Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

Oops, I see what you mean about the last paragraph. I guess it's too late to take it out now... LOL! The reason I chose that story was that it was the first one that came to mind when I was trying to think of a story with me and my brother in it. We're both introverted bookworms, so we don't really go on any real adventures together. For some reason that story came to mind, even though (I'll admit it) it's not really too exciting. But, I read somewhere that what an author considers unexciting, can sometimes be fascinating to other readers, just for the fact that it's a slice of someone else's life. That's kind of what I was going for when I started this thread. I have no clue what kinds of memoirs other people will write (or even if anyone will), but I just thought it would be fun to give it a shot. Thanks for reading :) -Daniel

Oops, I forgot about this thread... LOL! Here's my story though...

My younger brother, Noah is my best friend. One time we went to sing karaoke at a local bar, and when we arrived, the host was still setting up his equipment. I knew I could only hang out for an hour, because I had to work afterward, so I grabbed the song-book and a few sign-up slips. Me and Noah picked our songs, and I went outside to smoke a cigarette. While I was smoking, a girl was outside finishing her cigarette. The first thing I noticed was that she didn't have a ring on her finger, and that she was attractive. I lit up my cigarette and made some small talk with her, during which time she pointed out her boyfriend through the window and she reassured me that he loved the Allman Brothers after I mentioned I was about to sing Whipping Post. I was in a rush to sing my song and get to work on time.

Anyway, Noah was eating a huge slice of chocolate cake when I joined him at the bar, and the host was all set up. I always get a kick out of singing karaoke, but it's even sweeter when I perform somewhere where I'm not a regular. That was the case at this bar. I didn't know anyone there, except for my brother. I asked Noah if the host had called me up while I was outside, and he replied, "it's not your turn yet, Daniel". I only had about 15 minutes before I had to leave for work. Noah ate his cake as I people watched like usual. I kept my fingers crossed that I'd get a chance to sing.

The girl I had talked to outside was sitting with her redneck boyfriend at the other end of the bar. He was wearing a black Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt and was sporting a short mohawk like in Taxi Driver, except not so creepy. She was fiddling with her scarf.

The next thing I knew, it was my turn to sing, and when I did, I nailed it. I mean, that's one of my best karaoke songs to sing, and that night I sang one of my best renditions of it ever. I had to rush off to work right after I sang my song, so I said goodbye to Noah and split. I made it to work right on time.

The next day I met Noah at Starbucks, and he told me that I had just missed seeing Maya. She's a girl that my parents are trying to set me up with, and are failing miserably at it. I first heard about her about a year ago, and I have yet to meet her. Somehow, she befriended my parents and sees them almost every weekend... LOL. I'm not against being set up, but my parents are being tricky about it, which annoys me. Instead of being straight forward and asking me if I'd like her phone number or something, they're pretending like they don't care if I meet her... LOL. Parents!

Anyway, that's my memoir. I wonder if anybody else will write one?

-Daniel

In 2005 I did a project called Memoirs From Bars that entailed gathering writings and drawings from people at bars. I self published a book of these memoirs, and submitted it to a couple of publishers before moving on to another project. Anyway, I thought that it might be neat to see what kind of memoirs I could generate here on Newgrounds. The memoir topic is:

Tell a true life story of an experience that you had with your best friend or your worst enemy.

-Daniel

P.S. I'm wrapping up my shift at work now, but I'll post my story on here late tonight :)

Interesting poem. What inspired it? Are most of your poems abstract like this? -Daniel

Yeah, it's really impossible to make fan fiction your own without the permission of the original creators. I used to read a lot of Star Wars books, and they were all written by people other than George Lucas, but at least they had his permission. -D.

Does anybody else use Zuda.com? I'm looking forward to their new webcomic contest on Monday. Last month's contest was kind of crazy... the leading comic was removed from the contest, because of some bullshit drama. Anyway, something else that I'm looking forward to (just so that you don't think I'm a shill or something... LOL), is that I organized a swap at my local watering hole tomorrow. Me and some of my Face Book friends are going to be trading: cd's, sketches, photos, etc... The sucky thing is that I have to work afterward, so can only drink a couple beers... boo! I used to swap a lot of comics back in the day, too. Okay, better get back to work... -Daniel

First off, books show more authentic style than movies, since book authors have total control of what their readers experience, while movie scripters rely on tons of other people to see their scripts made into movies. When you watch a movie, the "style" is more dependent on the storyboarders, actors, and director. Secondly, artists of all medias do well to imitate their idols while trying to find their own style. If you don't think your work is influenced by anyone else, then show it to someone and ask them who or what it reminds them of. My guess is that your piece will remind them of something else, and if you have ever seen or read that "something else", then it has influenced you unconsciously. Nothing in the world of art is unique, my friend. :) -Daniel

The most informative and impacting book about writing that I've ever read is:

The Writers Journey, by Christopher Vogel.

