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INFO : WRITING : ART : SITES : OTHER
Who are you?
I am Jess, otherwise known as Poison Ivory pretty much everywhere that counts. I’m a student at Barnard College - an English major with a film concentration, to be precise - and, like 99% of the people on the 'net, an aspiring writer. I originally hail from Brooklyn; I’m an Aries; I have a deep love for musicals, fantasy, and Cadbury eggs. I cheat at basketball and still check my closet for Narnia every now and then.
You can email me at poisonivory [at] gmail [dot] com, or, if you prefer, comment on my LiveJournal, Poison Ivory. Or you can try yelling real loud. It’s worked before.
Pretty much everything I write should be available on either this site, Lovestruck, and/or The Skeldale Boys, depending on content, but occasionally things are too short or random or crack-filled to justify posting them on those sites and they are thus relegated to my writing LJ, _ticketyboo. I archive all my Newsies stuff that fits within in the guidelines at The Refuge, and try (and usually fail) to remember to post anything long enough to merit it at FanFiction.net. If you keep an eye on the updates for this site, which cover the subsites, and the writing journal, you shouldn’t miss anything. And we all know what a tragedy that would be. Decent artwork goes here and to Lovestruck; junky stuff goes on _ticketyboo. Graphics (icons, mood themes, banners, etc.) go on my icon journal, nerd_herd_icons.
Nowhere. Everywhere. I’ve never taken a creative writing course in my life, but I’ve been making up stories in my head basically since birth and scribbling them down since the second grade. I read, and I wrote, and I continue to read and write, and that’s pretty much it. Which brings me to the next question…
Read. Write. Everyone says it, but that’s because it’s true. You wouldn’t know how to sing if you’d never heard a song in your life; you won’t be able to write unless you read voraciously. And write. I’ve never been one for journal-keeping (aside from my LiveJournal, which is mainly an excuse for me to talk about comic books), but the Harriet the Spy approach may work for you. Experiment with medium. You may be no great shakes at prose, but the greatest poet since Homer; you may stink at poetry but find that you were born to write for the stage or screen. Just play. Also, know the technical side of things. It doesn’t matter how much of a visionary you are if you don’t have a clear enough grasp of grammar to put your ideas across. And for all you e. e. cummingses and James Joyces out there, remember that even the most daring, experimental writers knew the rules before they broke them. If you’re unclear on, say, for example, the difference between “your” and “you’re,” I highly recommend Queenitsy’s Fanfic 101, a guide to the basics from one of the most amazing writers I know. It’s written with the Newsies fandom in mind, but the rules of punctuation are applicable to any fandom. If you’re really serious about this, I suggest picking up a copy of the MLA Handbook for the really nitpicky stuff, and Stephen King’s On Writing, which is not only a fascinating collection of autobiographical anecdotes, but an accessible and informative guide to both writing and the writing market from possibly the most successful writer of our times.
Um…probably not. I won’t prohibit you from asking, but between school, work, my own writing, and beta-ing for very close friends, I don’t really have the time—which is unfortunate, because I’m an English major geek and kind of love beta-ing. However, I’ll probably have time to read your story and give you a few words of advice (although I sadly can’t make any promises); remember, however, that brevity is the soul of wit, and it’s much more likely that I’ll be able to read and review your 500 word ficlet than your 500 page magnum opus.
Who are your favorite writers/What are your favorite books? Oh, man. Um. Everything by Dave Barry is invariably brilliant, fiction or non. I’ve adored Tamora Pierce, particularly her Song of the Lioness Quartet, since I was ten, and C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia since I was seven (and, more recently, his ‘Til We Have Faces). I also love the Sherlock Holmes canon by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, J.M. Barie’s Peter Pan, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the tragically underappreciated School Daze series by Jerry Spinelli; P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare, Homer, Lewis Carroll, Francis Hodgeson Burnett, Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Anderson, Kevin Smith, Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Gail Simone, Mark Waid, Garth Nix; The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Princess Bride, To Be a Unicorn, Bridge to Terebithia, His Dark Materials; and many, many more. Whew!
That didn’t have anything whatsoever to do with writing, did it? Quiet, you.
Are you ever going to finish your Hey Arnold! stuff? Dear God, I’d like to. Unfortunately, I’ve been wrestling writer’s block in that fandom with years, and recently I discovered that the folder containing absolutely everything I’ve ever done or planned to do Hey Arnold-wise has disappeared. I plan to continue looking, but the honest to God truth is, other than what I’m doing for 30 Kisses, it’s probably not going to happen for a while. Sorry.
