Greetings, Ladies, Boys, and Everyone In-between

[Daisy]

For years on end I've wanted to write a novel, breathing life into a new universe and telling the story of new and interesting characters, the likes of which have kept me up all night when I first discovered novels myself.

Giving in to the demon known as dread and it's cousin, procrastination, I've spent months after months telling myself 'I'll start soon', fapping into the never-ending pit. Deciding to pull myself out of the toxic cycle of avoidance, I've decided to take life by the reigns, and began the long process of learning and creating and improving. I've joined this forum, too, because it's always great to learn and share knowledge with those who understand your plight. Not that I don't love my family, but they don't quite understand the subtle intricacies of worldbuilding, and make for quite the unwilling participants in brainstorming sessions.

I'm looking forward to exchanging knowledge and ideas with others on this platform. Perhaps the history major I'll be starting in a few days might be useful to other worldbuilders out there, too.

I, myself, am rather a fan of character-driven stories. Of characters I can love in interesting settings. Which perhaps brings me to my current dilemma of fitting the characters I've created into a coherent world... Characters are absolutely what drive a story for me, and what make or break my interest, but perhaps in time I'll be able to improve more in areas other than just character development.

I'm always happy to partake in brainstorming sessions, and am more than inclined to start them myself, on occasion. I'm looking forward to a productive time on here together with everyone as we all endeavor oon this long, treacherous road of writing.

 

[skip.knox]

Welcome to Mythic Scribes, Daisy. You definitely are in the right place. Be sure to read through some of the threads--search is your friend--as there's a ton of useful information here.

 

[CupofJoe]

Hail and well met Daisy
Good to have you here.
It seems like you will fit right in.
Leap on in and enjoy!

 

[Laurence]

Great to have you. I'm a boy!

I often have moments of dread where I ponder if it's all for nothing, but then I remember that the alternative is doing something unproductive anyway. At least the writing option has potential for glory.

 

[argentquill]

Hi, Daisy, nice to meet you. I'm pretty new here myself, but am so happy I joined this community.
I can relate on the dread front. I want to get published someday, and it's like the road to getting published or even getting your work noticed is a harder, steeper, more thorn-strewn path than the actual writing. But the thing is, I just love the writing -- putting pen to paper and creating something with the written word. That's a joy for me, and I don't need to be published to keep doing that. And - this is another big deal - the more I write, the more I can create. I love writing an idea, getting it on paper, and saying, "I didn't know I was exactly thinking of that, but I like how it looks." The more I simply jot down, the more I get to see what I'm capable of doing. And that's just a great thing.
That's the way I've been going for the past 6 years for my one story. In retrospect, I should have taken a creative writing class. When I started, I attended a couple of writers meetups, and their advice was invaluable. I was doing so many things wrong. I was very glad to improve. If I had taken a course, maybe I could have learned to write (there's so many things to avoid, and for crying out loud, use an outline) sooner, and would maybe have advanced sooner, and could be working with an agent right now. But, oh well.
On character-driven stories, you are so right. One of the things I learned as a kid, although it took a while to understand, was how shallow it is to simply have the hero look impressive. Simply show up and display power, so you can impress others (can you say 'comic books'?), as if the high opinion of others is supposed to give fulfillnent. A character has to work for what they get. That's real strength. If they take up a challenge to get their minds off their insecurities, and fulfill the quest and inadvertantly beat those insecurities, then that's a triumph. Consider in the Fantasy universe, if the survivor of a merchants guild uses wits and "superior-magic-item-gathering-ability" to beat a powerful wizard. That's character oriented in my opinion.
I've gotten next to nil exposure for my story, but I am so glad I created my website where I'm posting the chapters. It's like a tiny piece of the vast world wide web that I own, and ownership gives a feeling of empowerment, which gives encouragement to keep creating and posting. I created the site through wordpress, and in so doing, I became a member of that community as well, which lets me talk with other people posting things to their own websites. Some of them are posting Fantasy like me, and I see their updates in my newsfeed.
In the modern tech age, there's a lot of people offering a lot of things, and amid all that, I don't know if I'll ever be published. But I am happy to connect where I can to get my story out there where I can, which is part of creation, which, again, is a joy.