#I might delete this later but I'm feeling a bit disheartened and want to just put this out there into the world but not super publicly

[spikeisawesome456]

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[lucymt-art]

I'm slowly moving my art here.

But I'm still active on twt.

I will be moving to tumblr fully if/when twitter falls. (Or I've gotten sick of it, whichever comes first)

I don't really know how many of my followers here are active (or which are bots... I've been getting a few follows lately that seem a bit suss.)

I am not sure if I will be doing much of any engagement posts here (polls, give me a number/I'll answer, share and tag posts. Etc.) Cause honestly when I would do so on twt I would not get any response/engagement. If I'm lucky I'd get 1. (and I have more followers there, around 1,700 compared to the 300 here)

And honestly it is so disheartening.

I'd leave the post up and even retweet them every now and then for a week or 2 but still nothing. So I'd just end up deleting them. But when I see another engagement post floating around twt I hope that maybe this time will be different.

But it isn't. The only posts that people actually engage with is if it comes with a free drawing.

And while I love those posts. I unfortunately don't have the same time for them and it just isn't the same as the other posts where it actually engages conversation.

Sorry for the long post.

I am writing this now, while I am still a small account here, cause to be honest I still want to try the posts like "artist/fic author asks", or the random facts tag share, etc. Because I'd like to actually talk with you and build a community.

I feel like I'm just good for sharing art but not interesting or worth engaging with. (on twt, not here since I'm technically starting over here cause I've been ia for a few years and havent made an engagement post yet)

But while I mainly draw/write krtsk content that doesn't mean I am not interested in other fandoms/topics.

But who knows, maybe I'm missing something or I am doing something wrong and just don't know it.

Might delete this later.

[smolcinnamonchipmunk]

I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent real quick because I've had five hours of sleep and feel sleep deprived after staying up into the AM working on an art piece for my main shit.

I wish people, in general, reblogged or retweeted stuff more than they liked it. I started on Tumblr (After DA) with my main blog (which I'm not sharing here) years ago, like early 2010s. Obviously, on DA there's no option to share someone's art. Either people find it or they don't kind of deal and you had to include keywords that you wanted to be related to it.

So I was ecstatic when I got to Tumblr and realized I could reblog, comment, and share to my hearts content while also making art. Reblogging was my priority, I wanted to share anything I thought was cool or funny, and if it was enough, then I'd like it. I always had a reblog > like mentality just because I thought "why shouldn't I share this, this is great!"

And it's been so weird, seeing things go from more even 250 reblogs to 300-350 likes, to just maybe 25 reblogs and 250 likes or some stuff like that.

Don't get me wrong, likes are still great! Likes are still wonderful! They just... don't really do much in way of spreading it.

Even on Twitter, where likes actually do impact the performance of a tweet, its negligible compared to a retweet. I've literally seen people get a couple likes on stuff and nothing else, myself included, and when you self-reblog or retweet there's always that one asshole that goes "stop retweeting your stuff, you look desperate". Like, you weren't gonna reblog/retweet it, so I'm gonna do it myself

And this isn't a "if you don't reblog, I fucking hate you" thing. It's just sort of disheartening to spend hours, even days, onto stuff and get like 10 likes with no sharing. Like I said, the likes are great! They let me know that people, well, like my stuff. But, I also feel.. idk, that they don't mean as much as people think???

I used to get so excited when people liked my stuff on DA because it was curated and culminated in a favorites list full of things that person liked, and that just so happened to include my stuff! And then people just started going into most recent and carpetbomb liked everything. It wasn't because they liked my stuff, it wasn't because they were interested in it, it was an attempt to probably get some people favorited in a show of "I support you". But it felt hollow, if that makes sense.

And I won't lie and say that I haven't caught myself doing the same thing, liking and not reblogging. But, I also have three different blogs! A main art one, this one, and one specifically for reblogging! Twitter? I try to retweet art rather than like it alone, and if I forget? Well, I go back and retweet them once I catch myself.

Look, this is a very long-winded way of saying: Likes are great, but without reblogs and retweets, things get lost. Quickly. If you want to support art or stories you like and feel comfortable enough (I know some people lurk, but that's a different topic), reblog it! Retweet it!

What's stopping you? The fear of being 'cringe'? I literally made FNAF vore stuff back in the day, still might! Not wanting to put the thing you like on people's timelines? Why not?! If you like it, I don't understand why you wouldn't gush and share with friends! I literally was just talking to one about how hype I was for a fanfic to drop another chapter! She's interested in it *because* I was talking about it!

