How does Christmas inspire your writing? Does all the magic and glittering and sparkling send your mind off to magical places like the North Pole or Narnia? Or do you turn into an absolute Scrooge and all your writing turns cynical and dark, reflecting on how the world is like the dirty, crushed snow in the street gutter?

Most likely all the holidays do to your writing is taking up time and distract you from it.  With family members coming in, finals just wrapping up, last minute shopping, turkeys you have to remember to get out the oven and everything else going on it may feel like there’s not extra time to even sit down much less write.

I encourage all of you to find time to write though. Sit down and just write something. I find it’s a wonderful tool for stress relief. Of course I’ve always used writing as a procrastination tool so I may not be the best person to listen to. I’m right about this however. Don’t forget to write even with all the craziness going on. 

Bonus homework: Write a holiday story. Just like I talked about in the beginning, write something magical, a recapturing of your childhood or maybe something cynical reflecting the stress that suddenly appears as an adult around holidays. Or do something in between. Whatever you’re inspired to do. The important thing is just write it. 

Sometimes you need a break

What I am writing on tonight is also what I am going through. First off: apologies. I’ve been under a lot of stress and illness lately and haven’t had time to dedicate to my weekly postings.

That said, it made me think about my topic. I haven’t been writing much for myself this semester. I’ve had too much on my plate. But now, finals ending, I find myself flooded with ideas I can barely wait to type out.

People who hand out advice like Tootsie-Rolls will tell you to always write. And you should, as you should practice an instrument or your painting skills. But any artist knows sometimes you need a break from the big stuff. I pushed all of my major stories aside and instead would jot down snippets when I needed to write. Because forcing myself, stressed, anxious and unwilling, was only going to harm my stories and make them convoluted. A frustrated artist always makes frustrated art.

So chill. Step back from what you’re laboring over for a while. When you come back, it’ll still be there. And better for the break.

Sometimes you need a break

What I am writing on tonight is also what I am going through. First off: apologies. I’ve been under a lot of stress and illness lately and haven’t had time to dedicate to my weekly postings.

That said, it made me think about my topic. I haven’t been writing much for myself this semester. I’ve had too much on my plate. But now, finals ending, I find myself flooded with ideas I can barely wait to type out.

People who hand out advice like Tootsie-Rolls will tell you to always write. And you should, as you should practice an instrument or your painting skills. But any artist knows sometimes you need a break from the big stuff. I pushed all of my major stories aside and instead would jot down snippets when I needed to write. Because forcing myself, stressed, anxious and unwilling, was only going to harm my stories and make them convoluted. A frustrated artist always makes frustrated art.

So chill. Step back from what you’re laboring over for a while. When you come back, it’ll still be there. And better for the break.

Writing Advice - Experiment

Experimenting is an important part of growing as a writer. And it’s fun. Not everything you write while experimenting is going to be brilliant but sometimes it’s interesting to break out of your usual zone and try something new.

What I try to do every so often is find an idea or style that I want to try and just work with that. For example I once wanted to try writing one of those stories where every description and metaphor was part of a longer theme of imagery. One example that comes to mind is in Eliot’s The Wasteland, one of the sections of the poem is about an afternoon hook up and all of the adjectives, while fitting the setting, also have sultry or sexual implications as well. Since I had been watching abundant amounts of Doctor Who at the time I decided to go with space imagery. I wrote a brief sketch about a boy and a girl hanging out in a park at midnight. I tried to make all the images I used sound celestial and extraterrestrial. Using words like dusty red, to invoke images of Mars, or describing green eyes as tractor beams. It wasn’t my usual style but that was the point. I was trying to break out a bit.

This past week I decided that I had been too busy writing stale, homework papers and doing boring editing, I wanted to write something new. I tried a new experiment because that released me from the pressure of creating something phenomenal, or even usable, and allowed me to just have fun with it. What I tried to do was write a completely generic story. I only used personal pronouns, none of them with gender connotations and avoided all gender stereotypes or identifiers as best I could. No skirts, heels or ties, long hair or short. I tried to create to protagonists who could be anyone. It was an exercise in realizing how much gender comes into play when choosing adjectives or personality traits. 