Are you going to write a sequel to X, or another chapter for Y? There are a few things on my sites that are WIPs. I’ve never been satisfied with the final chapter of “Crazy For You”; aside from just generally poor writing, I had a lot of unhappy readers who complained that it was too ambiguous, which I thought was ludicrous…until I reread it quite a few months later and saw that they were absolutely right, and good Lord was I mean when I posted that. I’ve been trying, off and on, to find a better way to capture the mood I want essentially since the damn thing was written; hopefully it’ll come to me soon. “Outrun the Sunset,” since it was written for a ficathon with a deadline, was a rush job that filled me with hatred from start to finish; I had ideas I wanted to explore, and I feel that I failed in the execution and that they deserve to be expressed properly. Once I can get enough time between me and it to look at it without the seething hatred, I’ll certainly expand upon it. As far as sequels, prequels, and ficlets in the universe of other stories go…don’t expect them. I may say as I’m working on something or when I post it that there will be more in that world; I believe I mentioned a prequel in passing when I posted “No Smoking” and popular demand led me to actually write it. I also came up with the idea of “Missing Pieces” being the first part of a trilogy while writing the last few chapters. However, it doesn’t happen often, and considering that the prequel to “No Smoking,” “Proceed With Caution,” was like pulling teeth to write, and “The Queen’s Treasure,” the sequel to “Missing Pieces,” has been stalled for, what, years? I doubt I’ll be writing many more. This means no sequel or additional chapter to “Changes” or “Crazy For You,” the ones I get asked about the most. Sorry. (Not really. I’m mean like that.)
Since the MPAA went insane and started cracking down on people for using their G to NC-17 system, I’ve decided to come up with my own ratings system, based on…well, the clamoring voices in my head, really. I realize that the MPAA probably aren’t going to find this dinky little slice of intarweb pie, but this is more fun anyway. D - Decaf. Suitable for all audiences. H - Half-caf. May contain minor action violence or mildly naughty language; some discretion advised. Suggested for ages 9 and up. C - Coffee. May contain naughty language, mild violence, or suggestive adult themes. Suggested for ages 13 and up. L - Latte. Contains sexual situations, coarse language, and/or violence. Suggested for ages 16 and up. (I know lattes aren’t really any stronger than coffee, but…you come up with something with a better scale of coffee-based drinks, none of which start with the same letter, and I’ll gladly adopt it.) E - Espresso. Contains explicit sex, extreme violence, and/or language that would make a sailor blush. For adults only. (And yes, I did spell that right – there is no “x” in espresso. Little tip for cocktail parties and the like.)
…Coffee? I like coffee.
Well…I didn’t, really. I’ve taken an art class here and there, notably one at the Met when I was a kid which was a bucket of cool, and one amazing, soul-crushing one in college, but I’ve never made a serious study of it and I’ve never really had the resources for a good fine arts education (stupid public schools). To be honest I don’t consider myself to be any great shakes as an artist, but I can generally approximate what’s in my head and I enjoy it, so the drawing happens. Actually it’s more a result of my twitchy hands and need to be doing something in class and while watching TV and such. Anyway, like writing, the key to drawing is to just do it, constantly. There are more refined techniques for ways of looking at things to see the shapes and lines and whatnot, and there are of course the standard rules governing the placement of features on a face and the proportions of the body and the way light falls on a sphere and so forth, but really the only thing you can do to become a better artist is draw. A lot. I can assure you I’d be a much better artist if I had the patience to do more of it, but…I don’t. Because I’m five.
I like how you pretended I’m a real artist with that question there. That was nice of you. ;) Erm. Generally I use a Five Star notebook and a ballpoint pen, but outside of class I do most of my “serious” art by sketching in a Strathmore drawing pad with a Colerase pencil, inking it with Staedtler pens, then photocopying the original onto plain old printer paper and coloring it with Prismacolor markers (and, because I am poor and cannot afford to have more than a dozen lovely lovely Prismacolors, I supplement them with my craptastic Pentels). I have a soft spot in my heart for watercolors, but it’s such a production that I rarely use them. Although I do want to try coffee as an inkwash…
How do you do all those icons/graphics/whatnot? Ah, the power of obsession. Um...I don't know? I use Paint Shop Pro 7.0 and Animation Shop 3.0 (I think) and...well, I read a lot of tutorials when I got started, and I experiment a lot, and, uh, yeah. Massive amounts of icons result.
Can I archive your writing/art/graphics/anything you've ever done at my website? ASK. Seriously. I will probably say yes as far as writing goes; we'll talk about the rest. But if I find out you've got it up without permission I'll get grumpy and rescind approval just on principal. I'm mean like that.
Can I hotlink images off your website? Okay, I don't think anyone would actually ask me this, but...no. Absolutely not. Do not do it.
Are you really as mean as this FAQ makes you out to be? Yes. Fear my tiny freckled wrath!
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