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Friends and Readers (FAR) - Reading Circle **2 SPOTS AVALIABLE**
pickledsimmer
Posts: 105 Member
Hi & welcome to FAR, Friends and Readers reading circle!
This reading circle is a collection of a small group dedicated to TS4 Simlit. There is no requirement of type, length or challenge style, just that you are willing to dedicate a little time each week to reading fellow members story and being an active circle member. It's for those who are busy, whether it be real life or here on the sims forum (ie. many stories/reading circles) and only have a little time to dedicate each week but still want to have a dedicated reader base in a friendly environment.
You are encouraged to read everyone's story as time allows you and at your own pace. Each week there will be a spotlight author, where there will be some questions related to simlit that they are welcome to answer (not required too) and is a great time to ask other members for anything. This could be and not limited to; likes, comments, encouraging words, help with an idea, and ways to improve writing.
**There are currently 2 spots available**
Circle Members & Story
@pickledsimmer - The Barrow Legacy
@CathyTea - Reading Margaret
@MellowMaize - The Lockwood Legacy
Circle Members & Story
@pickledsimmer - The Barrow Legacy
@CathyTea - Reading Margaret
@MellowMaize - The Lockwood Legacy
The Barrow Legacy - UPDATED 08/14
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Weekly spotlight is a where a fellow reading circle member is the author of the week. We continue to read everyone's story on a regular basis but this time is where we can specifically discuss, ask questions and help out the author. Each time slot is for a week, Sunday to Saturday, where I will compile some questions they are welcome to answer but not required and they can ask for support in anything the author would like (ie. likes/comments/encouraging words/help with an idea/ways of improvement).
Week One
CathyTea - Reading Margaret
Sunday August 20th until Saturday August 26th
Week Two
Pickledsimmer - The Barrow Legacy
Sunday August 27th until Saturday September 2nd
Week Two
MellowMazie - The Lockwood Legacy
Sunday September 3rd until Saturday September 9th
I'm not sure which story of mine to use for this circle.
I've got two that are current stories which I've just started... each has only one chapter.
Maybe the circle can choose which one?
Option A: The newest installment of my series "City Tales," which follows the lives of four people who have moved into San Myshuno. I'm currently working on the section called "Life of Don" because MCCC married Don Lothario to an artist who lives in the city! "Life of Don"
Option B: "Reading Margaret" follows a young woman who is inspired by Margaret Fuller. This one won't have a lot of plot, but it'll have a lot of thinking! LOL! It's also set in the city. "Reading Margaret"
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
I just read both stories and they're such great reads it will be a difficult choice among members (going to pop into the Writers' Lounge and see if I can also drum up more interest). Personal I vote for Reading Margaret, I've never read any of her work but I'm a huge bookworm and I'm drawn into your writing of this story.
Also I'm going to start to set up the Spotlight Author and start that on the Sunday to Saturday each week. Since there are currently two of us, you'll be featured first and then I will follow. I'll set up a template where other members names can be added as they join. We can use this week to catch up on each others stories (not hard as we each have one chapter) and then commence Sunday with the Spotlight! If you have any ideas on questions we can use to ask authors I'd love to hear them
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
The Saraste Tales Legacy Intro
Happy Simming!
Yes, there are 3 spots available.
The Saraste Tales Legacy Intro
Happy Simming!
Certainly! Would you be able to link your simlit and I'll add you too the list of members
Today marks the beginning of our weekly spotlight, we begin with @CathyTea 's story Reading Margaret. I've attached some questions and just share if there's anything we could help with. Questions will be custom for each author.
What inspired Reading Margaret?
Favourite style to write, plot driven or gameplay?
Where do you get your ideas?
Does writing exhaust or energize you?
If you could tell your younger writhing self one thing, what would it be?
You write so many different stories, how do you juggle them all?
Here are my responses:
What inspired Reading Margaret?
It was inspired by a post from @mastressalita -one of her Photo Fridays. In Photo Fridays, Alita pairs a Sims pic with a quotation. She chose this quotation by Margaret Fuller:
I've been thinking a lot about gender lately, and this quotation really struck a chord with me--and then I remembered of a sudden how much I love Margaret Fuller, and how, when I was in grad school and had to rush through "Women in the 19th Century" in order to make it through the required reading list, I had promised myself that sometime, when I had leisure and space to think about things, I'd return to her work and give it proper attention.
This feels like the time!
I've also just been through a few years at my workplace where my director and our superintendent were sexist--they've recently left, and now the workplace is moving towards a more equitable approach, which is also more accepting of diversity. But having gone through that tough time, I wanted to explore my feminist ideals a bit more, and re-reading Margaret Fuller fits well with that.