Experimenting, writing something for the style rather than the story, probably isn’t the best thing to make a habit of. The story is important of course but sometimes it’s a good idea to practice just your style as well.

I can't stand horror movies. I think they're silly and rely too much on creepy visuals. However I've always loved a good horror story.

I distinctly remember reading Poe's The Black Cat and being terrified. It was during the day, it was still light but there was no one else in my house and I was so scared.

Written horror stories leave much more room for imagination which will almost always be more terrifying than what Hollywood is capable of.

So this Halloween, pick up a good scary book. I'm going to be rereading Ray Bradbury'sSomething Wicked This Way Comes which I do every year.

I have a problem with characters. Or rather I’m simply picky about them. I’ve written about token characters on here before. I’ve always been drawn to character driven stories more so than to other stories. 

We live in a society that revers individualism and unique personalities, at least in fictional characters. You can see this attempts in many movies and televisions shows now. I believe it started with the indie films which developed the conventional “indie girl.” There was Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a woman full of quirks. She was a great character but she wasn’t the exception. The new television show The New Girl also has an abnormally quirky female lead. Numerous other currently popular shows have this same thing, shows like Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock and Community thrive on extreme versions of stereotypes. Some of these shows realize they’re doing it and create a sort of parody of themselves in the acknowledgement but others try to still be taken seriously as a show, pretending the universe they exist in is completely normal. Often the leads are exaggeratedly quirky while the minor characters are normal. 

I have a hard time with characters like these because it ruins the verisimilitude of the story for me. I sit there during the whole show thinking that no one could be like this and still functional and I can’t get into the show. Fortunately this is a lot less common in literature. Television shows and movies are stories too though and they deal with characters. They should be dealt with properly instead of taking the easy way out when writing them.

Today all of my school work has risen over me like a great tidal wave of assignments. Feminist theory, language in Shakespeare, describing fictional interactions with people.

Today I am wondering how important it is to take time out for yourself. I wrote a sarcastic note on tumblr recently about aspiring students who think that their English major is going to make them into a writer. I can tell you from experience, my English major has done little to foster that.

I am a writer though, because at some point I took up the backside of my math notes and began a story. And I fell in love with it. And I could not stop. Soon I wrote on the back of all of my notes, and on envelopes, napkins, scraps.

It is important, of course, to hone your skills to the best they can possibly be. I just worked with a mentor long before I set foot in college. So, I blame little of my development on my schooling. As I am swamped with assignments, lack of sleep, caffeine withdrawals, and all of the irrationality that comes from being a college student (though luckily I don’t live in the dorms, so I still have some solace) I realize that I have not written, let alone read, anything for myself in almost two months.

I begin to feel cracks in my mental state, in my whole perception of my self. And this is why I think you are not a writer unless you truly think you are one, classes notwithstanding. I do not feel human when I am not writing on my own, for no purpose than my own pleasure.

Write on, Octopi. Hopefully I’ll make it through this semester alive!

An Objection to NaNoWriMo

I'm sure a lot of young and aspiring writers are interested in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) which is coming up next month. I personally have never done it.

I admire the thought behind it and certainly wish to encourage those of you who are participating. Good luck to all of you, including my co-writer, Natalie, who wrote on her experiences on it just this Friday.

But, I will not be joining you.

I think the discipline of writing every day is important for every single aspiring writer. I do not think that it makes you a good writer, however. Too often those participating in NaNoWriMo brag about how much they have written as if they deserve an award. I'll be honest, I've never read anyone's work from it that I would say was particularly good. That is completely okay. The important thing to keep in mind is that this is an exercise in discipline and that only. I want to remind you all though, that participating and meeting your goals in NaNoWriMo does not make you good. It simply makes you disciplined.

