Hello!

[bynra]

Hello everybody!

Bynra here, and very glad to come across this group!  I've only recently decided to start writing and one of the things I have heard from so many different sources is that a writing group is a great and wonderful thing.  I was doing a search on facebook, trying to find other writers in my area, but after poking around this forum for a bit, I've decided to give it a whirl.  

Anyways, a bit about me:  I never liked any English class, though in every one I took, I was very good at writing extraordinarily boring 5 paragraph essays.  I do, however, love to read.  I love it so much that I used to get in trouble at school for reading, and if my bosses found out how much I still read, well, I might get in trouble at work!  I have been doing an obscene amount of reading for over 20 years and just in the last couple of months have decided to put it to good use.  At least I hope it will be a good use.  

I have two degrees in music, one from each coast of North America.  (Kudos to anyone who actually knows what a bassoon is.)  I practice karate and love the outdoors.  I am addicted to several webcomics and regret that I only discovered D&D and Anime in university and only had a few years of that community.  Oh yes, and food.  I love food!  Korean, Japanese, Greek, Italian, Czech, whatever...even just a really well made burger.  It's all wonderful stuff.

Looking forward to reading and writing with you all,

Bynra

[Domland]

Welcome. It's good to have you. What kind of fantasy books do you read? What kinds of stories do you like to write. If you mind telling, that's perfectly fine.

Thanks for the reply to my culture building thread.

[Cordilow]

Welcome to the group! Glad to see you're very glad to find it.

Lest you miss out on another community, I should inform you about visual novels (not graphic novels). I figure that since you're into animé, music, writing, reading and D&D, that you might like these (or at least like their potential—many of them are romance genre, but there are several in the fantasy genre).

What kind of music are you into? I don't suppose you do music suitable for video games, do you? Such works well for visual novels, too (i.e. music that loops)—since you don't know how long a person will be reading a certain section.

Take a look at http://www.renpy.org/ where you can find some free visual novels, and a free engine to make them (they'll post any up you give them to do so with). Be warned, though, that some of the visual novels have adult content (but they say so in the descriptions—so it shouldn't be hard to filter)—though some of the unmarked ones have teen-rated content. Many of the free visual novels aren't what I would call serious projects, though, but some are well-done, and I have yet to try out some.

I haven't tried out more than a few demos of commercial visual novels, but they look interesting. Ren'Py is my favorite engine for making them, though—even if it's pretty new to the visual novel community. It's more visually appealing to me than the others I've seen.

[bynra]

Hmm...I will read pretty much anything, even if it's not great, because I love stories.  I have to find out what happens next.  Right now I think my favorite author is Brandon Sanderson for his Mistborn trilogy.  He is also finishing the Wheel of Time which I also love - that's how I found about him in the first place.  I  enjoy Robin Hobb and Lynn Flewelling, and of course the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series.  

It's not a fantasy, but the Bourne Identity has a special place in my heart.  I like a good thriller, but it seems like there are so many bad ones to wade through that I don't usually bother looking.  

As for writing, I would like to write the kinds of things that I read.  I know it will take me a while to get to that point, so for now I'm writing shorter stories.  I have a couple that I will likely post here sometime.

[bynra]

The visual novel concepts intrigues me.  I have seen more and more of things like that with webcomic artists adding playlists that 'go' with their work, and I really like the idea.  Unfortunately I get a page load error when I try to get to www.renpy.com.  I would definitely be interested in having a look.

I love video game and movie music.  It's not what I studied but it's right up my alley, though now that I am finished school I don't have access to quite the same kind of equipment I once did.  I miss that, and it's rather expensive to get.  For now, I have enough - it's just a lot more time consuming and some of the samples of live instruments don't sound right to me.  Then again, my ears are picky.

[Cordilow]

Oh, sorry. I meant http://www.renpy.org/ (not .com)

I just edited that post. Thanks for letting me know that—it's a mistake I definitely shouldn't have made.

[Cordilow]

bynra wrote:

I  enjoy Robin Hobb and Lynn Flewelling, and of course the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series.

I haven't read any of Lynn Flewelling's stuff as of yet, but that's interesting you mention her. She was on the emailing list that inspired these forums when I was there in 1999 (the IFWA emailing list—it no longer exists, quite).