fi GJKLAGJLAJLKAGJSLAKGJKL

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One thing I learned specifically with my current comic... I did not realize how much difference the reader's cultural background would make in terms of interpreting my story.

Deo101 [Millennium]

!!!!!

I actually almost mentioned you in class once tbh keiii

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Big oversight, in retrospect

Deo101 [Millennium]

saying "someone I know makes a comic which they noticed, it's interpreted completely differently just depending on cultural backgrounds" kind of a thing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

like I would not have made the comic any different, but I would have approached the... presentation differently. Like, talk about it differently

Deo101 [Millennium]

cause we were talking about how narratives affect rt

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I guess another thing that was unexpected about making webcomics was... there are way more people with my exact tastes than I thought

Deo101 [Millennium]

and I was saying that I think the viewer's narrative affects art more than the artists narrative

I mean, the artists narrative obviously is what makes it so.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

In the eyes of the beholder

Deo101 [Millennium]

but interpretations and all that... yeah!!!

so. actually I might have offhandedly mentioned you I cant remember if I did or not

lemme check

I did! very like "second hand" offhandedly mentioning though ahaha

hope that doesnt make you uncomfortable GSKLGSJALGJLGK no one replied to me so e.e

in the class I mean

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I am super uncomfortable and offended !!!!!

j/k

Deo101 [Millennium]

hgjkghsjkagskajgdhsakgjhgjd

but... yeah idk starting out I truly just was making it cause I really love my characters a lot, the idea that other people would like them too is very unexpected :) in a good way

I also definitely didnt expect how important enviornments were e.e

didnt plan those well enough.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

that relatable feel

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I really desperately advertise my comic everywhere. I don't really know how to do marketing effectively though & I don't know if its working

eliushi [Keyspace]

I find what increased readership most consistently is still the feature aspect from the hosting sites. It’s really about finding the right readers/right readers finding you

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Same, I'm basically a rounding error away from being 100% reliant on the features for subs

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I don't think my comic has ever been featured on the hosting sites. My numbers have always been low on Tapas and maybe thast why

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, features help a lot

I've been featured on Webtoon, but not Tapas, and you can really see the difference in readership there

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ive been featured on both, uhh in a couple of diff places, if you wanted a breakdown of how many readers i got from the diff spots and stuff ever just lmk im happy to share

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I've been featured on both. It certainly got people to check it out and even sub, but retaining those people (even if they've subbed!!!) is a different story. I think my story is just not the right type for the platforms, but eh, even if 99% of the platform users aren't into the kinda thing I'm making, 1% increase is still an increase.

Which is another thing I learned over the course of running this comic, specifically (since the internet has changed so much after my first two attempts). Just because the majority of your subs don't actually read the comic, doesn't mean your work sucks. Today's internet caters to casual users, and there's a bajillion factors affecting who's actually reading your stuff.

dako

i agree

my comic has never been featured on either, and webtoons doesnt have a guideline on what they pick but tapas does and my comic doesnt really meet their featuring requirements so i dont think either site ever will feature mine haha

so i gotta advertise on reddit and use twitter tags a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Don't go too crazy with twitter tags; they can make people zone out and not look at your tweet.

dako

i try to use 5 at the most, i know too many is unpleasant to look at haha

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh huh, my rule of thumb is to use 1-2 on twitter and as many as I can on Insta but I’m no expert lol

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, IG seems to be where you want all the tags XD

varethane

Webtoon's algorithms are like turning a hose on and off lol

The difference between views and sub growth during periods of being featured vs not is stark(edited)

carcarchu

i've never been featured by webtoons but i've seen series grow from 100 followers to 10k overnight

not an exaggeration

varethane

I put my new comic on webtoon in november 2019, and in 1 month I crawled up to.... maybe 50 subs?(granted I only put up one episode and then paused for a bit)

Then in December I started updating it weekly and got placed in the new and hot section of the app

And bam, 6k subs

It last 2 weeks and then the section updated and all growth stopped, and subs went down by 10 or so over the next week

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

(Omg featured is like the new Daily Deviation goals from DA way back in the day!)

varethane

Until it got another feature on a different part of the website and went up another 2k. It was like playing with the handle on a faucet lol

dako

I got some pretty good growth during canvas week, but beyond that not really

I get 1-2 subs after an update if I'm lucky

varethane

I feel like their algorithms are very reliant on the regular rotation of features that staff have to do manuallt

Outside of that, discoverability is quite weak

Mostly because of the volume of comics on there

boogeymadam

same boat as vare. the only thing i know about webtoons features is they have stated a couple times one of their recquirements is consistant updating, so if u skip a week that disqualifies u for a lil while i imagine

varethane

I wonder what they count as consistent. I was doing every 2 weeks for awhile, but this month I'm gonna try weekly to see if it helps me earn more $$ from ads :U

dako

I wish there was more incentive for readers to check out the new section on webtoons and tapas

carcarchu

i have found some amazing gems in the new section

i swear i've seen stuff in featured that were not at all updated consistently

dako

I have too, there's a ton of good comics that get overlooked because they're not in the front page

some featured comics havent updated in months sometimes

varethane

I definitely would not have considered myself consistent at the time of the first feature, considering there was a gap of a month between episode 1 and 2 lpl

carcarchu

the consistently updating thing is more of a recommendation than a requirement i feel?(edited)

boogeymadam

ooohh good to know!!

varethane

I'm sure it cant be a hard rule, especially for comics that have just launched

boogeymadam

im just going off their canvas qna's from last year

dako

if it's actually a hard rule for staff to feature comics that regularly update they break that rule a lot

i also heard a bot picks up comics too

carcarchu

well i at least think the staff or bots or whatever at webtoons are doing a better job with features than tapas is

tapas is always pushing their premium comics way more than their indie stuff

boogeymadam

tapas needs to bring new comics onto the frontpage more often than it does, yeah

dako

yeah I agree

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I mean, I get why they put premium on the front page. But I feel more variety would help them because it's more interesting for the readers?

dako

I can't tell whats premium or not with tapas sometimes

boogeymadam

i do like that they've been asking stuff like this in the forums tho

carcarchu

more distinction would be helpful to me too dako

i don't think its as clear as it could be

dako

yeah, webtoons at least it's clear what is and what isnt featured or canvas

Jib {WIP haha}

Huh, anyone remember that really popular writing podcast? I forgot the name

Or have any recommendations I guess

Moral_Gutpunch

Terrible writing advice? It's sarcastic

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

is this related to the topic?

Moral_Gutpunch

It's a podcast about writing, so I'm going to say yes.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think snuffysam meant the weekly topic for the channel

Moral_Gutpunch

Just for this channel, no. I'm too new to know that.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Please check #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Sound more like someone forgot context than the rules

That's why I'm hardly here. I don't know stuff people who've been here for a long time know like podcasts or older comics(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Basically each of the channels under "CTP Activities" on this server has its own topic of the week.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

It's not a matter of being here for a long time or not. This channel is used solely for discussing the weekly topics, and such information can be found in #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Kudos then. I came for creator babble only.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

For general webcomic creation-related advice (either seeking or giving) and such, #shop_talk usually is the place!

creator_babble is for answering the topic of the week

It's not actually for generalized "creator babble" despite the name.

dako

looks like they left

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh my bad, it’s been a while since I read the rules, I brought up the new subject

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Happens!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

No problem, we were just reminding you all :)

Jib {WIP haha}

Ty for that then haha

dako

I think one unexpected thing for me is that no one tells you how crazy the highs and lows can be

well I guess people do but you really don't know until the highs and lows happen to you if that makes sense

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh God, that's so true

Burnout is way more dreadful than I could ever guess prior to experiencing it

Feather J. Fern

One unexpected thing for me was how many people I would meet because of my comic. It surprised me greatly that I found so many cool people through the comic community and made the friends I have made now. Love you all

rajmews

The unexpected thing for me was just how much you have to just...predict...what the market will want to read. Like even if you research a whole lot, and you draw really well, and have been doing art professionally, you can still strike out. It's a humbling experience, but being able to just let go of poorly received pages and move on and try things differently is a lot of the battle for doing a webcomic. It teaches you how to fail gracefully because...it's all a process of learning your readers better. Even if they're few at first.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

My major unexpected thing was how much my initial ideas change as I work through a page. Everything from the expressions, dialogue, and layout can change as I look at it and 'solve' it more closely than I did in thumbnails. There are pages I look back on and realize they are ENTIRELY different than what I had first sketched. And they're better for it. Allowing myself the freedom to edit during the artwork... it's created some majorly awesome opportunities.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yes!!!!! Me too!!!