It's a step by step approach to writing mythic screenplays, but all its lessons apply to other kinds of writing too. It is based on Joseph Campbell's classic: A Hero with A Thousand Faces, which had a direct impact on directors like Stephen Spielberg, and Francis Ford Copalla, and all of Hollywood, really.

Speaking of Francis Ford Copalla, there's a website that he created called Zoetrope.com, which is geared towards creating films. There is a section on that website devoted to creative writing, but unlike this forum, there's a catch. If you want to get feedback on something you wrote, you have to give feedback to (I think) 3 other pieces in the same genre. This works out fine if you're an avid reader, but it got old for me after a while.

Stories.com is another nice site, but I haven't used it in a while, so I'm not sure how it is now.

Poetry.com is a scam. You send them your poems, and they send you a letter saying they're going to publish your poem in a huge collection of poetry, which you can buy from them for like $100 (I forget the exact price). If not for the fact that the book is so expensive, it's kind of a cool concept if not for the following fact. That book is totally unedited, so your poem is plopped in with a bunch of poorly written poems with typos and grammatical mistakes. It's a scam.

Anybody else have any writing books or websites that they like, or dislike?

Thanks!

-Daniel

My biggest influences are...

1) Franz Kafka - I tried to write strange stories like his for a while. He wrote the Castle, The Trial, and America, and (everybody's heard of this one...) The Metamorphosis. I just like how his characters are so filled with self doubt. Kind of like Woody Allen is, but more neurotic.

2) Richard Brautigan - Much of my poetry from the past 3 years was influenced by Brautigan. He wrote really short and quirky poems, but he's mostly famous for his super-popular book: Trout Fishing in America. He is my favorite humorist, and my last great literary discovery.

3) Anna Akhmatova - She was a Russian poet who was declared a "whore saint" by the Russian government. She stayed in Russia her whole life, and was the voice of the Russian people during that time. I love her poetry, because it's dark, and yet she had such distinct style of writing concise poems. I have a long poem that I used her writing style on. Mine is fiction, but most of her poems were based on her own real experiences. She's awesome!

4) Mitch Hedberg - He's a stand-up comic, and there's a wikipedia page with his jokes on it. I'll try to link it here... hopefully it'll work... LOL. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mitch_Hedbe rg

5) Jack Handy (of SNL's Deep Thoughts) - His writing inspired me to try and write one-liners. The first comic I sold to Zuda.com consisted of single panel gag comics that I wrote after reading the first two Deep Thoughts books.

6) Elliott Smith - He's a musician who passed away in the mid 2000's. His lyrics are so filled with depth and underlining meanings that it's just insane. He's my favorite lyricist.

7) Charles Bukowski - Reading his work is one of my biggest guilty pleasures. He was a true bohemian, and led a long crazy life.

I have a lot of idols... LOL!

Enjoy!

-Daniel

About the love poems thead: I haven't ever seen that kind of thing on another forum, but that in itself doesn't mean it's a bad idea. I can't really think of any other topic (except for "war") that is as universal as love. The main selling point that I have for a love poem thread is that Valentine's Day is coming up soon, and hey, why not??

More ideas:

1) A thread for discussing tools of the trade: programs, notebooks, computers, typewriters, pencils, pens, crayons, paper, etc...

2) The thread list could have ratings for the threads. This would make writers push themselves harder and improve their art. It would also help readers identify threads with awesome content, and it would acknowledge the good work of the recipient of those 5 stars. Right now when you look at the thread list, it's just a bunch of titles and authors, but that's it. I would be more enticed to open up threads if there was a rating system, or if nothing else the genre was listed. Someone else mentioned Genres in this thread I think, and it was a good idea. I think there needs to be more than just # of replies, author, and title. The Plentyoffish.com forums have number of views, too. That would be cool if we had it here.

3) If there's a contest here, maybe it could be done like this: The assignment and the contest rules (and the deadline) would be given in the first post of the thread. Then all the contestants would post their submission in that thread before the deadline. Then one of those contestants would win a prize. haha. You guys probably already thought of that, but I just thought I'd put it out there.... LOL!

Off to find the Wizard... byeeee!

-Daniel

I just found out about this forum today. It looks like it's going to be a really awesome place to meet fellow writers and get feedback on my work :)

My favorite things to write are: Short Stories, one-liners, poetry, haikus, song lyrics, pen-palling, journaling, dream journalling, webcomics, movie shorts, and flash fiction (also known as "short short stories").

