Cadence

Everyone has really great points here. 

I don't consider myself a professional writer, but I find committing myself to a daily or weekly goal (word count, chapter, etc) really does help me write.  Committing deadlines to my agenda makes me want to "tick" them off so I have to actually finish the work.  Talking about my writing to people forces me to actually deliver a result. That helps too. I just make sure to write every day (or as close to every day as possible) to practice my writing. 

In terms of focusing when writing: outlines are great - I'm a plotter not a pantser and I have to do my research, form the story or article from beginning to end, before I write. I kind of write in the same way @SingSong's described.  Slowly forming the story together, re-editing and re-writing it.  Helps me focus. 

Understanding the audience and purpose like what @Callum and @N_E_Wunn mentioned is definitely helpful too. Asking myself whether my writing will translate to its intended audience, or not. Whether my writing can benefit from tweaks, if it doesn't communicate my points well enough, then I would find ways to improve. 

I write better and more focused when I have a criteria - like for a research paper, essay, that kind of thing.

On 4/8/2017 at 7:23 AM, Digital said:

That was very well written!

For the two above the idea was to provide this sense of fantastical discovery in the descriptions. Kinda the feeling you got when you read say.. the Harry Potter books and they describe a creature. Very technical yet fantastical.

Yessss I got that vibe from your descriptions! It reminds me of the Fantastic Beasts book. Or the "dragonology" books.

On 4/10/2017 at 9:10 AM, kami said:

It sounds good so far! Very interesting  Best of luck getting through it! Rewriting can be tough xo But once you're through it, you have yourself a book!  

Thank you! I still have yet to read your book - it's on my to read list! I'll get around to it haha.  And yes, I look forward to having a book. I'm a pretty awful critic and I over edit so much if I'm not careful. How's your second book coming along? I've started another book that I work on in between editing my current one, and it's a retelling of Alice in Wonderland set in the modern-near future Earth

Chiming in to say I like the way you described the animals @Digital- especially these sentences: 

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They are forged in fire, and tempered by earth that is much like the grasslands that they rule over

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They are often wary of outsiders, and earning the trust of a single Sakana is quite a challenge, and to fit into their underwater societies can take lifetimes.

As for myself, I'm working on a book, and here's the first few paragraphs of it. I'm doing my third re-write of the manuscript and it's super slow going :c 

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A maglev train speeds over my head, drenching me in rainwater from its tracks. Though the rain cascades down the sides of the rails onto my thin clothes, I don’t shiver. The coldness from the water doesn’t bother me as much as the stench waffling from the streets – the smell of soaked garbage baking in sweltering heat makes my stomach turn. 

There’s nothing inside my knapsack to weigh it down when I hoist it over my shoulders. I dangle my legs over the rooftop of my building and take one last look at the trains before descending from my perch. My hands and feet pass each groove with ease. I’m guided by thousands of climbs, so I reach the ground in minutes.

Some days I’ll watch the sun rise from this rooftop. Other days I’ll come by after a day of scavenging and pick-pocketing on the streets to watch the stars rise. On those days, my sore feet will be propped over the ledge, and I’ll lean back and enjoy my solitude in the comfort of darkness. But today I’m doing neither.

 It’s Errand Day and I’ve got business in the city.

I use two planners - one for keeping track of events and things to do in a weekly format with enough space to expand on my task details, and another that has a monthly section at the top of each page where I can keep myself accountable to monthly goals and tasks. 

And sticky notes! Always have them around in case I need to jot things down and put into my planners later.

I think @bird touched upon some key issues, namely that audiences have matured.

This leads to the evolution of game economies and communities to fit the interactivity and social requirement that most "matured" audiences consider as the new status quo. I've seen a shift in game economies where real-currency purchases are not frowned upon anymore (remember the times when it's hard to incorporate micro-transactions?). And I've seen a shift in online communities where it's not as frowned-upon to chat with "strangers" on pet sites as a teen. Implications from a shifting demographic certainly challenges our original understanding of what a pet site is, since audience expectations - and preferences - of features and gameplay do affect how "pet" features are implemented, where we tend to see owners try and incorporate more non-pet site features into their game.

Having said that, I do think a pet site must have some pet feature to consider it a pet site, as long as it falls within a spectrum. What I mean is on one end of the spectrum, there are sites strongly focused on pet gameplay (i.e. breeding, battling, sims, etc)., while the other side considers pet gameplay as a part of their game experience rather than the singular experience.

So while one side can be 100% focused on pets (i.e. no robust human avatar system, more individual gameplay than co-operative/community based), sites that fall into the other end of the spectrum are still "pet sites", just pet site "lite", if they have at the bare minimum some sort of pet-related function. And of course certain (if not most) games fall in between, straying towards one side of the spectrum to another.

On 05/04/2017 at 3:09 AM, SingSong said:

I like your art improvement post on DeviantArt. Good luck to you. Hope you can find some work.

Thanks @singsong! :-) 

Wow, great news! Congratulations @SingSong and @Matthew. 

Looking forward to discussions and content for the forums

I use Adobe Photoshop for my paintings. I tried out several other programs, but I never really got into using them. I also use Photoshop because I sometimes work on web and graphic design, so it's just easier for me to use a program for most/all my work. Beats having to relearn programs haha. 

  Cadence's Commissions

Characters + Environments 

My commissions are closed for the meantime, sorry!

I have just gotten a big graphic design contract with a local firm, so I will be working with them as an independent contractor from now on.

Thanks for your interest and support! 