It's exciting thoufh

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Absolutely same

Could plan something out meticulously but then change it in the last 2 secs before uploading

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yup... I don't thumbnail much ahead of where I'm at cause of this(edited)

I thumbnail a scene at a time, and then usually I end up changing stuff halfway through ahahfjjdkskdkss

varethane

Same hat, haha. I often make changes at every stage-- even the thumbnails will often depart from the script. If anything, I wish I made even more changes-- I feel like my page layouts tend to be pretty standard, I do a lot of pages with the 3 rows of 2 panels each, and I want to break out of that more. But... well, that's a work in progress.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

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theonyxpath · 5 years ago

Link

Today’s blog is going to be a bit different. It’s one of the rare Mondays we aren’t holding our weekly meeting, in that it’s the Labor Day holiday here in the US and a bunch of us are all over the place taking care of everything from finishing up conventions to driving a kid back to college.

So, while we still have our updates and all that, I don’t have a meeting’s worth of notes to share with you in some mutated form. Instead, I thought I’d selfishly take the opportunity to talk about one of my processes; specifically, the process I go through to design the look of one of our game line’s cover treatments.

In this case, I’m talking about the cover for Trinity Continuum: Aberrant.

To do that, we need to go back to when I was designing the overall look of the entire Trinity Continuum line. Sitting down and considering what direction to go with it, I made the a call to make sure the covers let folks know that they were part of a series, rather than the direction of the original editions where I wanted each core book to reflect the genre the game was designed to emulate.

I’m talking about the funky and unique plastic binding of Trinity (Aeon), the graphic novel look of the Aberrant cover, and the pseudo-distressed look of an old pulp magazine for Adventure!.

I think we did a pretty nice job on them way back when, but now that we are emphasizing the fact that these game lines exist in a Trinity Continuum, I was looking for a way that the cover treatments would also relay that information.

A timeline sort of feel – something that could be read as moments along the Continuum – was what I was looking for, but my first idea, a single illustration that we’d cut sections out of for each main book, just wouldn’t work as intended. After all, we expect to add all sorts of new time periods and genres, so how could those be worked into a single illustration before we even could know which ones we were doing?

Instead, what if each point on the timeline that represented a new slice of the Continuum was represented by a vertical illustration that collaged together the high points of that setting? I could picture them springing up all along the timeline, with maybe the “tent pole” game settings of the Trinity Continuum: Core, TC: Adventure!, TC: Aberrant, and TC: Aeon, getting the largest and most involved images for their covers, and other books having treatments that were as involved as the books warranted.

Something like this:

That would give us an underlying structure that tied into the Continuum concept – and it is always a good thing to try and put new concepts into some sort of visual design that reinforces and even explains that new concept – yet not have a design that would constrict our ideas and cover visuals.

Here’s what the TC: Core and TC: Aeon covers look like:

Now for TC: Aberrant, I was able to start with continuing the structure set up with the previous covers, and I had the original edition’s collage cover by the awesome Tom Fleming to draw imagery from to give us the quite accurate sense of a connection between the two editions. So things like a cityscape at the bottom, and making sure we got a T2M logo somewhere in it, were natural choices for imagery.

Which scenes, which head-shots, and which full figures to be featured were a different matter entirely. A lot depended on just what we wanted this edition to have as themes, or basically, what kind of moments and characters best show off the setting folks will find past the cover?

For the biggest, focal-point full-body figures: we’d talked about the changes to The Fireman’s story, so I knew he was still an inspirational figure – maybe even moreso in this edition. I even played around with having the central image be his statue, but decided on keeping the focus on the living hero.

Divas Mal, of course, needed to be in a position of prominence, and I wanted the swirl of his cloak to talk about one of our most iconic characters also being a comic book character. Around him, the leading figures in his movement, since Mal was still a messianic figure that movements coalesced around in this edition.

Some rough sketches along the way to the cover design.

Then between them, another iconic and powerful character, Antaeus – even before we knew the lead-in webcomic would feature him. Smaller figures would run the gamut of the various kinds of Novas – mercenary Elites, celebs in the public eye, T2M members, etc. I also wanted a wide range of physical types.

Some head-shot characters as a call back to the first edition cover, and to break up the figures on a visual level. I knew Matthew and Eddy were anxiously awaiting a chance to pitch a supplement detailing the Nova wrestlers that featured way to prominently in first edition (IMHO), so Lance Stryker reprises his head-shot, along with the iconic Cestus Pax to reassure long-time fans that the hero you love to hate was still in there. (Especially since Ian Watson had already made some strong changes to the character).

Just like on the previous two book covers, the three characters above the cityscape are new ones, but again, I was pushing to hit some archetypes and expand some physical types. Plus, we had discussed a long time back that “inventor” type characters would be able to go all Tony Stark, so a powered-suit character needed to be on there to suggest that change in this edition.

For iconic scenes, I started with the Galatea explosion, and the attack on the Lincoln Memorial by Geryon. Both of those have also been moments from which a lot of the further events of the setting sprung. Then a few more, like a T2M rescue just to get the team into the cover a tad bit more, as even tweaked, I know they were still a great entry point for lots of folks coming to TC: Aberrant already aware of the idea of superhero teams.

Because, even with all that pre-planning, there were still tweaks to be made. The biggest came late in the actual illustrating when I was reminded that in this edition’s continuity Slider isn’t murdered. I’d designed the cover before the writing was done, and forgotten I’d included the Slider assassination as one of the cover moments. Whoops! We had to get that fixed even later than Mirthful Mike’s cover mock-up for the Kickstarter.

And please, lest you think this whole blog is me suggesting the covers are all a RichT production of a RichT idea, directed by and starring RichT, let me be clear that most of my efforts end by handing off my sketches to Mirthful Mike Chaney, who not only art directs the cover illustrations based on the sketches, but follows up on the illustrator’s versions and my notes on them, and then makes the illustrations sing by how he has done the graphic design for the covers.

Fantastic artist Shen Fei, who has illustrated the covers for all three books so far, has so far blown away and improved my ideas by a quantum level – and I expect that TC: Adventure! will also be for more beautiful than I imagined as I sketched it out! (And I can imagine a fair bit of beautiful.)

So, that’s pretty much it for this week. Just a little peak behind the scenes on how we do the voodoo that we do so well in order to illuminate our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Keep an eye out in this space as well as on our social media for the Deviant: The Renegades Kickstarter that will be launching later this month!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast features recordings from GenCon! Go to https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/ or to your favorite podcast venue!

