@deeprun sure! I’ve been doing watercolor on and off for a little over a year, so I definitely have lots of work to do. I was just getting better with the amount of water I used, then I moved to a REALLY dry place and doing wet on wet technique for skies has become a pain xD

Here are a couple I did recently 🙂

@emgc I finished up both paintings, and am pretty happy with how they came out! Everything else but the paperwork (of course) is going okay 😛

I’m back! College is forcing me to be structured XD

My goals are:

– implement edits to my flash fiction piece

– start planning a rewrite of a short story

– paint two watercolor pieces

– brainstorm research paper topics

– complete that paperwork I’ve had for three months now

@joshuapior I’ve heard a lot of good things about Frank E. Peretti’s works. I’ve yet to read any, but I hear This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness are phenomenal.

It was great meeting you! See you around in the forum!

@deeprun wait, I just saw you’d already posted your email *facepalm* For some reason it showed up in my email notification, but it doesn’t show up in the actual forum? Anyhow, my email’s above xD

@deeprun @caseybold @elisha-starquill

Sweet! I don’t mind dropping my email here, since I have half a dozen and I’m fairly certain a lot of people know this one anyway 😛 It’s kmsmall46[at]gmail[dot]com.

Well, I have a piece of flash fiction that I’m hoping to have ready for other eyes by Sunday. If there aren’t any other takers, I’d volunteer t…[Read more]

@deeprun

Shall we start email addresses, then? 😀

@joshuapior that’s great! Congrats on an almost one-year blogging anniversary!

I mainly write fantasy, bordering on high fantasy some of the time. I do a bit of sci-fi, dystopian, and contemporary when I write short stories though. As for reading… it’s all over xD Last week I was reading Brandon Sanderson, and this week I’m reading Louisa May…[Read more]

@deeprun

All that sounds good to me 😉 I was also picking up on similar threads in the posts of all four of us, so I’m glad I wasn’t the only one!

The one thought I would add is that it might be best to have this in a Hangouts group (if everyone is alright using Google Hangouts.) The Story Embers forum is public, and while there’s nothing wrong…[Read more]

@joshuapior welcome to Story Embers!

Well, I did end up tracking down your about page on your blog, so I guess I got a double intro from you. I have to say: your blog is AMAZING. I may have accidentally ended up reading it for an hour and becoming very inspired for my new WIP. 😀 I also really enjoyed the Author Personality Type quiz. I’m a…[Read more]

@caseybold I’ve found it in different places. I haven’t been a part of an ongoing critique group that has met my needs, but I have found some wonderful beta readers and writing mentors who have been a huge help. So mainly, I’ve just come across helpful people in different places. The organized critique groups I have been a part of didn’t really…[Read more]

@deeprun

Well, I think the issue goes a lot deeper than we could get into in this forum topic, but I think a skewed idea of what strength looks like is somewhere in there. Swinging a sword and killing people and having no emotion is presented as strength, while things like moral strength are ignored (I think for both male and female characters,…[Read more]

@caseybold

I’ve been around in the online writing community for over three years now, and I still haven’t really figured it out myself 😛

I think it’s sort of like meeting a good friend for the first time. You just bump into each other, start talking, then suddenly you’re discussing something you’re both passionate about or (for the case of…[Read more]

@emgc I did end up finishing it! The third act certainly needs a lot of help, but I haven’t written a new novel in over a year, so I’m REALLY excited about this one 😀

@deeprun

I think it’s mainly our modern culture that creates D.O.D. characters in YA. For some reason a lot of the world thinks that being a good woman means being as strong as a man… thus “weak” female characters aren’t allowed :/

@deeprun this is a really interesting topic!

Sorry for being repetitive, but I’d recommend another book by Brandon Sanderson as an example of great female characters. <i>The Stormlight Archives </i>have two great examples of women who aren’t just D.I.D. or D.O.D. Shallan is a fantastic example of a woman who seems D.I.D. but really isn’t. Jasn…[Read more]

This week I want to finish my novel. I might end up doing that today, then adding a few things before Saturday 🙂

Considering I accomplished nothing on my goals list last year, I hope this year goes better xD

My goals:

– edit the novel I just wrote and get it to an alpha reader

– get a short story (or two) professionally edited

– run a seven minute mile

– make a consistent prayer routine again

– maybe launch a new blog? Or just figure out where I want…[Read more]

@the-fledgling-artist

I’m going to have to echo @sarah-inkdragon here. 😛

I’ve finally had time to write a full-length novel for the first time in a year. And essentially, I didn’t have an outline. I knew the plot points. I knew vaguely how my character would change. I knew the first scene. So I just wrote that, and by the end, I had a vague…[Read more]

@emgc Merry Christmas to you as well!! 😀