Over the summer, I forced myself to write every night until I completed a novella I was working on. I had a direction and aim, and with only the smallest goal- to write every night until it was done- I accomplished something I am extremely proud of. Originally, I had no intention to write a novella, I was amazed when I realized what I had conceived as a short story had grown so large. Most importantly, it took me deep into the lives and emotions of my characters, more than I ever had when I was planning. 80 pages is nothing compared to the length of some of the things you all will write during NaNoWriMo.

But, I have written longer stories of which I am less proud. I never strove to write a long story in my life. I strove to write a good one.

As you sharpen your pencils for November, please remember that quantity in writing (or any other artistic format) does not mean quality. I wish you all the best in this exercise!

Is anyone doing National Novel Writing Month this year? If you are planning on doing it I would suggest starting this month. Starting right now, today, this minute even. Yes, it doesn’t start till November but the biggest thing NaNoWriMo ever taught me was the importance of preparation. And that took me three years to learn. 

I did NaNoWriMo two years where my plan was just run in and see what happened. Surely despite the fact that I was fighting to churn out 16,667 words a day, not to mention academic responsibilities, I would be able to hash out a full plot at the same time. As you may have guessed this was not the case at all. 

So last year I decided to approach it differently. Admittedly I had also come up with a plot that was going to require a bit of research and I knew I wasn’t going to have time to do that. So I hunted down various resources and writing tools. I tried a few organizing programs for notes and plots and characters. I even printed out one of those outlines where you plot out what happens not only through the whole book but even chapter by chapter. Let me say right now, I didn’t follow that outline perfectly but it was there and that made all the difference.

What I learned last year, when on November 30th, a whole day early, I crawled, panting and wheezing over the 50,000 words marker, was that knowing where you going is half the work to getting there. This doesn’t only apply to NaNoWriMo though, it’s for any writing project. So I highly encourage you to know your plot, plan ahead, plan ahead in detail, before you start writing. Nothing is written in stone, you can still change things if you see the need for it but it will be a huge help in finishing a novel.

As I am swamped with school work this will be a brief post. But I wanted to take a moment to just appreciate writers. I saw Drive this week and I was blown away by how well the story was told. There wasn’t much dialogue, many words, rather it relied on showing things through camera shots and used settings and soundtrack to set the mood. When it ended I sat there for a few minutes processing it. I rarely have that reaction to movie.

I often react like that to the end of a book however. A story that is told with nothing but words, no visual or mood setting music to accompany it can move me in a way high cost movies with hundreds if not thousands of people working on it rarely manages to do. 

So this is a writer appreciation post. You are all brilliant. You create worlds and characters out of nothing but words and that is really rather magical.

Getting Criticism

Accept criticism. Seek it out, in fact. I have, over the years, formed trusting relationships with several high school teachers, and now, college professors. I debate whether or not to confess to them that I write (as if I were suddenly ashamed of the thing I am proudest of). When I do, they always seem interested, and I always present them with some of my work. I do this expecting and hoping for criticism. And I receive it. Whereas my friends and readers of my work online may have nothing but praise for a piece, someone with a critical eye can look at it unbiased and tell me exactly what needs improvement. Sometimes it is more than I noticed. Sometimes I hang my head in shame, realizing that a work I thought fantastic was simplistic and childish. Often I learn that my work could become even more fantastic through changes.
It’s not easy to open yourself up to criticism. Many people avoid it. There are some artists out there who, upon receiving honest opinions claim “artistic license” and shut themselves off to all helpful advice.
The first mark of becoming a great artist is admitting and acknowledging that you are not one. If you want to be an artist, it is absolutely necessary to learn to not only respond well, but to desire earnest critiques of your work. If everyone praises you, and you are not truly deserving of that praise, you will inevitably have a rude awakening.
If you do seek out advice, criticism, and earnest commentary, you will find yourself all the better for it

Writing Advice - Using the Internet as a Mentor

I remember when I was a teenager, just starting to write seriously, and I would watch all these shows about young writers who would, by incredible strokes of good fortune, find mentors and with the mentors help they came into their own and grew up to be great writers. The one that most profoundly affected me was Finding Forestor with Sean Connery. I swear I watched that movie at least once a month for years. And I was so jealous of the kid in the movie, all I wanted was an old writer with strange habits to decide I was brilliant and teach me to write. 