The Onyx Path News show went out live today, with talk of Vampire, Werewolf, Chronicles of Darkness, They Came From Beneath the Sea!, Dystopia Rising: Evolution, and all kinds of other games, along with lots of meandering nonsense from Matthew! https://youtu.be/ZVmX1n_54Fc

Our Twitch channel has a bumper crop of content coming up this week, with almost every day populated with a show! There’s Scion, Scarred Lands, Vampire, and more! Check us out and give us a follow on www.twitch.tv/theonyxpath

Here’s a special treat for fans of Mage: The Awakening! Occultists Anonymous have four new episodes for you right here as follows:

Episode 37: Forging Futures With Atratus still within her soul and tensions running a little high, Wyrd and Songbird split the party. Plans are made for the future of the cabal and the individual mages. https://youtu.be/ay54wbYhs7Y

Episode 38: In the Wings Wyrd the Seer and Songbird work to restore a wounded Hallow. Atratus experiments with the new strength of her Matter Arcana. https://youtu.be/ZsMa26FER4g

Episode 39: Lady of the Lake Wyrd the Seer delves into her Oneiros to confront the conflicts within her own soul. Songbird prepares for his UFC fight. Atratus speaks with her dead brother. https://youtu.be/AD2UTOzWSq8

Episode 40: He’s Back Acanthis, the fighter formerly known as Songbird, returns to a UFC fight, then the cabal goes to Jimmy “Smalls” Patinko’s place for a party. Enjoying the nightlife in New York City… https://youtu.be/yULxjFKo-iE

The Story Told Podcast continue their excellent Dragon-Blooded actual play. As the Dragon-Blooded set out again on the road to Daric, Kai discovers evidence of a small band of travelers attempting to hid their presence. The Dragon-Blooded decide to investigate. https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/

Our Scion: Athens, Ohio actual play is now on our YouTube channel right here https://youtu.be/gQv3599lczo along with promo videos here https://youtu.be/drNIV5G8Vys and here https://youtu.be/9_1X8l1RXaQ Expect more to come in the coming weeks!

Drop Matthew a message via the contact button on matthewdawkins.com if you have actual plays, reviews, or game overviews you want us to profile on the blog!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero are available to order!

As always, you can find most of Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, Night Horrors: Shunned By the Moon for Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd will be available in PDF and physical book PoD versions on DTRPG!

Conventions!

Save Against Fear: October 12th – 14th GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd PAX Unplugged: December 6th – 8th 2020: Midwinter: January 9th – 12th

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Redlines

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Development

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Manuscript Approval

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

W20 Art Book (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Post-Approval Development

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

V5 Chicago Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Editing

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Post-Editing Development

Memento Mori (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e Companion)

DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Indexing

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Ex3 Lunars – Contracted. Sketches rolling in.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties – Contracted.

Deviant (KS) – Contracted. Putting together KS graphics.

Trinity RMCs – Contracted.

Cults of the Blood God (KS) – Sending out art notes.

Chicago Folio – Art notes going out this week.

Mummy 2 (KS) – Got Matthew’s notes.

Memento Mori – Small book, throwing it to Drew and Luis.

In Layout

They Came from Beneath the Sea!

Dark Eras 2 – Files with Aileen

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds

VtR Spilled Blood – With Josh. Everything is in, so he should be cruising.

Aeon Aexpansion – Need to do cover.

Proofing

C20 Cup of Dreams

Signs of Sorcery – Inputting errata.

M20 Book of the Fallen

DR: E – Back to Eddy for XXs.

DR:E Jumpstart

CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel

At Press

Dragon Blooded – Shipping wrapping up.

Dragon-Blooded Cloth Map – Shipping wrapping up.

Dragon-Blooded Screen – Shipping wrapping up.

Trinity Core Screen – At Studio2.

TC Aeon Screen – At Studio2.

Trinity: In Media Res – PoD proofs coming.

Trinity Core – Printing. PoD proofs ordered.

Trinity Aeon – Printing. PoD proofs ordered.

V5: Chicago – Prepping files for press.

You Are Not Alone (TC: Aberrant Comic) – PoD proof ordered.

Shunned By the Moon – PDF and PoD physical book versions available this Wed. at DTRPG!

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Thanks to Impish Ian Watson for posting this: “50 years ago today, two computers at UCLA were connected via a 4.5-meter cable, giving birth to what we call the Internet. Happy birthday, Internet.” Because without the internet, Onyx Path would just not work – we need the connections around the world to do what we do!

#Onyx Path Publishing

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whypolar · 6 years ago

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Character Creation Tag

Was tagged in this a few days ago by @diseonfire

(If I tag you in this and you don’t want to do it for any reason don’t worry about it. I just picked some people who sprung to mind.)

I’m going to use Maria for this.

1. What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)?

Appearance. She was one of the first four IC characters I designed, before IC was actually a thing. Maria, Vikas and Ravi were all conceived as cousins, and they were all based on the same old character from when I was in highschool.

2. Did you design them with any other characters/OCs from their universe in mind?

Yes. Pretty much all the characters in IC were built with each other in mind, since it’s a story about family.

I would say that she links most closely with Tommy and Lila (since they are her most immediate family members), followed by Ravi (since they have a few very important things in common).

3. How did you choose their name?

I don’t remember exactly how I picked them, but she and her siblings all have names derived from figures in Christianity. Maria is easily the most blatant choice you can get for that lmao

Karalis is a greek surname (constructed from borrowed turkish afiak). It has a number of meanings in other languages, too, which may not have any shared etymology but are still pretty neat imho - latvian karalis and latin caralis.

4. In developing their backstory, what elements of the world they live in played the most influential parts?

f a m i l y

5. Is there any significance behind their hair colour?

Red Brown Looks Cool.

6. Is there any significance behind their eye colour?

Brown Eyes Are Common.

7. Is there any significance behind their height?

Heights for ic were decided collectively based on 1) structure of the family tree and 2) visual variety in character design.

She’s on the shorter side, like Lila, while Tommy and Silas are both taller like their father.

8. What (if anything) do you relate to within their character/story?

She’s one of the characters who I consider to be more ‘like me’, particularly in regards to self-perception and how she relates to other people (or doesn’t).

9. Are they based off of you, in some way?

I would argue most of my characters are based on me, even the ones that don’t resemble me at all by the end. I’ve only ever been myself. Maybe that’s just being pedantic though.

The very earliest incarnation of her relationship with Cindy in IC was basically a cautionary tale, directed at myself, about selfishness. Since I was writing that version while in the middle of a long-term abusive relationship, I eventually had to gut all of that content and rebuild from the ground up. The ‘moral’ from that version of the draft was pretty nonsensical and unfair, since it was driven by personal guilt and a partner with unreasonable expectations.

10. Did you know what the OC’s sexuality would be at the time of their creation?

She’s been a lesbian since day one. Pretty sure she’s the only character under 30 who hasn’t had their canon sexuality change at least once.

11. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: Writing, drawing, edits, etc.)?

A lot of what is most compelling about her is not visually apparent by design, since her storyline is themed around being closed off, flat, etc. It doesn’t especially make for interesting standalone illustrations.

12. How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?

Oh, not at all. IC ends where it ends, and where the characters go after that is anybody’s guess.

That’s a long way off though. Maybe I’ll change my mind eventually.

13. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

She is driven more by obligation than desire.

She habitually prioritizes other people’s needs and wants, and has a difficult time even identifying her own.

14. What is something about your OC that can make you laugh?

Her general demeanour is deadpan, and it drives the more reactive characters up the wall. She can antagonize a good chunk of the cast without even trying.

15. What is something about your OC can make you cry?

That’s probably spoilers.

16. Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

Hah. I have had regrets before, but I usually just… change the thing. I can’t say I won’t regret anything in the future, once I’m far enough along in the comic that they can’t be changed, but I can’t really predict that. If I could, they wouldn’t be regrets!

17. What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC?

Bro I have so much more parental health angst material now, it’s gonna be a nightmare

18. What is your favourite fact about your OC?

In the very oldest version of her character - before any of the current plot or structure existed - I decided that she was going to ‘steal’ Ravi’s girlfriend by the end. lmao

(They both had fairly different personalities at this point. Ravi was still being written as a man. He wasn’t the protagonist yet, either! Vikas was the protagonist!!!!