I had one of my comics published at Zuda.com in October '08. Being published there was the first time that I ever got paid for my writing, and I'm hoping to be published there again this year (and if I'm lucky... win the contest!). I'm also working on a short movie script, which me and some of my friends will be filming this Summer. My music has taken a new twist recently, too. I went from writing singer songwriter lyrics to stoner rock lyrics. LOL! Basically, I'm trying to write songs that are fantasy based. My first stoner rock song was called The Ogre Wars, and my second one was called Tears of a Cyclops. Anyway, I'm looking forward to meeting some neat people on here and sharing my work with you guys :)

-Daniel

This is a neat forum! I haven't looked at Newgrounds.com in about a year, and I randomly looked at it tonight and saw the writing forum just started a few days ago! Great timing on my part :)

1) I like the idea of doing a contest. Maybe there could be a voting system of some sort? Like people could leave between 0-5 smileys in their comments for stories, and whoever gets the most smileys wins? Or the contest could be judged by the moderators. Either way would be cool.

2) I do think that book readers should be allowed to talk about books on this site, since writing and reading are so symbiotic. I don't care where these discussions would take place in the forum, but they should be somewhere here. I see nothing wrong with discussing books in the lounge, but personally I think there should be a separate book thread. Another idea: a book club where "members" read books (maybe a chapter a week, or something), and discuss those books.

3) I don't read fan fiction, but I don't see anything wrong with it.

4) Having a larger character limit seems like a good idea.

5) Perhaps there could be poetry threads for different topics? There could be a love poem thread, or a thread for Bukowski types of poems. Just an idea.

6) I didn't see a thread for characters when I looked just now, but I think that would be neat. People could just create characters in the thread. And, maybe it could have a sister thread, where people would write "fan-fiction" with those characters. I entered a Simpsons contest last year, where people had to send in ideas for new characters, and it was fun as hell.

7) Personally, I think that people should be allowed to do any kind of writing on the writing forum. IMO, non-fiction writing is just as important as fiction writing. Some of my best writing over the years has been my pen-palling, because I take so much time revising my e-mails.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more ideas to contribute, but that's it for now. I'm really excited that I discovered this forum :)

-Daniel

I currently use the message board at Zuda.com (DC Comic's webcomic site), and the message board at PlentyofFish.com, but I'm looking for new message boards to check out. Do you have any recommendations? My interests include: comics, relationships, support groups, art, writing, making movies, and music. I thought that this post would be appropriate in the Writing Forum at NG, since message boards are filled with writings. Thanks for your help :)

-Daniel

P.S. The Zuda.com message board has a cool thread for artist/writer collaborations.

P.P.S. Plentyoffish.com has some cool forums for poetry, haikus, and short stories.

Neat thread! I can't narrow it down to just one book, so I'll do one for each of my favorite genres:

Self Help: Being your own dating service, by Nina Atwood. This book is an amazing book about how to get into a healthy LTR. It opened my eyes in a lot of ways.

Poetry: The Selected Poems of Anna Akhmatova. I've read this book from cover to cover dozens of times, and it is by far my favorite book of poetry. I can pick it up at anytime of the day, or read it anywhere, and it still intrigues me. She was a dark poet with an old soul. Russian, too.

Fiction: The Trial, by Franz Kafka. Kafka was my favorite author for years, and aside from his short stories, this book is my favorite book of his. It all started with Kafka.

Humor: Letters from a Nut, by Ted L. Nancy. This book is so fucking funny it's insane. Jerry Seinfeld wrote the introduction. This is the first book that I ever read that made me recognize the importance of punctuation. It influenced my poetry, and other writings.

Childrens: If I ran the Circus, by Dr. Seuss. This was the only Dr. Seuss book that I ever owned as a kid, but I lost it years ago. I picked up a new copy at the thrift shop recently, and reading was fun as hell. Nostalgia.

Comics: Lone Wolf and Cub. I don't have the creators names on hand this second. This is an absolute masterpiece of a comic. I used to read it in high school, but I didn't get the complete set until last year. It's brilliant. The characters have so much depth, and the storyline is so badass, it's just awesome.

Those are the main genres I read, but I may think of something else later. Cool thread :)

Daniel

First off, read the FAQ at the copyright office: http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/
Secondly, a lot of poetry magazines (and probably other types of magazines) do not publish work that is previously published on message boards, blogs, self published books, etc..., so that's a consideration, too. To the best of my knowledge, there's nothing you can do to stop people from stealing your work, except to refrain from publishing it in the first place. If you want to go the route of getting an official copyright, it costs about $50 last I checked (3 years ago), but you can really get your money's worth if you send them a data disk to copyright. They only charge once per piece of media that you send them, but all the information on the media is copyrighted with that charge. So, you could send them a data disk with 150 word documents on it, and all of those documents would be copyrighted. If you're a musician, you can send them a CDR with 40 recordings (or as many will fit on the CDR) on it from all of your demos or albums, and all of those songs will be copyrighted. Or you could send them one album (with the booklet and artwork, etc...) and that album would be copyrighted. I recommend you read some books on the subject. Trademarks and Patents are interesting, too :) -Daniel

Check out my new daily webcomic - Poker Pauly! You'll find it at PokerPauly.com. The art is solid and the writing is cute. Feedback is welcome! You don't have to play poker to "get it".