Idk, might delete this later, but I just. Idk, I'm frustrated and exasperated. And I've been typing this so long, hunger has finally registered through my groggy brain, so ciao

[shanastoryteller]

how do you actually sit down and write stuff? I want to write stories, i want to be able to craft words, to be able to merge them with my pictures(which is my actual main focus, im an artist first), i want to be able to get my characters across the way you and others of my favorite writers do, but i dont know how to start. the generic advice is just do it, just start writing, practice it. but i dont know how to do that, i dont know how anybody can. i'm either constantly getting bogged (cont)

bogged down in the details, or unable to find the rightwords for how i imagine said details, sometimes because it's always changing,and i cant get them out right consistently. and i dont know how to practicethat, i dont know how to practice writing anything. i love finding words but ifeel like i use the specific ones too often, or otherwise im always resortingto metaphors that usually only make sense to me. (2/3)

im sorry if this is all kinda rambling and unclear. at thispoint, several minutes into thinking about what to say, and being unable tolook at what i already sent, im kinda unsure exactly what my question is beyond"how do you do it, and do it so well?" which is something difficultto answer with anything beyond the generic. it's too broad. thanks for, iguess, listening to me vent. i'd like to hear your thoughts, if there'sanything. you can ignore these though. (3/3)

 hi! so i’m answering this publicly because this ended upbeing kinda long and i’ve gotten some similar asks before, and my answer isalmost always ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ because i honestlyjust have no idea what i’m doing 100% of the time

so the thing is, my answer is just likeeverybody’s answer, and equally unhelpful: you have to just write. and you haveto write a lot.

i think something that people get bogged downwith when they try anything new is that they just aren’t good at it, and theyknow the level of good they want to be but since they can’t replicate it immediatelythey get frustrated and disheartened and stop. you’re an artist, so think aboutwhen you started drawing or painting or whathaveyou – you were probably prettycrap at it for a really long time.because with things like art and music and writing, there’s a horrendously bigspace between where we’re all kind of terrible before we get the hang of it.full disclosure: there’s a lot of time i’m convinced i’m still in the awfulstage of writing, and hoping if i just write enough i’ll get over it one day.

not to be a cliché, but i really do think that ernest hemingwaysaid it best: we are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes amaster.

so don’t stay upset when things don’t come out how you wantthem too. almost nothing i write comes out how i want it to. when i posted myfma fic ‘know the difference’ where i made the main characters angels i wastotally convinced that nothing i’d tried to say had come across right and i’djust spent 9k sounded long winded and stuffy. i literally almost just deletedthe whole thing because it wasn’t where i wanted it to be, but i couldn’tfigure out how to get it there and i was so upsetand frustrated.

but i posted it anyway because hey, it was words that i hadwritten, might as well – and a lot people liked it! so there’s that.

this is all vague and pep-talky, so here’s some actual realadvice:

1.  you don’t have to writeprose! i spent a long time before i started writing prose just doing poetry.really, horribly bad poetry, but poetry is good when you just have this onespecific thing you want to say. some people will say poetry is easier. that’slike saying it’s easier to build a boat inside a bottle with tweezers. sure, it’ssmaller with less stuff, but is ittruly easier? no.

2. you don’t have to write full stories! just write thescenes that matter to you, write your beginning and ending and say fuck it tothe middle. write random things that don’t matter, jot down scenes andcharacters doing mundane things like buying coffee, or doing something likehiding a body or being transported to the moon or having a swordfight. it doesn’tmatter if it doesn’t make sense.

3. write things that you’re excited about. if you’re not having fun, if you’re not enjoyingwhen you write, it will show. and also, what’s the point? don’t worry aboutsounding serious or smart or important. who cares about any of that crap, it’sboring. write things that make you happy. write about a magical princess on themoon, about your favorite characters finding happiness, write soulmate aus andmermaids who control the sea and imperfect people finding perfect love. life isshort. the things that you enjoy writing are the best things to write about.period, end of discussion.  

4. one of the longest pieces i wrote in the beginning thatreally helped me get a handle on writing was awful. it was about vampires and werewolves and a magical people calledan ‘ambivalence’, with ancient Egyptian priestesses thrown in for good measureand a god for every zodiac sign meddling in everything. seriously, writewhatever you want. but something i did for this is i just wrote all the scenesi cared about in a row, and then i went back and wrote all the connecting bitslater. fun stuff first. everything else later. i don’t write like that anymore,and actually it would probably drive me crazy if i tried. but it was reallyuseful before i figured out how to have the patience to write everything inorder.