I also wanted to consider issues of identity: How does reading influence our understanding of who we are? That, basically, is what this story is all about.
My favorite plot-line, really, is the path towards self-discovery.
Favourite style to write, plot driven or gameplay?
Game-play, for sure! All my stories are, essentially, game-play driven. I strive to write them in such a way that a reader can't tell the difference--I strive to write them as if they were short stories or novels. But the characters and events come directly out of the game, with very few exceptions.
The exceptions are things like having a Sim sit at a computer or write in a journal if I need them to be writing a letter to someone, like in the Pen Pal Project.
But my very favorite thing to do is just play for a while, take loads of pics, and then form them together into a story.
Where do you get your ideas?
I guess from life? From things I'm thinking about? @allysimbuilds recently recommended Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Big Magic" which holds that ideas are these things floating around who are always looking for someone who will bring them to life. And, I admit that feels true for me. Often, when I'm receptive, it feels like ideas tickle me and whisper, "What about this story?" If it's something that has a corresponding itch inside of me, I'll consider it! And when I can't stop thinking about it--when NOT writing the story gets in the way of doing other things--then I'll start it!
Does writing exhaust or energize you?
It generally energizes me--or at least fulfills me and makes life feel richer. I feel like I've spent a lifetime observing and tending my creative energy, so I'm pretty good at being able to assess when I have the capacity to write and when my time would be better spent doing something else, like cooking, playing cello, reading, gardening, daydreaming, or even napping. That means that when I write, it's usually when it will be contributing to my overall state of well-being.
If you could tell your younger writing self one thing, what would it be?
Trust your life process: It's all working out.
You write so many different stories, how do you juggle them all?
I can't. I can only actively juggle five stories at once, and I have many more that are still in-progress, with plans for completion. In terms of juggling the active stories, I tend to have one or two game-play sessions each week, during which time I'll play one of the active stories. From that play session (which can last from one to two hours), I'll usually get enough screen-shots for three to five chapters.
The evening after I play, I'll select, resize, optimize, and upload the screenshots. Then I sort by chapter and save them in drafts in my WordPress blog. I've got about 30 drafts currently in my main blog! This means at any time, for each of my active stories, I've got around three to five chapters screenshot and waiting for drafting.
This approach fits my busy-life, daydreaming style really well. It means that each evening, when I sit down to write, I can select to work on the story that I'm most interested in at that moment. It keeps it all fresh for me.
I tend to need a lot of germination time for stories, so having lots to work on allows me to let some stories sprout, while I'm watering others.
I notice that I think a lot about a few of the stories on hiatus, which means that when I'm ready to return to them, I'll be eager to play and write!
Thanks so much for these questions! I'll come up with some questions for readers, too!
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
Or perhaps that can be a question for the next round! I am mainly prodding this thread because I am interested in being a part of the circle.
If you'll have me, of course! I'm quite new to writing in general, and newer still to simlit and the forum so I'm still in an awkward adjustment phase. :smile:
No problem! And sounds wonderful! I cannot wait
We'd love to have you! That's alright, we all started there at one point
And never to late to ask questions, I'm quite interested in hearing @CathyTea 's answer. And welcome to Friends and Readers!
Thank you for having me. :)
Here are some questions for you, as this week's featured writer!
1) I really love the appearance of your founder. How did you get the idea for what she would look like? Did it take you long to make her in CAS?
2) Felix is really cute! Did it take a long time to find him? Do he and Kori seem to have natural chemistry from the first?
3) I like the first-person narration and Kori's voice a lot! Do you hear her voice in your head when you play?
4) Do you think you'll keep first-person narration as the story moves through the generations?
5) What's your playing/writing style like? Do you think of the plot and the narrative while you play? Do you just play and take a lot of pictures and then figure out the story later? How much time do you spend daydreaming about the story or spinning it in your imagination?
6) How much time do you feel like playing each week, and how much time are you able to actually play? (I know you're super busy as a new mom!)
How about with the writing? How much time do you feel like writing, and how much time are you actually able to write?
Do you keep your playing and writing in sync, or do you ever play way ahead?
7) What are your goals for this story?
8) I'm having a lot of fun reading it--what do you think lets you achieve that fun-to-read style?
@MellowMaize Please chime in with any questions you have for pickled!
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
1) What made you start writing and what did you start with if it wasn't simlit? (novels? poetry? song writing?)
2) What part of your writing style are you particularly proud of?
3) Do you have any trope/clichés that you can't help but love? Are you considering adding them to your legacy / have you used them before?
4) What is the /worst/ writing advice you've ever gotten? (or seen/heard/read elsewhere)
5) What are the perfect conditions for you when you write? (alone? music? in bed or at a desk? by hand or on the computer?)