Anyway, proto-Ravi fucking sucked. The fact these early versions of the characters were not very likeable or fun for me to write is a large part of why I scrapped them.)

TAGGING... @hierophanthistorian @denzelle @machi-tobaye @plaguecraft @slugpuppie @ladyisak @ghoultwink

and anyone else who wants to do it! don’t let your dreams be dreams!!!

#remibloggue #comic development tag #maria karalis #abuse mention

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greensparty · 6 years ago

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Album Reviews: Green River and The Dandy Warhols

I’m not even finished rolling out my Best of 2018 lists and already I have a few reviews for cool album’s dropping this week!

Green River Rehab Doll Deluxe Edition and Dry as Bone Deluxe Edition

Deluxe Edition album covers

If you know your Seattle music history, you know that Green River were a band from 1984 to 1988 and the members went on to become famous in their later bands, i.e. Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard in Pearl Jam, Mark Arm in Mudhoney, and Bruce Fairweather in Love Battery. The band really become famous in the early 90s when Seattle grunge exploded and people looked back at the bands that preceded Pearl Jam, etc. After Green River and before Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone was formed and that featured Ament, Gossard, and Fairweather. Since Green River’s 1988 breakup, the members have reunited here and there. But the band didn’t release that much music during their time. Sub Pop is re-releasing two of those albums in expanded deluxe editions today.

The band’s 1987 EP Dry as a Bone is considered by many to be the beginning of grunge. This Deluxe Edition is the original 5 songs, but 11 more unreleased tracks, B-sides, and compilation tracks (including 2 from the 1986 Deep Six compilation). Some of the bonus tracks were actually recorded with a betamax player (yes, as in “VHS or Beta?”). Producer Jack Endino got his hand on a betamax player and was able to revive these long lost recordings. The band’s 1988 album Rehab Doll was recorded from 1987-88 and had the misfortune of finally getting released after the band had broken up. This Deluxe Edition features all 8 original tracks plus 10 previously unreleased tracks recorded at Reciprocal. Included in these recordings are covers of Aerosmith’s “Somebody” and David Bowie’s “Queen Bitch”.

Green River during their prime

As I noted in my review of MLB’s 2016 box set On Earth As It Is - The Complete Works, it’s fascinating to look at what the members did before they got famous. Some of this album is so raw and underground, but you can really hear a much bigger band just waiting to break out...and they eventually did. Some of the bonus tracks border on For Fans Only, but the covers are kinda cool. I think they got better as a band if you were to contrast Dry (recorded in 1986) with Rehab (recorded in 1987) IMHO. But it’s cool that this band is finally being recognized. When they write the book of grunge, expect Green River to be in Chapter 1!

For info on Green River: https://www.subpop.com/artists/green_river

Dry as a Bone: 3 out of 5 stars

Rehab Doll: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Dandy Warhols Why You So Crazy

Why You So Crazy album cover

It is hard to believe that Portland, OR psychedelic alt-rockers The Dandy Warhols turn 25 this year. Yes, 25 years as a band!?! Rising out of the 90s Alternative Nation, this band was a wild combo of art rock, garage, and even Britpop. What got my attention about them was their ironic hipster name. The band’s 1997 album ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down is an album I’ve listened to countless times and is one of my favorite albums of the 90s. “Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth” was the Song of the Summer of 1997 for me and “Everyday Should be a Holiday” has accompanied me on many vacations! The band periodically appeared on soundtracks and slowly broke through. I continued to dig their stuff over the years. Ondi Timoner’s excellent 2004 documentary Dig! profiled the friendship and rivalry between The Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre. As big a fan as I was, I have to say, the albums they released post-Dig!, had some great songs but the album’s mostly lost steam.

Which brings us to the band’s new album Why You So Crazy being released today on Dine Alone. It is the band’s first albums since 2016. I am happy to report this is the band’s best album since 2000′s Thirteen Tales of Urban Bohemia. I mean WOW! Holy crap - this is the first great album of 2019 and I am completely blown away. There is dabbling in different genres like country (”Highlife” and “Sins are Forgiven”), classical (the closer “Ondine”) and the band’s passion for 80s new wave (”Thee Elegant Bum”). But it’s the band’s power pop and melodic senses that keep these songs lingering in your head.

The Dandys today

Being completely free of major labels, creating what they want and observing the batshit-craziness of the world around them has lit something under this band. If hanging in there for 25 years can make this band do their best album in 19 years, then I can’t wait to see what they do next.

For info on The Dandy Warhols: https://www.dandywarhols.com/

4 out of 5 stars

#green river #Pearl Jam #mudhoney #love battery #mother love bone #the dandy warhols #dig!#ondi timoner #album reviews #music nerd

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t-baba · 6 years ago

Photo

What happened in JavaScript in 2018

#417 — December 21, 2018

Read on the Web

JavaScript Weekly

This week we're taking a break from the usual roundup to look back at what happened in the JavaScript world in 2018, as well as the tutorials, videos, and tools you, our fantastic readers 🤗, clicked on the most.

Thanks for continuing to support us in 2018 and we'll be back on January 4th. We hope you have a fantastic holiday season, however you celebrate it. 🎄

Here's to more JavaScript developments in 2019! 🍾 — Peter Cooper, editor

🗞 JavaScript developments in 2018

jQuery 3.3 was released, much to the relief of the majority who love jQuery but pretend they don't.

TC39 continued to get and work upon lots of proposals on how to improve the language.

Lin Clark helped everyone understand ES modules, which all major browsers (finally) came to support in 2018.

Martin Fowler announced he was switching his famous Refactoring book from Java to JavaScript for its long-awaited second edition.

webpack 4.0 came out, getting a lot faster and adopting an optional 'zero config' approach as favored by competing tools like Parcel.

Make Magic with Creative Coding in Canvas & WebGL 🎩✨ — Use JavaScript to create generative art, interactive animations, 3D graphics with ThreeJS, and custom shaders in GLSL. ✨You'll learn the fundamentals for creative coding jobs like games, advertising, AR/VR and installation artwork!

Frontend Masters sponsor

We found out that Microsoft has been rewriting Office 365 in JavaScript.

ECMA published the official ECMAScript 2018 specification, thus ensuring all JavaScript developers had plentiful bedtime reading all summer. Dr. Axel can help if you want to understand it.

Node 10 and npm 6 came out.

Anil Dash asked what would happen if JavaScript became the first-ever truly dominant programming language?

Redux 'died', then came back to life, died again, then back to life again.

Oracle's ownership of the 'JavaScript' trademark continued to annoy developers, even prompting a suggestion to rename the language.

2 years of hard work translated into Babel 7 being released.

Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5b, then they removed jQuery from their frontend. They haven't moved to Azure as yet.

JSConf US came back to life after a hiatus.

The annual State of JavaScript survey ran, got over 20,000 responses, and told us React continues to flourish, everyone wants to learn Vue.js, and the use of ES6 is now very well established. Also, everyone's using VS Code now.

Evan You gave us a preview of Vue.js 3.0.

The V8 JavaScript engine turned 10 years old. The work on V8 over the years has been instrumental in making JavaScript as popular as it is now, IMHO.

The React team unveiled Hooks, an experimental feature in React 16.7 that got a lot of React developers very excited and seems as if it may become a key element of React development in 2019.

A popular npm package was exploited causing a lot of discussion about how we prevent such things in future.

Marijn Haverbeke spent the whole year writing a third edition of Eloquent JavaScript. It's almost finished.

Lots of versions of V8, TypeScript, Vue.js, Jest, React, Angular, Aurelia and Ember came out. We're not linking them all again 🤣

Please note, this list is just a selection and isn't exhaustive.. you've got our issue archive for that :-)

💻 Jobs

Front End Developer✌️ in Beautiful Norway🎉 — Passion for React & GraphQL? Join our fast growing GraphQL based e-commerce service Crystallize.