Thanks for the tip. I'll do that next time. I'd edit the original post if I could...

I'm now up to 15 websites that have given a positive response. Sorry for being so verbose last night. I guess it was a bit much text. :)

Hi there. I posted a thread here a few days ago about a comic strip that I'm putting together, and I just wanted to elaborate on it a bit. New Grounds has proved to be a helpful resource in my search for a cartoonist to illustrate Poker Pauly, so I'm glad that I found out about it last week. Last night and tonight I sent out queries to about 100 poker related websites regarding wether they would publish my comic strip. Keeping in mind that it's a week-end and a lot of businesses aren't open, I'm happy to say that I've already gotten positive responses from seven websites! That means that the comic strip will most likely appear on a minimum of 7 websites, which is a good start I think! Also, keep in mind that there are 331,000,000 webites that came up when I googled "poker", so there's no shortage of potential consumers. My plan is to find a cartoonist to partner up with, and self syndicate the strip via the internet. Once that has been accomplished, and once we have 24 comics drawn, I'll send them out to the major newspaper syndicates in the hopes of being published in print. Charging companies in the beginning is to complicated, so I'm not going to do it at first. Comic strip creators are very lucky to get $1 per comic from each newspaper they're published in, so you can probably see how it would get complicated charging websites such minimal amounts. Somewhere down the road, though, I plan to charge new customers for Poker Pauly. Anyway, the bottom line is that I'm still looking a cartoonist to collaberate, so if you would like some more info on that, then please contact me and I'll reply right away. Please don't respond if you expect payment - this is speculation work. I think I've explained my plans well enough for you to see where I'm coming from. Also, you can check out some of my writing at a different webcomic of mine on myspace.com. It's address is www.myspace.com/captioncomix. It's a single panel gag comic drawn by a handful of artists. I actually have a lot of material left undrawn from that project that you could help with if you felt so inclined. Anyway, thanks a lot for taking the time to read this. I hope to hear from you soon. Cheers! -Daniel

First off, Elbow is the cat. Someone above had a question about that. As some back-ground, I have an ad running on Craig's list that I'm looking for a cartoonist, and one of the responses that I got yesterday was by a helpful guy who suggested I post here at the flash section. So, I signed upl for a membership and posted here yesterday. If I understood it right, the other forums won't let me post my request for help. Anyway, It seems fairly logical that if someone can draw flash, then they could draw cartoons. Maybe not, though. I'd like to respond to the person above who drew a sample comic, but I can't view it from the computer I'm at now. I'm looking forward to seeing it though, and hopefully will get a chance tomorrow. Other than that, only one person has messaged me threw Newgrounds so far. But, I have some good leads through Craig's list and some local colleges.

Thanks for the advice. Here is the third sample comic I wrote...

Script #3

Panel #1: Elbow talking to Paul.
Elbow, "Pauly, how'd you like to buy a new deck of cards?"
Pauly, "Sure, how much are they?"
Panel #2
Elbow, "Yesterday six, but five today."
Pauly, "Where'd you get them anyway Elbow?"
Panel #3
Elbow, "Your dresser, why?"
Pauly (looking exasperated)

Yes, I've already written the character descriptions for it, along with five sample comics, but I'm still searching for a cartoonist to draw them.

This is speculation work not work-for- hire work. I am looking for a co-creator to split the profits with if profits are made by the comic strip. There is no shortage of cartoonists who will do work-for-hire work, but few who will do speculation work. I am trying to appeal to those who do speculation work. On the one hand, you won't be getting any payment up front, but on the other hand, if the comic strip brings in revenue you will be entitled to 50% of it. If you arel looking for payment up front, then this is the wrong project for you, but if you love cartooning and have always wanted to collaberate on a comic strip, then I'd love to hear from you.

I would like to find a cartoonist to draw a new sequential comic strip that I'm developing. Keep in mind that it's speculation work, and you'll need to be able to draw two kids and their cat playing poker. I'm aiming for newspaper syndication as well as self syndication through poker related websites. I need to choose a cartoonist by late February. Please send me a message if you are interested, or post a reply if you have any suggestions regarding other resources or websites I might use to find cartoonists. Thanks a lot for your help!