Aaand that's all I could come up with for now without having too much overlap with Cathy's great questions :)
@CathyTea Your answers blew me away, really insightful into your stories/play style/and yourself as an author. I really enjoyed your answer to the last question about the juggling of so many stories and it sounds like you have a great system set up with the option to return to those on hiatus. The quote by Margaret Fuller is touching and I'm sorry about what you went through at your work place but I'm glad it's over and moving forward. I hear so much about those issues but am lucky I have not have had to deal with it personally. I love the gameplay style! Personally for me it has to be my favourite!
@MellowMaize Everything on the first couple posts have been updated! Also I love your Lockwood Legacy, once I opened it up I realized I had already been reading it but never hit the follow button! That could explain why I never knew about the newer chapters posted :facepalm:
@jazzyrocksoul88 Hey! Are you still interested? We'd love to have you, just need a link to your story
Next up I'll answer the questions you both asked! Don't want this post getting to long and me pressing a wrong button and losing all I wrote LOL It has happened one to many times
Thank you! I had no idea what I wanted, I just started playing around and after quite awhile (maybe 10-15 minutes) I just decided to take her as is. I just wanted to play because I spend so much time in CAS usually but as I started to play with her I'm glad I didn't continue to tweak her because she probably would of ended up looking like every other sim I have created.
2. Felix is really cute! Did it take a long time to find him? Do he and Kori seem to have natural chemistry from the first?
Felix is actually a townie with a make-over! The only help he received from me was a skin overlay and some new duds. They do have natural chemistry, I had her originally after Mortimer Goth and a story semi-played out in my head but every time I turned around Felix was there (at the bar, at the museum, in her neighborhood) and she always wanted to interact with him. So I threw my story idea out the window and allowed her to do as she pleased, which was be with Felix and just played.
3. I like the first-person narration and Kori's voice a lot! Do you hear her voice in your head when you play?
Not so much when I play but mostly when I'm writing I have this idea of how she sounds and portrays herself that I want to try and convey.
4. Do you think you'll keep first-person narration as the story moves through the generations?
The goal is to continue with it and I find it's the easiest writing style for me right now being so busy and never knowing just how long I have until the baby wakes up or I'm rushing off to another appointment. I feel for me that it gives the best insight into the character I'm writing for, as it's their private journal you're reading, they write stuff they normally wouldn't share with others which opens up a whole new perspective.
5. What's your playing/writing style like? Do you think of the plot and the narrative while you play? Do you just play and take a lot of pictures and then figure out the story later? How much time do you spend daydreaming about the story or spinning it in your imagination?
I originally started the legacy to just play but one night I had this idea of her falling madly in love with a married man, the whole forbidden love type of story, but as I played Kori she had other plans. So I just started playing and taking loads of photos, so after a good session I open up wordpress and if I'm in the right mood I just start writing. I'm even trying to keep score.
I spend a lot of time day dreaming about the stories I could write. But it all comes down to time, something I don't have as much as I used too, so I stick to the playing and getting a good session in and when the mood strikes I write. So who knows what will come out with all the ideas in my head and I just go with it. Hence why I put a disclaimer on the homepage if the plot, chapter lengths and over all play fluctuate that I'm busy and it's just for fun.
6. How much time do you feel like playing each week, and how much time are you able to actually play? (I know you're super busy as a new mom!)
I'd love to play all the time if I could but ya, I've been super busy with being a new mom and moving which has taken from my game time but I feel it's worked out really well for me. Where as before I would play and have all these saves of stories I wanted to write and share but nothing ever became of them because I would move onto the next one a couple days later. Now when I get the chance to go open up the game I just want to play, I don't want to spend hours in CAS or building, so I open the same save I was playing before.
I even started a second save, that way I can jump between the two without getting bored or feel like I'm making myself play in hopes that curbs my issue of scarping that save and starting over again.
How about with the writing? How much time do you feel like writing, and how much time are you actually able to write?
I'd love to write a lot, I have a backlog of screenshots but it's the same thing as playing. I don't have a huge amount of time and when I do get it I like to just play. Plus I find I have to be in a certain mood to write and if I'm not I always end up scraping the draft and starting fresh.
Do you keep your playing and writing in sync, or do you ever play way ahead?
Oh I play way ahead, I find lately I'm more in the mood to play then write so I have endless screenshots just waiting to be written. Because I am so far behind in writing and the baby is going through a real fussy stage, I've debated going down to publishing once a week.
7. What are your goals for this story?
To make it past the first generation! I've never been able to as I jump between saves and abandon them just as quick as they began but now I have less time and so far this is the longest I've stuck with it.