5. so i know everyone has really mixed emotions about elmoreleonard and his ten rules of writing, and i think a lot of them are worthless,but he gave me the most import writing advice i’ve ever received: leave out the parts that people skip. iknow my writing is kinda off from a lot of other people, because i don’t spend alot of time explaining stuff and going through all these scenes showing howthings happen, like what i should do logically, because if something isimportant it should be shown. but sometimes important things are boring and canjust be referenced later. and i know there are people who wish i didn’t writethis way, but i just get too impatient and it starts to seem boring to me, so ijust … don’t do it. i trust that my readers are smart enough to keep up andknow what’s going on without me having to explain it all, and that seems to beworking? so if you’re writing a scene and its seems boring an unnecessary,chances are it is and you can skip it. if you don’t want to write it peopleprobably won’t want to read it.

6. i know this isn’t what anyone who’s just getting intowriting wants to hear, but i really think you need to write at least a half millionwords before you’re a good writer, ithink it takes about that many before you get the hang of it and it starts cominga little naturally to you. to put that in perspective, that’s 50k ten times,aka the equivalent doing national novel writing months ten times. i think atthat point you’ll start to beginfiguring it out. and also, i just don’t know if there ever comes a point whereyou’re 100% satisfied with your writing. if there is, i certainly haven’tgotten there.

but really, truly, honest to god, the only writing advice thatmatters is do whatever the fuck you want.

don’t worry if it seems like crap. don’t worry if it seemssilly, if it’s incomplete, if it’s haiku or a just some scenes, if the words aren’tperfect or you devolve just into a series of metaphors. if you’re writing, it’sgood. the end.

[unofficial-underfell]

Sorry if this kind of question has been answered before, but I'm starting an Undertale-related ask blog on another account and have no idea how to get "officially" started. Do either of you have any advice?

uhhhhhh i can give it a go?

try to have a point of difference! it’s okay to do something that’s been done before, but how can you turn it on its head and make it stand out? don’t be afraid to try something new!

getting a nice theme isn’t essential but it does make everything look pretty!

make sure you have an about (it doesn’t have to be long) and a navigation page - tag everything with ‘chrono’ or something so new readers can catch up easily!

got a plot? make sure you have a bit of a plan before you start, but keep it loose ‘cause your askers are bound to send it veering off the rails! no plot? no problem, wing it to your heart’s content

it’s okay to delete an ask if you don’t like it or for any other reason. it’s also okay to hoard asks if they’d work better at another time

get your name out there! send messages to other blogs! it might take a while to get off the ground, but don’t be disheartened - keep doing it so long as it’s fun for you

also, feel free to hit us up when you get started and we can give you a promo ;D-mod mel

I got some advice too! I mean mine’s a not-ask based comic but TECHNICALITIES

-Just START; once you start, heck you’ve already got your foot in the door! Just doodle a comic page, sketch it out, it can be messy, you dont have to finish it. And later if you’re feeling a bit more inspired, you’d have already started!! Starting is the definite hardest part. It’s easy to say “I want to make a comic”; but actually drawing out pages is the hard part. It may see harrowing, but just starting, even a little bit, does a WORLD of difference

-/Events/ are a fun thing! Events challenge your characters with new and interesting obstacles that push your characters to the limit. A very good way to initiate events is through the use of M!As, or Magic Anons! Everything is Underswap, Turning your Character into a ghost, Your Character has superpowers, gets teleported to the void, there’s a world of possibilities. 

-You’re gonna wanna have a general direction and an outline of the personality of the characters before going full force.

For example, when I write Frisk, I remember they are: 

Reckless. This means they are likely to jump into danger with little regard for their own safety or the saftey of their party members. Determined. Very unlikely to give up or stray from their determined path, but not to confuse with perserverence, and that they actually have low stamina. And Caring. They will put the safety of their friends before themselves, but sometimes they get overzealous and make mistakes, but when it does happen they apologize and generally just want everyone to be okay, even if it’s not possible.

Knowing the core values of your characters prevents you from having that feeling of making your own interpretations OOC. 

-EVERYTHING you do is for your entertainment, and you’re not obligated to go with what you’re uninterested with. Your characters dont have to be perfect, you dont have to have fully lined, colored art all the time, you dont even need PICTURES if you dont feel like putting them in, and you dont have to update every day. Just when you feel like it.

But overall, All I can say is have fun! And remember, there is no way to do it wrong. 

-Mod Avery