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Just a simple announcement and greeting here, as I'm new to the forum.

I'm a long-time FF player, having started with FFVI back in '94 when it came out. (Dear gods, that was almost 20 years ago now...)

I've played most everything up through XIII, but I'm most partial to VI, I, IV, and II.

Thanks to my undergrad degree, I speak and read Japanese moderately decently, but I would never bet my livelihood on it...though it does make gaming more interesting!

Theoretically I'm a grownup these days, and rumor has it I make my money writing things and helping people fix their grammar, but periodically I find time to sneak away from all that.

In any case, looking forward to good conversation!

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Hoy ahoy! Always happy to see new blood who are immediately able to raise the level of discourse.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Thanks!

Don't know how much discourse-level raising I'll be able to do, but at least I promise not to chase people with my whip made of semicolons. That's for work purposes only!

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Quote (ChickenFriedChocobo @ 28th May 2014 01:25)

In any case, looking forward to good conversation!

You'll certainly find that here - you've already provided plenty to think about!

Welcome by the way.

Thanks!

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Welcome to the site!

For what it's worth, based on your timeline, it seems that you're about 5 years older than me.

I'm not sure what that means. lol.

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

So it seems, based on what your profile says!

I doubt it means I'm any wiser, though. Just a little older and, eventually, creakier.

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Oh, believe me, the creakyness comes in much faster than you think. I've only got a year on you.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Hah! Duly noted! I'll keep an elixir stuck back for the inevitable, then.

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Quote (Rangers51 @ 28th May 2014 19:24)

Oh, believe me, the creakyness comes in much faster than you think. I've only got a year on you.

How much is a time machine?

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

I don't know, but if you figure out how to get one, let me know! I've got a solid plan to head back to the middle ages with a few bags of peppercorns and some rock sugar, trade it all out for gold, and invest in a private island someplace in an era with plumbing and healthcare. That'll at least make the whole aging thing worthwhile.

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Willkommen! In hindsight, I probably should've gone to school for an English degree, myself... were you intimating that you're an editor?

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~Status Report~

* Completed... Dragon's Head
* Completed... Soldiers of the Empire: Disciples (release pending)
* In Progress/Undecided... Of Love and Betrayal
* Planning/Assembly... Where it all Began

Something of a jack of all writing trades. I work daily hours for a large and cyclopean education company who shall remain nameless (feel free to think of them as the Shinra of textbooks; I do), and I maintain a side hustle helping various freelance clients with their writing--either as an editor in the traditional sense or as a tutor/editor multiclass. Most recently I've worked graduate students looking to clean up and clarify their theses and dissertations, but the work's ranged from people who wanted their fanfic smoothed out to stuff as far-flung as writing copy for a real estate agency in Singapore. That was something of a surreal experience, as I've never bought and sold real estate and have never been to Singapore.

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Houghton Mifflin?

Man, if I were you though, I'd look up this website called AgentQuery and try plying a trade as a freelance editor. Even charging a cut rate, you could make a killing editing for self-published authors. In a strange way, I personally find that I almost like editing more than writing, in the tiny samples that I've helped this one lady work on her own novel.

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~Status Report~

* Completed... Dragon's Head
* Completed... Soldiers of the Empire: Disciples (release pending)
* In Progress/Undecided... Of Love and Betrayal
* Planning/Assembly... Where it all Began

I'm afraid I can't confirm or disconfirm any attempts to identify my overlords.

I wasn't aware of AgentQuery, but I'll look them up. Thanks! I've worked with self-pub writers as well, and it's a pretty good gig when I get it. I get to read their stuff, and I get to help them improve it. Plus--hey, money, which is nice.

From your comments, I take it you work in the field as well?

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Not really; the community at AgentQuery allows writers to help each other with shared critiques, or at times some minor editing. It's a lot to explain, but one thing that you can do is what's called having a Critique Partner, where you swap entire novels or just chapters thereof and give either line edit critiques, or just developmental editing of varying depth (minor thoughts or in-depth teardowns). I basically did something similar to that (line and dev editing combined) to help a writer out with her first page one time, and then to help her with some sentences that she felt were too far in the passive tense; I showed her a few tips for livening them up and a few tricks for instilling imagery in the reader's mind by use of the words in the sentence and what they would imply.