Now years later, I’m still wishing for this to happen, though to a significantly lesser degree. Because I discovered the internet. The internet has lovely writing communities and is a wonderful resource for all writers. There are numerous sites and I won’t bother listing all the ones I can think of because each is tailored to different things and you would have to choose on your own which is best for you. I started with an account on Deviantart and stuck with it for years though it took an exceptionally long time to reach large number of followers. It’s not about the number though, it’s about the quality. I have over a hundred followers on that site but only a handful that give consistent and well thought out critique as well as support. I still remember fangirling a little bit when a writer who I had been following for years found me when I switched to a new account. I guess when I added her to my new watchers list she checked out my gallery. The fact that she decided to follow me as well at the point felt like a great testimony to my growth as a writer. And after that she continued to consistently have lovely things to say about my writing and gave good advice on the pieces.

Which leads me to another important thing. If you have a physical mentor he/she can get up in your face, possibly rant and fuss till you listen to what they have to say. Online people usually leave one comment and let it be. If you ignore their advice or get upset with them or overly defensive about something they voiced an opinion on odds are they won’t bother to critique you again. They may not even keep reading your work. So remember to be nice to your readers, particularly the ones who leave feedback. 

Very importantly, remember you are not the only writer on the internet. Don’t forget to seek out other writers and interact with them and their writing as well. It’s only polite to give back to a community, especially if they’re helping you at as well. 

The benefits of using the internet as a mentor is that you get not one person’s perspective but many. It takes patience and perseverance but it’s well worth it in the end.

Genre Limitless

The soundest advice I can ever give an artist is don’t limit yourself. When you limit yourself, your art also becomes limited. If you feel that you can only write science fiction or only paint unicorns, then by all means don’t stop writing science fiction and painting unicorns, but never limit yourself by thinking that you cannot also write great realism or paint landscapes. It is true, everyone has a niche or a particular talent, but shoehorning oneself is no way to be an artist. Too few artists, seem to realize that art is, after all, about expanding, not folding in on oneself.
Take, for example, a writer like Edgar Allan Poe. He is now mostly famous for Gothic horror tales and dark poetry, which he did extremely well. But just because he did that one thing well did not mean he limited himself to that. Poe wrote everything. He wrote romantic ballads, he wrote biting criticism, he wrote science fiction, he wrote hilarious parody. Poe did not pen a single horror story and then think, “This is the only thing I am good at, I will end it here.” Arguably, it is because of his work and study of other genres that his horror is so very good. He understood what went into writing and what went into horror in particular that made it work because he could compare them to other genres. And Poe certainly was not the only one. Many filmmakers who have a particular style, say, J.J. Abrams or Tim Burton, will surprise their audience by their work in a completely different film that seems completely out of line with their style. Art, as I said, is an exploration outwards. The world is vast and complex, and so should your art be.

Success

One of my favorite books growing up was called Taxi Cat and Huey. It is a magical story of friendship and talking animals and a cat who sincerely believes he is a ninja. It was a fun tale to cut my reading teeth on. The reason it stands out so strongly is because it was the first book I read where I really remember picturing the characters and setting distinctly in my head. It was the first of many, and one of the first books I ever really loved and replayed in my mind. Taxi Cat and Huey has been out of print for decades. It was out of print when I discovered and was enchanted by it.
When I turned 13, my brother got me a book entitled Tales From Evermore, a book that had a mere 100 copies printed. It was a breathtaking allegory featuring medieval knights and fantastic adventure, and was eventually expanded into the even more epic Knights of Evermore which had a much wider print- a few thousand copies. The books are all but unknown. And yet they carried my imagination away, and they moved me to tears through powerful allegory and tight, unobtrusive writing.
Several years later, my high school history teacher loaned me a wonderful adventure fantasy book called One for the Morning Glory. To this day, he and I are the only people I think have ever read this book, and yet I relieve key scenes from the story, adventures with a half-invisible boy and an underground battle with goblins, and the storming of a castle...