Crystallize AS

Join Our Career Marketplace & Get Matched With A Job You Love — Through Hired, software engineers have transparency into salary offers, competing opportunities, and job details.

Hired

📘 Top tutorials of 2018

Going Beyond console.log() — While console.log() may form the basis of many people’s debugging strategies, the console object has a lot more to offer, as covered here. This was our top tutorial of the year with over 12,000 of you clicking.

Matt Burgess

33 Concepts Every JavaScript Developer Should Know — A curated collection of links to tutorials on 33 different areas of JavaScript it’s worth understanding well, and not only one of our most popular links but one of the most starred projects on GitHub too.

Leonardo Maldonado

Building Modern Apps with the MERN Stack and Google Cloud Platform — Learn about the two dominant JavaScript stacks: MEAN and MERN and how to implement these web stacks on GCP.

MongoDB sponsor

The Front-End Developer Handbook 2018 Edition — An online guide that outlines and discusses the practice of front-end engineering, how to learn it and what tools are used in the practice, as of 2018. Let's hope we see a 2019 edition!

Cody Lindley

Examples of Everything New in ES2016, 2017, and 2018 — A worthwhile roundup of all the new bits and pieces in recent ECMAScript specs.

Raja Rao DV

What is Redux: A Designer’s Guide — A really neat high-level approach to explaining Redux and what it offers beyond state management. Smashing Magazine really had some amazing tutorials go out this year.

Linton Ye

Designing (Very) Large JavaScript Applications — A written version of a talk given by Google’s Malte Ubl at JSConf Australia that took a high level look at modularity, lazy loading code, and similar concepts. Video, if you prefer that.

Malte Ubl

The Cost of JavaScript in 2018 — A detailed write-up of thoughts and findings on how much effect JavaScript has on page sizes and performance and some ways to improve matters.

Addy Osmani

JavaScript Fundamentals Before Learning React — A concise list of all the different JavaScript functionalities that can be used to complement a React app.

Robin Wieruch

🎬 Top videos of 2018

▶ Write Perfect Code with Standard and ESLint — An intro to getting started with linting (and why - hint: to catch errors in your code) as well as how to improve your setup if you’re already doing it.

Feross Aboukhadijeh

How Do Top Developers Deliver Video? - Download the 2018 Video Report — Hundreds of developers around the world reveal their preferred video streaming solutions.

Bitmovin sponsor

▶ 10 Things Node's Inventor Regrets About Node — Original Node.js inventor Ryan Dahl reflected on what he considered to be some early design mistakes with Node.

JSConf EU

▶ Build The Future of the Web with Modern JavaScript — A Google I/O presentation presenting an overview of cutting-edge JavaScript features, plus what to expect in future versions of Chrome and Node.js (some of which we now have).

Mathias Bynens and Sathya Gunasekaran

▶ Learn RxJS in 60 Minutes for Beginners — RxJS is used for reactive programming using observable streams and this is a great ‘from scratch’ crash course.

Gary Simon

🔧 Top code and tools of 2018

30 Seconds of Code: A Curated Collection of Useful JavaScript Snippets — Our most clicked code related item this year was this ever growing collection of useful snippets.

30 Seconds

Angular 7 Released — A major release of Angular came out this year with upgrades for the Angular entire platform from the core framework to Angular Material and the CLI tools.

Stephen Fluin (Google)

Detect JS Production Errors in Real-Time, Then Debug Them in Minutes

Rollbar sponsor

JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures — JavaScript examples of many common algorithms (e.g. bit manipulation, Pascal’s triangle, Hamming distance) and data structures (e.g. linked lists, tries, graphs) with explanations.

Oleksii Trekhleb

TUI Calendar: An Attractive, Full Featured Calendar Control — From the creators of TUI Chart comes TUI Calendar, a highly customizable JavaScript calendar widget that supports numerous view types (weekly, monthly, etc.), dragging and resizing of schedule items, and is basically like your own Google Calendar in a box. MIT licensed too.

NHN Entertainment

An Annotated webpack 4 Config for Frontend Development — A very thorough example of a real-world production webpack 4 config that takes modules, CSS, and image optimization into account.

Andrew Welch

Storybook 4.0: The UI Component Workshop — A great tool for building UI components got a major update with support for webpack 4 and Babel 7, React Native, Ember, Svelte, Riot, and more, plus improvements for existing React, Vue and Angular users. If you’re not familiar with Storybook, learn more here.

Michael Shilman

Create React App 2.0 Released — A significant release of a project that’s continued to have a huge effect on the adoption of React by making it easier to get a project started. Psst.. we have a React newsletter too.

Joe Haddad and Dan Abramov

by via JavaScript Weekly http://bit.ly/2EIjIx9

#Javascript Branding #Javascript Weekly

0 notes

kestrel-of-herran · 8 years ago

Note

Hello! I really love your poetry and I was wondering if you had any advice or tips for when it comes to writing poetry/starting to write poetry?

Hello!

First of all, thank you so much for reading my poetry and thanks for asking!!!

I hope you’re in the mood for reading, because this is gonna be l o n g.

STEP ONE: GETTING STARTED

- The first thing you should do if you want to start writing, or just start doing it on a regular basis, is to get inspired. And I don’t mean sitting around, waiting for the muse to come visit you. Inspiration comes not from having extraordinary things happen to you, but from always trying to discover something interesting and unusual about your immediate surroundings. Inspiration comes from thinking. Watch your thoughts. Describe the things you see in your mind, ask yourself what feelings and thoughts they evoke in you, and why that might be. Keep your brain muscles fit - draw connections between objects that are not usually regarded as similar, concentrate on the details, invent stories in your head on your way - it’s would also make your alone time much more interesting!

- Get to know yourself. Poetry is an excellent way to examine your feelings and accept yourself as the person you are. It’s also a way to take control back from your emotions when they seem overwhelming and scary. Don’t shy away from your feelings - get to the core of each emotion! The moment you understand why you feel the way you do, you’ll be able to cope with it and find a way to feel better! :)

- Find connections between your feelings and the world around you. Now that you know how you feel and why, think about the things that have made an impression on you recently, and match them to your current thoughts! The more you think about your ideas, the more different points of view you regard them from, the deeper you will explore into them and the better you will understand them!

STEP TWO: GETTING IT RIGHT

- Take notes. It might sound tempting to store your visions only in your memory, but trust me, memory has an attitude of its own, and can be suprisingly single-minded and stubborn sometimes. You know how when you suddenly recall something you realize that in a moment you weren’t aware of that thing ever happening? If you want to develop your ideas, you have to keep them ordered. The best advice I can offer is to make a notebook or simply a file in your phone where you can write your thoughts down in plain text, when you’re particularly satisfied with them.That will allow you to go back to them as often as you like, and draw inspiration from them whenever you need it!

- Read. Vocabulary is the most important thing in poetry (imho), especially if you want to write in rhyme. Getting to know the language is even more important if you’re not writing in your mother tongue (as I am), so don’t hesitate to learn these new words - but don’t hang on to each one! Sort the new words that are most common and learn them, because using uncommon words can be frustrating for the reader (more on that later). Make sure you understand the context of the words you’re using, so as to not convey the wrong meaning!

Example 1:

Don’t tell meFor spoken words, they fumbleAnd fall to the groundWrite it down.

Don’t play meFor sung words, they waverAnd lose in the soundWrite it down.

As you can see, the word fumble should be replaced with tumble so the right meaning will be conveyed. Always check the words you’re using, especially if you just added them to your vocabulary!

STEP THREE: GET TO WRITING

- Write it down. It doesn’t matter in what form - uneven rhyme, blank verse, or even plain text - the most important thing is to get your ideas ordered. Once you figure out what you want to write about, the rest comes easily!

