I'm not dead!
Yay!
Okay, so I'm doing an update on my current situation and giving my pathetic excuse as to why I have not been on the Wiki more.
Stories Update[]
I've been working on a new serial for JukePop that will be out in two weeks. It'll be posted in tandem with In Evening on alternate Fridays so I've got my serial workload on the max. I'm also working on the prologue for my novel in progress, and am quite happy with this 8th rewrite (hah...8th...yeah...) so I've maxed out my 3 stories at one go quota.
The last thing I'm working on is getting back into the film industries. Some of you may know that in my country, Singapore, there's a mandatory 2 years military conscription (which I hate with a passion) and I'm currently in my last 6 months of it. So, after the past 1 and a half years of hiatus from civilian life, most of my work life contacts have either vanished, moved on, or got absorbed by bigger companies so now I have to rebuild all those connections which took me over a year to get. So I'm starting early.
I've just finished the screenplay for a short film adapted from a webcomic and the production notes. I'll begin filming in May through June on weekends. I won't get into details here, but if you want to know, you can go to my blog . Oh yeah, I have a blog now.
Blog Stuff[]
I'll be doing most, if not all of my updates from my blog from now on. It's just easier to create an identity that way and I can get into more personal details without getting bumped under. But I'll still come here and post stuff from time to time. And I'll also continue to update In Evening's wiki page along with the new upcoming serial and join discussions wherever I find me fitting.
The Dungeons[]
I did say that I was willing to help Moderate the RP thread, but given current circumstances, I don't think I'll be able to put 100% or even 50% commitment to it. I've been on another RP forum for about 6 months before I joined this one an am a moderator there as well so that one comes first in terms of priorities. Along with my current write load and the nearing of my release date from conscription, I'm pretty swamped IRL.
So yeah, sorry Kevin, I'm gonna bow out before the forum gets a crowd so someone can take over if they are interested. I always say, if you're not gonna give something a 100%, then don't give any at all.
Metal Shadow and Readership Rant[]
That's the big news lately, right? Metal Shadow on Hiatus? I read Kevin's blog post on the hiatus a few days ago and have been meaning to write a blog post about it but couldn't find the time.
I started seriously getting into writing when I was 14. I'm 22 this year so 8 years have passed since then. The thing is, I'm not a really good writer. I wrote fanfiction for most of my early years, but they were never in a fan-boy way. All of the stories I wrote was original, with original characters and original story line, but in a world created by other people. So even on fanfiction I was writing original stories.
Most of the time, I don't get much views, reviews, or anything of the sort and I didn't advertise my stories until recently. Even when I advertise, I never requested friends and families to read them. I just posted them on my Facebook and if anyone wanted to read the stuff I wrote, go ahead. I won't fault them otherwise. Now, I post updates on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, here, there, and such. Even then, my following is low at best. Even then, I try to keep writing as best I can.
Personally, I think one shouldn't give up on a story because there's no readers left. One gives up when there's no interest left in the story itself. Yes, readers are our main source of motivation, but given experience, a dry spell here and there ain't nothing to be afraid of. Especially for something good like Metal Shadow (compared to In Evening).
But what I really wanted to rant about was Kevin's theory (not Kevin himself. He's cool) that paying for our stories have ended up costing us readers. And I totally agree with that fact that readers are, as of now, really into free things. The problem is, for us writers, we can't always afford to provide free stuff. As author's, we have to spend time to write, proofread, and in the end, publish for readers to read what we write. And that process can sometimes take days.
Readers are used to free things on the internet. It used to be that stories weren't like that. Once you got good, most authors would go on to publish their work as ebooks or actual paper books. But now, everyone is expecting writing to be free as well, with the idea that since films can be pirated free from almost any websites, why should writing, the 'lesser form' be free as well?
It doesn't occur to people that films and television series all came from writers. There are writers for YouTube videos, writer ON YouTube videos and so on and so forth. We're so background as a vocation that writers are generally looked down on.
And I blame this all on the stupid FU#@ING Twilight Saga. That shit ruined things for authors around the world. We're literally a laughing stock now. The saying that anyone can publish a book has never been more true, causing an influx of wannabe writers that spews out bad stories thinking it'd get them famous and giving up on it after a chapter or two when they realized it requires actual hard work. Even Stephen King got hit back by Twitards. Our writing community, from what I observed, has been fighting a silent, unvoiced war in regaining our reputation as a legitimate source of intellectual entertainment and trying to purge the online story realms of the 15 seconds writers seems next to impossible.
Rant over. No idea where I was going with that. Also, I might be doing this .