But what of these books? I constantly lament that no one has read or heard of them. I long to see them rise from obscurity, to suddenly gain the readers and the respect they deserve. Idly while reading them I would utter “it’s such a shame...”
Is it really a shame though, when a book accomplishes what it sets out to do? It tells a story, it is meant to send a message. And while these have not reached popularity or fame, they have told interesting, lasting stories, and their messages have stuck with me, at the very least. If these books were never written, that would be the shame. Because no matter how they have or have not succeeded commercially, to me they are the most successful of books.

Children's Stories and Friendly Monsters

Recently I’ve gotten my whole family into the wonderful, BBC show Doctor Who. The children who have more time than my parents have watched all the seasons on netflix already and my parents, who do the best they can, have just jumped in on season five and watched from there. Though when I say my whole family, it’s not quite my whole family. My seven year old sister hasn’t been allowed to watch it, as the monsters in the show scare her. And I make the argument that it’s a family show in England, the little children there watch it, they just hide behind the sofas when they get scared. My mum’s argument in return is I don’t live at home and she’s the one who has to stay up with Becca when she can’t sleep.

So how scary should children’s stories be? I am a firm believer in monsters and dragons and ghosts and Daleks in children’s stories. Having scary things in the stories teaches them that there are scary things in the world. Having a creature that is bad and has to be defeated by the hero teaches them that they have to be brave and if they are then they can over come the baddies that they will find in their real life. Having scary monsters teaches life lessons. Instead we have cartoons and movies and books where the dragons are two headed, singing bickering but overall friendly, the monsters are fuzzy and cuddly and power their worlds with children’s laughter. And children are too scared to watch what is considered a family show in which the good guy always wins.

I personally believe that there should be a shift back to when monsters are scary and our children learn at a young age to be heros.

What is realistic?

When I was in high school I took AP English. In one of the classes we read works like Macbeth, Wuthering Heights, Heart of Darkness. They all had very little in common, really. But our teacher insisted they were all works with literary merit. This sparked a discussion of what literary merit really meant. Why was Lord of the Flies in the canon, but not Lord of the Rings?
As a writer, I took the discussion all too personally. Not because it was directed at me, but because it made me question whether, as a person whose writing teetered on the edge of fantasy, science fiction and horror, I wrote anything worthy at all.
This question plagued me further in college, when I took a creative writing course in which we were barred from writing anything not “literary”, and therefore unable to write anything but strict realism. Even happy endings were questioned for realism.
The question shifted imperceptibly in my mind from “am I writing anything worthy?” to “am I writing realistically?” to “what is realistic anyway?” The issue for me stopped being about whether I should give up speculative fiction. For me, works with fantastic elements have been some of the most influential. Of course they touch me in a different way than a piece of realism, but that did, in no way, remove the merit. Point in case is Lord of the Rings, which moves me to tears upon every viewing, and sobs upon reading. Because of the grand scale of the events, the story swept me up more than a slice of life, two character drama. Fantasy and other speculative fiction can reveal greater truths about life for the simple fact that they are not realism, and can therefore speak more frankly than realism in many cases. In adding the element of the fantastic, these separate us from the subject matter enough that we can look at them more objectively than if they are set in our own situation where we come in with our own thoughts and prejudices.
So to those of you who thrive on writing the unreal, take heart, you are are writing something just as important, and on a deeper level, just as “realistic” as literary fiction.