Example 2:

oh, I would whisk you awaysend you on a missioncount down the thingsto make you beat for

and I’d shoo you awaywhen you came back faithfullyand scold you forbeing a fickle heart

thank God I finallyopened up my rib cageand you, my bruised, my loverrested in my own chest

Now, this is a very rough draft that, of course, is what I would have called absolute trash had I not concidered it as the mere spine on which to place the bones and flesh of my actual poem! It as a very common mistake, so don’t make it! If there is a law to writing, it is do not delete anything. You never know when you can turn a failed verse into a materpiece!

- Plan. Planning is a writer’s best friend. Think about the structure you want to use, focus on the begining and the end - these should be your strongest points! Speaking of structure, that’s one very helpful device - a mirror frame or a refrain would help you organize your poem around a phrase/motif, and make your writing more coherent and your thought process easier to follow. Remember, the reader doesn’t know your way of thinking, and can’t always get adjusted to it unless you help them a little!

Example 3:

Oh, why don’t you wander,My little fickle heart?There’s a rose-bud– there’s a thunderWhy not settle for that?

“Roses stung me, thunder burned me,”Said the little fickle heart.“So I stole a petal and a flash,Won’t you let me now come back?”

Oh, but what of wonder,My little fickle heart?Worlds await you– words will mend youWhy not settle for that?

“Words enslaved me, worlds forsakeme,When their magic had worn out.But I brought a paper and a pen,Won’t you let me back again?”

Ah, you’re so ungrateful,My little fickle heart!Life will bend you– I’ll betray youWhy d'you settle for that?

“‘Long as you would let me restBruised and bleeding in your chest,‘Tis but all I’ll ever ask,”Said the little fickle heart.

Now this is the beautiful poem that came out of that messy draft! :D

- Forget the thesaurus. Draw your words from memory and not from a dictionary, unless you want your writing to turn into an incoprehensible mess of complicated words whose meaning even you don’t remember

Example 4:

The ink of my soul got blurred under yourfingertipsThe solidness of my bones went fluidThe width of my gaze narrowed down to your faceIn the hole between my lungs your heart found a place

Our words lost their outlines in the sweetest ofsighsAnd light and shade colorizedWe put liquefied stars in each other’s eyesBut the universe expands and gravity took our hands

It tore through our lungs and our united breathsgot burnedDesecrated our dreams and our starlight refracted in tearsSat like morbid growth on the tips of our tonguesWhispered blood in our ears ‘till we choked on the feeling

And acid rain fell from the atmosphereOur hearts beat brokenly for no-one to hearFingerprints we left faded from our handsThank God we’re sane again

(I have absolutely no idea what desecrate means :D)

- Revise. The key to editing is to put as much distance between yourself and the work you’re editing as you can. If you try to edit as soon as you finish, you will most likely find little to none faults in your poem (the euphoria of finishing a piece plays a big part); but you will find that in a couple of weeks you’re able to look at your work on a critical level, acknowledge it’s strong points and correct it’s weak ones. Don’t forget to add punctuation - its appropriate use will influence the reading speed make longer works more easy to read!

- Reimagine your old work. Change the meaning of your old poems in a way that is more relevant to you now - that’s a quick way to exersize and to use the structure of an old piece you like but don’t consider good enough for public

Example 5:

Autumn rainIt’s a shameThat you’re somewhereAnd it’s not Paris

Sort of retroSort of well-knownThat you’re somewhereAnd it’s not Paris

I wear your hatI think of thatThat you’re somewhereAnd it’s not Paris

I blow a kissI wish you wishedYou weren’t somewhereThat wasn’t Paris

Example 6:

Autumn rainIt’s a shameThat you’re somewhereAnd it’s not Paris

Sort of retroSort of well-knownAnother affairAnd it’s not Paris

Your letter’s lateAnd your glass of champagneIs getting you somewhereAnd it’s not Paris

But when the mud’s goneI’ll be your widowYou won’t be sparedAnd it will be Paris

(footnote: The Widow is another term for The Guillotine)

- Do warm ups. Allow yourself to write several mediocre pieces before you start writing with thought. Take your time! A four-liner might take five miuntes, but a long, complicated poem could take more than an hour. Remember, the more you think about it, the closer you’ll get to perfecting it!

STEP FOUR: GET FEEDBACK

- Ask your friends, family and teachers to read your work and express their opinon on it. Sharing can be really intimidating, but the way to improve is to get someone else’s view on your writing. There is a large number of poetry websites where you can get feedback quickly, but its quality might not be good. Therefore, asking someone who knows you personally is the most effective way to get relevant feedback. Don’t be afraid that you’re a “burden” to people in asking them to spend some time on your poetry - most people are delighted that you’re seeking their guidance and will take the task very seriously. Also, it’s really motivatng - you never know when your trash won’t turn out to be somebody’s treasure! :)

- Most of all, keep writing. No matter if you do it once a day or once a month, your writing can only develop if you work on it. Even writing fanfiction in your head can make a difference! And never ever give up on your dreams, no matter how “impossible” they look - I wrote song lyrics for 3 years, completing more than 300 pieces of original text and melody, and even though I never got one of them performed on stage or recorded, all of the word inventing, grammar rules ignoring and cliches got me really familiar with rhyme and rhythm. Break the rules all you like - it will only make you better acquianted with them!

KEEP MAKING YOUR ART. THE WORLD NEEDS IT.

#lilly talks #anonymous #writing reference #writing resources #writing help #writing advice #keep writing #poets on poetry #writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #poetry advice

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limejuicer1862 · 6 years ago

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Lyn Coffin

author of poetry, fiction, drama and translation has published more than thirty volumes of poetry and prose, most notably The First Honeymoon (Iron Twine Press), a collection of her short fiction, and her poetic translation of Shota Rustaveli’s 12th century epic (Poezia Press.) Lyn has twice been a Wordsworth Poet in Seattle. Her poetry has won an National Endowment for the Humanities award and a Michigan Council for the Arts grant. Individual poems have won various awards, including the Jeanne Lohmann Poetry Award and first prize in StAnza’s Scottish International Poetry Festival Muriel Sparks’ competition (2018).

Lyn’s poetry was part of the International Poetry Festival in Soria, Spain (8/2017). This Green Life, her New and Collected Poems, were featured at the 2018 Soria International Poetry Festival, which also celebrated the publishing of the collection in Spanish (Pregunta).

Lyn has had short plays produced on and off Broadway, Malaysia, Boston and Seattle. Her translation (along with Nato Alkhazashvili) of Dato Barbakadze’s “Still Life with Snow” won a translation award from the Georgian Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection.

Lyn’s fiction has been praised by Joyce Carol Oates and Alice Fulton, among others.

“Falling off the Scaffold has, in a sense, no characters at all, only the projected personaes of two people unknown to each other; yet it respects the contours of reality and gives us, in a most unusual form, a story about illusion and self-deception.” – Joyce Carol Oates, from her Introduction to Best American Short Stories

“Coffin’s fiction shows evidence of an original and delightful intelligence. Her lively and memorable characters speak as if they are possessed by forces slightly beyond their control, in voices brimming with wit, intelligence, cunning, and love. The structure of her stories unfolds with such grace that one forgets the skill it takes to produce such ‘effortless’ architecture.”

