New featured digital artist and Misc!
New FotoFriday, can you hear the band playing?
*WordCount is counting on all of it's watchers and members to help them, help you, the prose writers! *WordCount needs a unique user ID and avatar here for Deviant Art--think you can help? Well, they've made it even more tasty by dangling prizes and making it a contest! Click links! Visit Wordcount and you could wiiiiiin!

Every Monday, I would like to feature an interview with a fellow deviant. A writer, a painter, a digital artist, a photographer, and any other artistic type found within D.A! Who'll be the next? Maybe you? Send me a note or comment to this journal to get your famous on!

Do you know of an artist who needs a little recognition? Someone you want to world to know about, or maybe a kick ass artist just starting out on D.A? Note me, or comment to this journal with a link to their gallery! I'd love to take a look and maybe even feature them on my journal!

=EpicureanPoetry When you joined Deviant Art, do you remember your first impression of it and has that impression changed for you?

`GeneratingHype My first impression of dA (in regards to the social aspect) was not a very positive one, I admit, but I think a lot of the things I was troubled by when I first joined are issues that have been and continue to be addressed. dA seems to be moving in a better direction, and I'm proud to be a part of that. However, my impression of the art has never changed. There are some amazing artists on this site, and I am a happier person for having discovered them.


=EpicureanPoetry What is the singular most annoying, common punctuation mistake you've caught people making? And apologies for doing it right now ahead of time.


`GeneratingHype It's a toss-up between the "putting a comma in every place you'd take a breath" technique, poor apostrophe use, and people who have no damn idea what a semicolon is--but choose to use it frequently.

=EpicureanPoetry If you suddenly had the ability to tell the entire world something, had a limited time chance to broadcast or send something to every single soul out there without fear--what would you write/say?

`GeneratingHype It's okay to be wrong.

=EpicureanPoetry Are there any books you would recommend to the beginner poet and writer as must haves?


`GeneratingHype I'm not much of a poet, so I hesitate to offer books in that discipline, but I've found a lot of success--both as a teacher and as a writer--with:

The Craft of Revision (Donald Murray);
A Writer Teachers Writing Revised (Donald Murray);
Write to Learn (Donald Murray);
The Elements of Style (William Strunk, Jr., E.B. White, and Roger Angell);
On Writing Well (William Zinsser);
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Lynn Truss);
Grammatically Correct (Anne Stillman);
The Holt Handbook (Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell);

and while it was not very helpful for me, Stephen Kind's On Writing seemed to help other people. In regards to publishing, there really is nothing better than The Writer's Market or any of the other books in that series.

=EpicureanPoetry Last question! When it comes to Deviant Art and the fear of critique; whether to give one or respond to one, is there any advice you'd like to share with the timid or crit burned?

`GeneratingHype It's important to understand that once you've put it down on paper, it no longer belongs to you. I'm not sure I always believe that, especially when my ego gets in the way, but it's a nice thought when addressing critique.

If someone's been particularly harsh to you, wait three days and then go through it, take one or two thinks that might be good points, and thank the him/her for his/her time. The end. Chances are if a person doesn't have the craft or skill to provide a decent critique with tact, then they are going to respond to any "defense" you conjure up with, "Obviously you can't handle critique" or something equally as ridiculous. People like that--who are more interested in tearing you down than they are in helping you improve--don't care about your defense and are just waiting for the opportunity to get indignant back.

On giving critique: if it doesn't say "Advanced Critique" and this isn't someone you know, don't waste your time. Leave a short comment that offers a positive and a negative (positive first), see how they respond, and then decide from there (or ask, outright, if they'd like an in-depth crit). If it says "Advanced Critique", do not waste your time (or theirs) critiquing the entire piece--especially if it's long. Take a stanza or two, a paragraph or two--and go to town. If they respond positively, consider finishing the rest of the critique. If they respond poorly, wish them well with their writing and leave it at that. The internet simply isn't worth it.

*busterbam has an amazing ability to capture expression and emotion as well as evoke emotion and the curiosity of what story may be behind the art he makes. Love, love, love his pieces.

=VisualLit has recently featured some very interesting collaborations between deviants from *Texasdevmeet, paints and poetry or bits of prose on the same canvass. Although they do not know the artist, these are still well worth viewing!

*WordCount is a community attempting to present prose in a far less intimidating manner by organizing writing by their word counts. It is their hope that they can entice more deviants to spend a little time reading some amazing works of written art. I think they're just rad and kickin'--what, you don't know about *WordCount ? Well you are missing out!

*fotoFRIDAY is a community for poetry and writing inspiration! Offering some of the juiciest images to writers and poets of deviant art to get their groove on with, it's a resource and tool that can help you beat that block, or maybe you just need a little visual nudge? Even if you don't write, but love to read, you can find a new meaning to "a picture's worth a thousand words!"

*fotoFRIDAY's current challenge is a piece that challenges us to look beyond what the eye is presented. Can you find a story here in About the Band by *IgorLaptev ?

In my journey of writing I have realized that I've got pretty much everything wrong. From punctuation to sentence structure to comma splicing to what-the-hell-is-meter? If you are like me in the tiniest bit, then you're confused as fuck. @youthculture and `GeneratingHype were kind enough to give me links to places here on deviant art that will help, maybe they'll help you too?

Do you know of more here on deviant art? Feel free to link me in journal comments or send a note!

Can you imagine the mind-numbing patience, effort, and detail that went into this piece by ~shaungent ? I can't! But maybe that's why he can do it so well!