I'm actually a writer myself, I've just had thoughts since then that I almost liked the editing more than the writing, because I was helping someone make their work better. I'm also just personally not sure my work will ever have a market - it's too unusual - and I've also focused so much on prose that I'm not certain my plots haven't suffered because of it.

Writing is my passion and love, though, as is art, but I don't think I'll ever make any money off of it.

If you wanted to do a Want Ad on the AQ, though, there's a specific forum for it; but I don't know how easy or hard it would be to get a client. I've just never tried it, myself.

This post has been edited by Zephir on 31st May 2014 02:51

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~Status Report~

* Completed... Dragon's Head
* Completed... Soldiers of the Empire: Disciples (release pending)
* In Progress/Undecided... Of Love and Betrayal
* Planning/Assembly... Where it all Began

Greetings and welcome! I'm the local silly-person with a sewing machine and dreams of grandeur. Glad to have you!

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Check out the Magicite Menagerie!

Retro gaming cosplayer with a focus on Terra Branford.

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I'm actually a writer myself, I've just had thoughts since then that I almost liked the editing more than the writing, because I was helping someone make their work better. I'm also just personally not sure my work will ever have a market - it's too unusual - and I've also focused so much on prose that I'm not certain my plots haven't suffered because of it.

Editing can be rewarding, especially when you help the person really bring their ideas forward and make them shine. I just finished up work with a client who was struggling to do just that with a graduate thesis, and it was great to see her go from worry that she wouldn't be ready to graduate to seeing her have her thesis accepted. All I really did there was help her present it more clearly. The work was hers, and she'd already done all the hard parts. But by showing her how to clarify things and bring them forward in the text, it allowed her committee to better understand what she was saying, and that was all it took to go from "not yet" to "when do you want to defend." It was a nice feeling.

I also write, and I'm neck deep in revisions on a short novel of my own right now. I hope to finish those soon, but revision's always a beast. From there, we shall see what happens.

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Greetings and welcome! I'm the local silly-person with a sewing machine and dreams of grandeur. Glad to have you!

St. Khael, thanks! I am perpetually in awe of people who can sew. I never learned how, and I am pretty sure that now I would just sew my fingers together if I tried. The most ambitious I ever got was putting some buttons back on a uniform blouse one time rather than paying the cleaners to do it for me--and that was enough of a challenge!

I see you have a link in your sig to some of your stuff. I shall check it out!

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I tried sewing once myself; the result was a mask with a cardboard backing and a cape for a plush fox. It wasn't pretty, but it got the point across.

Careful, though, when you go to sell a novella or novel; a novella will only earn so much on the open market... my best finds were, like, a grand a pop if you won a contest, but only about fifty bucks if you sold it to a journal, and that could be for a story around 40,000 words. There might be better out there, but most of the places I found weren't offering much.

There's also a dead zone where your work won't be small enough to be palatable as a novella to most places, but still too short to be a novel and is still technically a novella; it's somewhere between 40,000 words and about 50 or 55,000 words. Agents and publishers won't look at anything smaller than a certain amount because it's just not what they're selling or buying; or at least, I think that's the case. In most instances, a novella will wind up in an anthology or journal.

The word number can vary by genre, though; I think some chick lit can wind up around 50,000 and it's considered just fine. If you can hit 60,000, you won't usually have to worry about it being too short, unless you're trying to sell a space opera or fantasy, in which case the editor might like to see it a bit longer. That's what I've gleaned so far, though. The folks at AQ could tell you much better than I, and I've actually been chastised there for giving out bad information from memory. The leading expert to listen to there is Sharpegirl; I don't know how she's connected, but she somehow has precise and intimate knowledge of the entire process.

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~Status Report~

* Completed... Dragon's Head
* Completed... Soldiers of the Empire: Disciples (release pending)
* In Progress/Undecided... Of Love and Betrayal
* Planning/Assembly... Where it all Began

Zephir, thanks for the information; duly noted.

As for now, as I said, we'll see how it goes. First things first, though: getting the thing as finished as it can be. I'll take my chances from there and see how it pans out.

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