The use of archetypes and symbols is one of the oldest tools used in writing. In our society today there is often a great emphasis on on overthrowing clichés in art, writing, et cetera. My question is whether or not this is a good idea. 

Archetypes are one of the easiest ways to subtly communicate something to your reader. When a character dresses in all black or the setting is dark, the reader knows, on subliminal level, that they should at least be wary the person or place. It sets your reader on edge without requiring explanation, without having to come out and say it. There are older but less apparent archetypes that are used as well. For example, one of the biggest symbols in The Great Gatsby is the green light that could be seen by Gatsby from the across the bay where Daisy’s house was. The reader knows instinctively that a green light means go. They are expecting something because of that green light. In H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine the Time Traveller lands next to a statue of a sphinx. Most readers recognize the sphinx as a creature from greek mythology that harasses travelers and often doesn’t let them pass, thus inhibiting their travel. The sphinx in The Time Machine, though an inanimate statue, also causes for the Time Traveller. This symbol was used as foreshadowing in the story.

So tell me, what do you think, is the use of archetypes a good tool for writers or, rather, an outdated one?

Be a Writer

I’ve been published a handful of times, five times in professional, critically acclaimed collections, once through self publication on the Kindle. I have submitted my work to literary magazines and journals and amassed a tidy pile of rejection letters.
I remember, after my first publication, being told that I was now a “real writer”, and being told the same after I took on the task of self publication, and again by my creative writing professor after I received my first rejection.
All in good fun, but I’ve felt like a real writer all along. When I was ten years old, I got an idea in my head for a movie that simply would not leave me alone. I finally realized that no one would make said film because it was an idea unique to me. It was my story. Soon I began obsessing over the characters and their relationships to one another, and whenever I found myself struggling (I moved cross country twice following year, leaving behind my childhood home and friends), I would return to the world of that story. I had written a novella when I was 6, but never seriously considered, until this idea leapt into my brain and would not release me, that I might be a writer. Once I began penning it in notebooks and on the backs of envelopes, I found myself thinking of myself as a writer. My head would scream with images and dialogue and characters and not let up until the pen had let them out. By the time I was in middle school I found myself, more and more, seeing myself as little else. I wrote constantly, on math notes, during lunch. I could not dampen my resolve in any way, and few things could pull me away when I was writing something that excited me in some way.
These days, over a decade later, I have trained myself to write more responsibly. Sometimes the ideas in my head need tweaking, or brewing before they reach the page. Sometimes I put aside the story so it can mature, and sometimes, with little thought except a vague image, I throw myself into the words, full-force, and do not stop until it is written.
There is no sure-fire way to write, I think. I can write on a schedule, but I do my best work when I wait for true inspiration. Some people need to force themselves or they will never do it. I tend to take a more passionate approach to my writing and get it all out in one burst, but not always. This summer, for example, I forced myself to write 3-5 pages on a story every night and the end result was a murder mystery novella that went in directions I was not expecting.
But all of that is discipline. You do not become a writer when you set a schedule, nor even when you become published. All of these are good things, and writers aspire for these things so that they may share their work with the world. But becoming a writer starts with passion. I do not mean you are constantly scrawling your story on everything you get your hands on- part of any good story are the bits that slow you down and cause you to reflect, and sometimes these moments can make the writing long and laborious. But if you love your story, then it will all be worth it.
And that is the size and shape of a writer: someone who has found something in themselves they feel is so worth saying, they need to share it with the world.

I don’t always enjoy classes or homework or tests but I can tell you one thing, I love being in school. I love learning new things. I love being exposed to new ideas and new ways of thinking. One of what I consider to be my most creative- not to be confused with one of my best overall- short stories was spawned in one of my spanish classes where we were taught the literal of “putting on make up” from spanish to english was “to make yourself up.” Which isn’t terribly different from the english phrase, just words scrambled around differently but I started thinking what if someone could wake up every morning and make up exactly how they wanted to be that day.