8 hours ago, Digital said:

What time of day is your favorite time of day? Are you a morning person, or a night owl? When do you prefer to be up and moving?

I tend to favor the mornings or later evenings, as these are times when I feel I am the most productive.

used to be a night owl, but I changed my schedule around and now I'm most productive in the morning when everyone at home is still asleep. I'll get up at 5 or 6 am and have a good 3-hours or so before everyone wakes up to draw or write

@Digital will have to check out your book rec! I love a good fantasy/sci fi book. 

Sapiens : A brief history of human kind by Yuval Noah Harari was definitely one of the most interesting books I've read. I enjoyed how the author introduced and explained his thesis. I thought it would be a daunting read but it turned out to be pretty interesting. I didn't agree with some of his statements, but he makes a pretty good case.

I worked on a game a few years ago called MythFlow, but I stopped developing it due to school.

I've been working on it again on and off now, but I don't have much plans for it yet. 

Congrats @SingSong!  

On 3/30/2017 at 5:39 PM, chutkat said:

Well, I upload  different things to different websites, for example with deviantart, I upload my most rendered stuff since that's what usually gets more attention over there. On my instagram account highly rendered stuff is very hard to see so I h ave to upload simpler drawings like sketches plus many tags, 1 characters, etc. For twitter, if it's fanart & trending it gets tons of reblogs, same for tumblr, they're crazy about fanart, I don't do much fanart but I do upload a lot of work in progress. Then there are particular sites like Furaffinity, weasyl etc where i mostly upload anthro art and animals since that's what people is looking for over there.

You have to be constant, you have to be active as in talking to people and creating relationships, comment on other people's work, sometimes out of curiosity they check your art.
Also I used to go to a lot of conventions and give away business cards.

It's difficult, I used to have a more active fanbase back around 2010, but then because of a problem I had with my hand and not being able to post for a long time I had to basically start all over again.

Just be persitent. It is hard and you might get frustrated at times, but keep doing it.

So glad I wasn't the only one who had to start all over again. :c I vanished from the internet for a good year or two and during that time I lost a bunch of my fanbase. But slowly working my way back, which is good I guess. 

Going to conventions and stuff is my list of goals this year, and also staying active online building relationships. Thanks for your advice, they're super helpful! 

BTW I just watched you on DeviantART. Love your work  

On 3/30/2017 at 6:06 PM, kami said:

@Cadence It's been fun so far! I'm slowly losing motivation as of late, unfortunately (three months straight non stop is rough!), but I'm still trying to push myself and remind myself of the reasons why I want to learn.  I can definitely imagine it being helpful for learning Chinese, haha. Props to him for exploring so many languages!

The great thing about languages is that you never really forget them  It's less work relearning it than the first time learning. Good luck with learning Japanese! Breaks can be your friend haha. Burn outs are awful.

18 hours ago, chutkat said:

I have been a freelance illustrator for about10 years. This kind of job in my city is extremely bad paid so I had no option but to keep working through internet. It has been a challenge but I think I wouldn't change my experience for anything! I've met the most amazing friends and workpals and I think I've grown a lot as a person because of this multicultural environment.
I kind of work in the field I studied for but not exactly. I studied architecture at the university and for the past years I have done background illustration & design by using my architecture skills. :B

It's alright, I wanted to study animation but that was not an option back then.

Pretty cool to hear you've been working as a freelance illustrator. I think that's one of my dream jobs, haha.

If you don't mind me asking, but how did you increase your presence online? I've been doing well for my writing pursuits on Twitter since it seems there's a big writing community on that site, but with art it's always been a hit or miss on Facebook. I've gotten more responses using Instagram for my art. Sometimes it just feels difficult, even to chat with like-minded people about art/design/writing online.

@Digital I work full time in tourism sales, but I'm hoping to transition to my industry after graduating this year from uni. Have some great contacts for that. But right now I'm waiting for the tourism season to start up again, so technically I'm a freelance artist and an aspiring writer, who does some web development on the side. I'm working on a craft start-up and hoping to make a living with it one day.

On 3/21/2017 at 10:23 PM, Digital said:

Anyone looking forward to summer? It has been a wet winter here (unseasonably wet), so I am kinda looking forward to warmer and dryer weather.

The winter has been awful on the west coast here in Canada. We've had so much snow from November all the way to March. We usually don't get this much snow. I haven't seen this much in maybe 10 or 20 years since we've been here in Vancouver... it's gross. So yeah I am definitely looking forward to a warmer summer too, haha.

Popping by to chime in that Japanese is a cool language to learn @Kami.

My boyfriend took Japanese courses in university and he's loved every moment of it. He also went to Japan a few years ago on a solo trip and he had a blast. Learned a lot on the spot.  But the coolest thing is that he's been able to interpret some Chinese characters because he knew kanji,  which makes learning to read Mandarin Chinese (my second language) a bit easier for him. 

In response to the OP it's interesting to see many business or IT minded folks here. My understanding of those topics have always been through self-studying, workshops, and networking. I just received my Bachelor of Environments from Simon Fraser University. I do policy and research analysis on environmental issues, but I've always had a soft spot for game development. So that's why I'm here.  

Hey Gabby! It's great to see you here.

How have you been? 

1 hour ago, PaulSonny said:

Welcome to TGL. I hope you enjoy it here.

Thanks, PaulSonny. I popped over here from VPL. So glad there's a working forum; I've been missing the community like crazy.

3 hours ago, SingSong said:

Another new person! Thanks for joining. Hope you enjoy the forum. 

Hey! I'm excited to be part of the forums here. I missed the conversations we'd have back on the other forums haha.