8. I'm having a lot of fun reading it--what do you think lets you achieve that fun-to-read style?
Thank you! I think not forcing myself to write has achieved that, as when I do write it's because I want to and it's more enjoyable. Plus not having all the time to focus on it, when I do open up wordpress I can just let my thoughts flow and not over think what I write.
1. What made you start writing and what did you start with if it wasn't simlit? (novels? poetry? song writing?)
I started writing when I was in a real depressed state in my early teens, I started with poetry and a little writing on the side but nothing became of it. I read a lot, something I used to avoid because of my dyslexia but now that I've over come a big part of it I think reading opened a more creative side of me that wasn't just art or painting. It wasn't until I started writing simlit that it really expanded my writing and what made me get into simlit, I don't even remember what made me make the plunge but whatever it was, I'm glad it did.
2. What part of your writing style are you particularly proud of?
Being versatile. Being able to switch between characters and stories without them leading into each other. It's not something you can see right now since I've only one story published but I have a second in the works that may or may not get published but it's a different style and perspective.
3. Do you have any trope/clichés that you can't help but love? Are you considering adding them to your legacy/have you used them before?
Maybe the forever afters and conquering all. They type where he's the first guy your serious about and you fall in love, marry, buy a house and have lots of babies. It's something I've always wanted for myself but didn't believe in since where I come from, children at a young age, never graduating or going to college, different baby daddy's and low end jobs are the norm. There's nothing wrong with that but it wasn't what I wanted and I wanted more. Being able to over come where I came from to graduate, go to college twice, meet my husband in an unlikely time, have a baby, buy a house and elope has me portraying all those emotions into my writing which I feel can be classed as a cliché. Prince charming riding in and they live happily ever after will always defiantly be added into my legacy.
I haven't ventured into it much and can't quite remember where I am in chapter publishing but Kori is good and Felix is evil, two polar opposites that found love and are living the happily ever after. It's kind of a portrayal of my husband and I but with us it's two different social classes.
4. What is the /worst/ writing advice you've ever gotten? (or seen/heard/read elsewhere)
Too work on one thing at a time. I think it's a load of plum, do what you want and sometimes working on more then one project is better for one's writing. If you have lots of ideas, try them out and see what works. That's where more then one project would come in handy, you're not trying to add all these different plots and ideas into one story that only confuses writers and yourself.
5. What are the perfect conditions for you when you write? (alone? music? in bed or at a desk? by hand or on the computer?)
Defiantly alone, hence both husband and baby are asleep currently (well baby is chilling in his swing content, who ever said sleep when the baby sleeps never met my son hence it being 4:30 in the morning). I just enjoy the quiet and being alone to write, that way there are no distractions and I can get out the thoughts and ideas out of my head without stopping and starting a million times until I forget and get frustrated. I also type everything, I've tried writing it out my hand, even ideas and plots, but I'm more a gameplay writer so you never know what's going to happen in the game that throws it all off. Like Kori picking her own husband and not letting me force her into one with Moritmer.
I apologize for any horrible grammar and spelling, I've only briefly read over my answers and now that the baby is finally asleep I'm off to bed to get some sleep before getting up in a little over an hour with the hubbie. Thank you @CathyTea and @MellowMaize for the amazing questions, they got me thinking and I still feel I could add more but my brain as run out of gas
Of Myth and Magic
And, hi, @pickledsimmer and @MellowMaize ! I haven't forgotten about our Reading Circle! I really enjoyed your responses to our questions, @pickledsimmer !
I've been super busy--and also rather focused on Hurricane Irma--so I haven't been back to this thread until today.
pickled, I'd like to follow up a bit on some of your responses, and Mellow, I think your story is up next! I'll try to come by in a few days with questions for you!
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
I'm seconding CathyTea, pickled, your responses were very interesting and insightful to read. Honestly, I was surprised at your question for my fourth question. I'd expected something like "never use the word said" or something along those lines, but this blew me away. I always thought that the general opinion of most writers was to only ever focus on one story and that if you spread yourself over several, your stories would suffer.
This always seemed.. weird to me. I find most of my stories suffer more when I don't get other ideas out of my system. The story would otherwise end up feeling like a chore and a total drag, not to mention what you said about trying to shove all the ideas into a single story!
Anyhow, I am sorry for taking so long to reply. My partner and I were uprooted and forced to move so the past few weeks have been super hectic, but I am settled in now and have a good seven chapters of my Legacy prepped for the week to come!
Is there any space left in the group? I've never been part of a reading circle before, but it sounds like something that might be both fun and therapeutic. (Sorry if all that was on over-share.) Anyway, if you've got space, I'd love to be considered!