Learning new ideas enhances creativity. Learning new ideas gets the brain running. Learning new ideas helps prevent us from developing an “inside the box” method of thinking that time, cultural influence and a lack of stimulation will foster.

I will be graduating in a year and my greatest concern is not what job will I get or if I will end up just living in a  cardboard box with no internet, though both of those are up there. It is whether or not I will maintain enough of an interest in the world around me to continue exploring and exposing myself to new ideas. 

I have begun making a point to use sites like Tumblr, TED talks, Dark Roasted Blend and the “sparks”  section of Google+ to help me find stories and articles that were new and interesting to me. I treat these feeds of information that I’ve set up for myself like a morning paper of sorts. A dose of new ideas with my morning coffee.

The Changing Frontier

The world is changing. The way people read is changing, the future of the publishing industry and other artistic markets, if you will, have all shifted dramatically just in the last few years. But is this something to be afraid of, or to embrace?
In the new artistic frontier, we are given even more opportunities. Publication is easier than ever! Even I have released a Kindle book of short stories that would simply never see the light of day otherwise.
But the new frontier also means that other mediums have arisen for real and earnest artistic expression.
When you think of video games you likely think of say, Pac-Man or Super Mario Brothers. You likely think of video games, as well, games; challenges to be completed. But just recently the court ruled that video games were a valid art form. It may be hard to tell if you are slogged down in a world of MMOs, but artistic expression has taken off in the video game world dramatically in the last few years. Last spring I played a game that shook me and caused me to question what I really regarded as art. It was a game called The Path developed by Tale of Tales, a forerunner of what is commonly called the “artgames” genre and what they prefer to think of as the “notgames” initiative. The idea is to use the video game technology to cause a real emotional and psychological experience. The Path is just that. There are no goals, no rules, no ticking clock. The game recasts “Little Red Riding Hood” with seven sisters who are given the same instructions, “Go to Grandmother’s House. Stay on the Path.” You can follow these instructions, and the game ends, calling you a failure, despite seemingly achieving your goals. If you do not follow these instructions, and you stray from the titular path, you run the risk of being lost in the woods forever, stumbling across objects that unlock different aspects of each sister’s personality. And then of course, you may run into a wolf, which will end the game as a success. There are no goals, simply exploration into the psyche of each sister as you try and understand her view of the world, what brings her to the woods, and what the wolf means to her. It is a chilling, haunting piece, and certainly, while it is a video game, not like any game I have played before. It is a thought-provoking art piece.

While they have existed since newspapers themselves began, comics have taken a great leap in the digital frontier, with Dark Horse, the largest indie publisher in existence, being a forerunner in the digital world. As any glance at the world of webcomics will show you, comics have done nothing but thrive in the new frontier. While there still exists a cultural stigma that shrugs off this artistic medium as capes and nothing but, they are missing the big picture. Since the 80s, comics have developed into a medium as profound as any. Works like Maus, a dramatic retelling of the Holocaust experience through the comic book medium, won a Pulitzer Prize for literature. And the genre has only expanded. Writers like Neil Gaiman known for his work in genre-bending literature like American Gods have contributed mightily to comic books, working with a number of titles and applying the same genre bending to this medium as he does in literature. His work with The Sandman graphic novels was heavily acclaimed, winning a number of awards, and widely considered a “masterpiece” of the new wave of comic books. And let’s not discredit capes either. Over the years, as 2008 film The Dark Knight should have been an indication, superhero stories themselves have become a valid artistic medium, as in Batman pieces such as Year One, The Long Halloween or the anthology collections, Black and White which has featured some of the most thought-provoking story telling and provocative art I have seen. Any writer in the field should be honored to work in the comic book medium, which is only soaring as the digital world levels the playing field further and makes it easier for more fresh voices to filter into the art field.

The bottom line is, the world is changing for artists and writers and the things we once considered childish can be works of exquisite beauty. Are your talents up to the task?