– Alice Fulton, Winner: American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature

She has taught at several American Universities, (Michigan, Detroit, Washington), as well as in Malaysia and Georgia (Ilya University). She has also taught translation and Creative Writing at The Shota Rustaveli Institute in Tbilisi. She helped launch the 1st official Mexican Book Fair in Toluca, (8/2015) and lectured at the American University in Cairo in (3/2016). Widely praised translations include Standing on Earth, by Mohsen Emadi, (PhonemeMedia Press), translated from Iranian, with the author’s collaboration (9/2016) and The Adventures of a Boy Named Piccolo (Salamura), by Archil Sulakauri, translated from Georgian with Veronica Muskheli. This book, featuring illustrations by Vaho Muskheli, was displayed at Bologna Book Fair (10/ 2016). (Transcendent Zero)

Lyn’s translations of Nikoloz Baratashvili are featured in a book published by The Museum of Literature in Tbilisi. This volume includes all Baratashvili’s original poems, Boris Pasternak’s Russian translations, and Lyn’s English translations. Professor Harsha Ram of Berkeley, a scholar of Georgian and American poetry, said “Overall, if one were to compare these translations to Pasternak’s, one could say that while among Pasternak’s translations there are genuine masterpieces… they also take radical liberties with the original, while Lyn Coffin has achieved her success without permitting her own poetic sensibility to muffle Baratashvili’s own plangent voice.”

The Interview

Who introduced you to poetry?

My father introduced me to poetry. He would give us kids a dollar for every poem we memorized. I believe my first attempt was- As I was going up the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there. I met him there again today. I wish to God he’d go away.” Poetry caught on with me like wildfire moving across a forest without harming the trees. I loved the sound of it, the magic of rhymes. And I had already been caught by metaphor. My first creative writing ever was done in response to a prompt in first or second grade. The teacher asked us to describe ourselves and I wrote something like: “I am rectangular and made of wood. There is a hole in my head where people pour in ink.” (Something like that.) The teacher was wildly enthusiastic but I remember a lot of the kids thinking I had misunderstood the assignment in describing a desk. My father’s taste in poetry was narrow- I only heard him thoroughly praise four “poems”- one the speech from Julius Caesar- “There is a tide in the affairs of men…” The second, Masefield’s “I must go down to the sea again.” Kipling’s If which usually petered out after six lines or so. And “The Ballad of Yukon Jake,” by Edward Paramore, Jr., a parody or whatever it is which was so successful my father constantly misremembered it as having been authored by Service himself. My father was a businessman who had left the halls of learning (Brown) rather early under interesting circumstances, and (as he would be the first to tell you)not the intellectual my mother was. But. He loved to recite poetry and loved to hear us recite it to him. I think once I got $2 for reciting “The Hollow Men” at dinner. I also had friends who knew and loved poetry, including one early boy friend who left a part of “death shall have no dominion” scrawled on a piece of note paper taped to our cottage door (I thought he had written it, which I believe was part of his somewhat nefarious intent). I remember my parents told our plumber on the phone they had left instructions for him and when he found my friend’s poetic offering, he tried to make sense of it in plumbing terms. There were also assorted teachers who introduced me to certain forms of poetry. I remember a professor of Greek talking about Sapphic lyrics, and being so inspired I wrote this: “Poetry is all around us, everywhere you look. Stems ending in a liquid Is a lesson in my grammar book.”

2. How aware were and are you of the dominating influence of older writers, traditional and contemporary?

One is never aware enough. Growing up, I was very aware of the presence of Carl Sandburg, and wrote a parody for the Miss Halls School yearbook about my life, told in Carl Sandburg fashion. A few months later, I got a letter from him praising my poem, but by then I had “moved on” and now was enamored of Robert Frost (I’ve never quite shaken him- especially “Design”- the darkest poem I think I’ve ever read)- so enamored of Frost that I threw away Sandburg’s letter (which had committed the unpardonable sin of not being written by Frost). I don’t know much- I especially regret my lack of knowledge of foreign poets. I’ve always been embarrassingly ignorant. One example (a prosaic one)- My cousin was reading a book- I asked her what it was and she said “The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant”- “Oh,” I said. “Who’s that by?” A pause. “Well,” she said. “It’s by Guy de Maupassant.” Another pause. “Some people know him as Guy de Mo-pass-ann.” “Oh, Him,” I said.) I have had the great good fortune to stumble upon or be given the chance to become familiar with two GREAT poets most Americans have never heard of- One is Jiri Orten, a Czech (Jewish) poet, killed in the Holocaust and Edward Hirsch has been a great supporter and wrote about Orten’s “A Small Elegy” in my translation in his “How to Read A Poem,” saying it was/is one of the poems he most loves. I hope readers will look up Orten- but avoid the “other” translation. The man means well, but English is not his native language and the translations are (imho) very bad. I also “ran into” the 12th century Georgian (as in the country) poet, Shota Rustaveli and his epic poem, The Knight in the Panther Skin. This is a fantastic narrative, written in shairi (an old Persian form which I also used in my translation; shairi is sixteen syllable lines, rhymed aaaa, bbbb, etc., etc.) Shota wrote 1661 quatrains. The translation took me well over two and a half years. But it won the SABA Award, and that was really nice. I have a dear ear/sensibility as far as Whitman goes and I am only lately learning to edge in to Ginsberg. I have a soft spot for Billy Collins. I’ve written several “paradelles,” and hope some day he will see my “Paradell on Love” and write me about it. (Billy, are you there?)

I wasn’t aware of Poets Against the War, which I think was a crucial movement, until I met Sam Hamill later in (I was going to say “his life,” but it was/is mine, as well)— I copy-edited Habitations and I’m really proud of that. I am minorly aware of contemporary Seattle poets. We have a really active scene here- Jed Myers comes to mind, Judith Roche, Michael Dylan Welch for haiku, Carolyne Wright, Sharon Cumberland. And an only partially-discovered Tom Brush. I love the work of Ilya Kaminsky and Alice Fulton. I am aware of the dominating presence of my teachers, especially Radcliffe Squires (almost forgotten) and Donald Hall.

3. What is your daily writing routine?

This answer is easy. I don’t have a daily writing routine, and I don’t want one. I don’t like routines. Even things I do like seem to pall when they’re on a regular, daily basis. Sometimes I write a whole lot, sometimes nothing. I try to pay heed to that small voice (of a devil, an imp, an angel) and write when I have something to say. I don’t believe (for myself) in journal-writing, or workshops that operate from “a prompt.” If a prompt is used, I ask that everyone who has written a response

(if he or she is willing) read the response to the group. I find it somehow crushing or discouraging to have bunches of people writing and then going on to write something else, without any Communication taking place. The belief seems to be that the act of writing is crucial but what is written doesn’t matter. But sooner or later, when one operates in such a context, I think one comes to feel- If the thing that is written doesn’t matter, neither does the act of producing it. (I hope this makes sense.) I think prompts and exercises make it easier for the writing teacher, but are (not to overstate things) death for the writer, especially a beginning writer. I had a friend who was a writing teacher with me at the University. His classes always involved prompts and his homework involved complicated exercises- “Write a scene in which two people talk and each has a secret he or she does not communicate to the other.” I commented once that I don’t write like that, write in response to “prompts” and he said, “I don’t, either, but it makes writing easier to teach.” If students can’t come up with an idea, I suggest they plagiarize. If you try writing a story or a poem you have loved (unless you have it memorized), your writing will creep in around the edges. I like to compare the teaching of writing, and writing itself, with taking a class of young kids to the Natural History museum. And you’ve prepared this lecture on the Native American way of life and as you go in the door, one kid yells, “Hey, a dinosaur!” And they run off to the dinosaur room. You can try to corral them and force them to listen to your lecture. But I think it better to go with the urge, the instinct, and do an impromptu lesson on dinosaurs.

4. What motivates you to write?

Uh. Well- This is one of those questions. The standard answers I can think of- 1) I dunno, I just always have; 2) That’s like asking what motivates me to breathe. Writing with me goes back a long way- I’ve thought of myself as a writer, or known myself to be a writer, since first grade. Motivational questions are always difficult questions, I think- very complicated. “Why?” has many roots. Even something like “Why did you have cheerios for breakfast?” (as I did this morning) could be answered Because they were out of Rice Krispies. Because I’ve had too many eggs recently and wanted a change. Because I wanted something to put under fresh fruit. Because…. Well, you get the idea. I write because I can, because it seems to me one way I can contribute to the world,because nobody stops me, because I’m a terrible bowler. More seriously, I like reading and I admire authors and as a young child, I “wanted to do that.” Writing releases uncomfortable emotions in me. Writing satisfies uncomfortable ambitions in me. But really- in our end is our beginning- I dunno, I just always have.

5. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

When I think “young,” I’m thinking elementary or high school (first). Let’s start with the short stories- I remember three short stories that really made an impression on me, and only one of them is known to me now. That one, by Richard Connell (I just looked it up- I read it way before author’s names were important), is about a big game hunter who hunts another hunter. I don’t think that had any influence at all. I don’t remember the titles or the authors of the other two- One was about a civilization in the future that had one pill a year to eat- The baby in the family ate a bottle of them and blew up. The other story was about a husband who is cheating on his wife (this one was high school) and he “sports with his mistress in the shade” and then she asks him some question, and he responds that he sleeps around but he only shares ideas with his wife. I don’t think any of these stories had any influence on me at all. Ah. I know. The one story I read early which Did have an influence was “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Many times over in my life, including in “The Gift Horse,” which I think is the best short story I’ve ever written, I’ve written or tried to write stories that carry over into the afterlife, that don’t end when there main character or narrator dies. As for poetry, I read Sandburg quite a bit and ended up writing a Sandburg parody that was published in my high school yearbook. Somehow it ended up on Sandburg’s desk and he wrote me a short letter praising my poem and predicting great things for

But by the time (a year later?) I got the letter, I had moved on and discovered Robert Frost. I was embarrassed to be “found out” as a lover of Sandburg and I threw the letter away. (I wonder if there’s a copy somewhere in the Sandburg archives- Or a copy of my poem? If only….) “If” and “The Hollow Men” were great favorites. I feel that I’m failng this question (which interest me a lot), so let me quote my first “independent, non-assigned” poem as a way of making up for lost memories. (I wrote this in my first year at college): “Beyond night’s

harvest/ moon-scythed/ fierce tigers stalk./ Green glades/ deep rain-dark

woords/ sheathe cool white claws.” (I regret the “fierce” very much.)

One stray memory- I liked The Little Prince as a child and have read it

countless times, usually when I’m trying to learn a language.

Whether it’s influenced me, I don’t know. I love(d) the little fox,

especially where he discovers there are no hunters on the little prince’s

planet and is really excited about it. Then the little prince tells him

there are no chickens, either, and the little fox says, “Nothing

is perfect.” Ah. I remember one poet I read early who I also remember

had a big influence on me, and that was Stephen Crane. His little nugget

poems (“But the man ran on…”) or “I eat it because it is bitter/ And because

it is mine” (if I remember rightly) paved my way to haiku. I used to discuss

haiku with Sam Hamill, and I remember his brilliant translation of and

interpretation of the famous Bassho frog haiku. Sam explained that

the frog jumped into the sound of water, not the water itself. Somehow,

that explained a lot to me. I have written a lot of haiku. hummingbird/

hovering/ both of us….

6. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I had the great good fortune to translate Standing on Earth, (Phoneme Media) the poems of Mohsen Emadi, an Iranian poet living in exile in Mexico. Mohsen’s work uniquely fascinates and inspires me. Mohsen knows more about everything literary than any other person I have ever met. Through Mohsen, I became acquainted with the work (in translation) of the great Spanish poet, Antonio Gamoneda. I came close to meeting this archetypal, mythic poet when I was in Spain last summer. I still hope I will be able to tell him in person how much I admire him.

Reading today’s writers is always something in flux. I will do a reading in Ann Arbor in March with Keith Taylor, and I admire him tremendously. I seem to gravitate to poetry of place, and his is definitely a “planted” voice. I admire a poet named Jed Myers, a Seattle poet. I remember when Jed was just starting out and now he has found his voice. Jed not only writes poetry but he reads a lot and always has suggestions for me. He writes essay from his double perspective of poet and psychiatrist. It was Jed who turned me on to Robert Wrigley. I’ve only read two poems by Robert Wrigley, and I loved both of them. I will be reading more. There is a poet in my poets’ group whose name is Tom Brush. He hasn’t published much, but his is a terrific, uncompromising presence in today’s poetry world. There is a wild and outrageously wonderful Georgian(as in the country) poet named Irakli Qolbaia- I think he’s published a few poems in France and a few in Georgia, but he is close to unkown. And wonderful. The last poet I would mention is Ilya Kaminsky. His poetry is wonderful and he himself is a spirit to inspire and lead us. I love his work. I notice there are no women on this list. I admire Judith Roche’s poetry- She is another Seattle friend. I knew Alice Fulton at Michigan. I loved her poetry then but I have lost track of her. I admire the poetry of Carolyn Forche but don’t know it really well. There is so little time and so much poetry to read!

7. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?

How do you become a dog owner? I’m being facetious, obviously, because the question is problematic, hovering halfway between “How did you become a writer?” and “How does one become a writer?” I became a writer by writing lots of stuff and having some people like it enough to publish it. “How does one become a writer?” Some people think writers are born, not made. If one keeps writing, one is a writer. If one calls oneself a writer, one is a writer. Actually, the more interesting question (to me) would be- When does one fail to become a writer (when one wants to be)? THe answer would be- I don’t know- Never? I know plenty of people who write gibberish (on the net, for instance) and are taken seriously as writers. When do you become an adult?- You can assign a year, a state of mind. My son once asked me- “When did you first feel old?” and I fired back, “When did you?” (He was about 30 at the time.) But the question is not Why but How? Is this asking for a recipe? There isn’t any. The closest we get these days is to keeping a journal, and I don’t believe in keeping a journal. There’s a joke/ riddle somewhere- “How do you get a dog out of a box?” Answer: He’s out. I’m not grasping this as I should, probably, but “How do you become a writer?” Answer: You’re a writer. How did you become one? A writer of what? For what? To what end? I’m glad this question comes so near the end, because I basically don’t get it. At least not the way it should be gotten.

8. Tell me about writing projects you’re involved in at the moment.

Ah. Writing projects at the moment are varied— even scattered, I think you could say…. First of all, I spent this evening going back over my novel, The Aftermath. A friend had helped me by marking up a manuscript— inserting quotes, taking out quotes, making various and sundry complaints. I fixed a lot of small stuff. I’m not sure I’ll be able to take out 80 pages, as she suggests, however. This is a novel about a woman who is drugged and raped. The prologue moves very quickly, and leads one to expect a detective thriller or a crime novel, I suppose. But The Aftermath is quite different. My reader didn’t like the time I spent on labor and delivery. But it shows where my protagonist’s mind is…. Sigh. Another project involves Zipf’s law. I became fascinated when someone told me about word frequency, and I found Zipf’s law, listing the 100 most frequent words in English. I have been writing a story a day, increasing the number of common words I leave out. Tonight, I was up to 80, and I think I shall stop there. The story narrators are sounding more and more insane. (Available on my blog, at http://www.lyncoffin.com) Another project I worked on today was preparing the second edition of Rustaveli’s The Knight in the Panther Skin. I am going back over this huge epic, trying to make the caesuras appear more regularly, as Rustaveli himself apparently did. Before, I just put a pause in wherever I wanted. But now I am informed, and reformed. I also looked at Angel Guida’s book of poems, Espectral. I hope to co-translate this before the summer. And I worked a tiny, tiny bit on writing lyrics for a melody that is being composed by my friend, Nino Basharuli. The topic of the song is “Seattle.” So there you have it. I did quite a bit of work on a number of different fronts. So much needs to be done. Thank you very much for interviewing me. Thank you for putting this series up on the web. If there is any mainstream publisher out there who would be willing to read the first 40 pages of The Aftermath, please contact me right away.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Lyn Coffin Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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