|
Post by mdpthatsme on Jan 10, 2011 14:51:12 GMT -5
First 12 go with the table above: 1. One word the describes me: Different 2. One of my hobbies: music/play my saxophone, Rebel 3. Favorite food: Pizza, nothing better dudes and dudettes 4. Favorite color: Neon Green 5. Favorite weather: calm/serene nights 6. Favorite drink: Welch's White Grape Juice 7. What do you do for a living: Student 8. Favorite character of your own: Young Shadow Nova Wielder 9. Currently reading: Laurell K. Hamilton's Bullet10. One of the things of love my in the world: Friendship 11. A book with great impact: Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner12. Something else: I have an eye fetish 13. What made you start writing? As a kid, from the age of seven, I always loved to create stories and conflict with my action figures. When I got older and in school we started writing projects, I jotted down some of the adventures my action figures went through. The characters built, the plot lines became stronger, and stories/manuscripts were invented. 14. Your non-sim hobbies: I'm all about the creative/artsy side of life. I play the alto saxophone and very self taught piano. My Simmie photography came from my love of photography in general. It started off just taking pictures of myself and friends then of scenery and such. I design clothes, greeting cards, cups, etc. With my writing as a push, I also draw and create comic books of my characters. I also do plan portrait/scene shots of my characters. Drawing books in total: 30. I have about 10 to 20 comic strips/graphic novels in the works. Besides the Sims as my video game hobby, I also love Final Fantasy, Crash Bandicoot, and Oblivion of the Elder Scrolls. I collect goblets, toss flags/color guard, and play volleyball and football. 15. Why did you start creating and posting sim stories? Well, to be honest I didn't know that people posted these type of stories online until I actually invested some time on Garden of Shadows instead of just downloading CC. So blame GOS. I started playing the Sims2 on the PC, I believe, in 2005. Before that I played on the PS2: Sims Bustin Out. That's where Jen the Serial Killer and Marcie Marr (AU) developed. From that to the PC I did just make regular Sim stories on Story mode in the game. I'm a storyteller, not much of a game game player. In 2009 after reading several GOS stories such as 100 Days of Sorrow and World's Apart, I decided I wanted to post some of my stories. Those who have been apart of my reader's base know that I've been through four different websites until WordPress. Those others...just didn't do it for me. The Gang was first posted in September of 2009 in Sims3 format...HAHA. 16. Do you usually create backstories for your characters? All my characters have major backstories. All. Of. Them. How many characters do I have? Major/minor? Over 1,000. Some of them are siblings so that helps. It means that some have the same kind of backstory. Then there's the others. Oye. The first character that I really started working on a major backstory for was my Triplet Clay (The Gang). He's my main character in prose form so he's important. The last character that I tweaked and expanded into a major character was Nova (The Shadow). He use to be just in the background. Now he's a front runner. 17. Can you give us any hints about what is coming up in your stories? I guess I could. The Gang is being re-worked, as you all know, so...coming up with them is being Sims2-ified. In Alternate Universe, the next chapter will start to speed up things. Serial Killer Jen's plan will start to take shape and Vaiden will have to make another rescue. 18. In your opinion, what makes a good story? What do you like to read in other people's stories? I'll give you an example, the book series I'm reading right now is the Anita Blake, Vampire Executioner series. I like these stories because 1. it's always high maintience, which means I'm never bored with them. There's always action/mystery/suspense. 2. I love the characters. My favorite, still Jean-Claude with Edward close behind him. I don't really connect with the characters. Seriously, I mostly have nothing in common with them. Mostly. 3. The story has room to grow. There's endless possibilities with the storyline. Geez, it may never end. Some part of me doesn't want it to. The other is like...this is a long freakin series! Sooo much to read. Lastly, in a story I do look for some type of supernatural/fictional-nessesss. It's my cup of tea. I write it. I read it. 19. How do you like to handle romantic relationships in your story? Do you have a general approach, or is the approach tailored to the characters? I look inside instead of outside. In other words, it's not my romantic relationship. It's the characters. I know my characters extremely well so I know how they will react in different situations and with different people. If they are meant to be truly in love or a player. Sally (The Gang) rather ignore romantic interests because she doesn't want to get hurt or feel trapped. 20. What have you written so far - and where can we find it (URL/Publication)? Alternate Universe on Thoughts of Hell, The Shadow, The Gang (TS3), and The Gang is being remastered into TS2 on Tears of Hell. If anyone wants to read some of my prose writing, I still do have some stuff on Visions of Hell. Questions?
|
|
|
Post by drew on Jan 10, 2011 20:36:58 GMT -5
I loved your mosaic, High Five for Welch's white grape juice! Can you expand on the eye fetish thing? And you say you are a student. So, you are...20 maybe? Or am I off base? I am envious you can play the alto sax and are self-taught on the piano. *sigh* You are very accomplished~ And enjoyed this insight into your process, and yourself~ Question: Do you plan to pursue writing in any way? As in, published?
|
|
|
Post by mdpthatsme on Jan 10, 2011 23:10:35 GMT -5
Thanks drew. I'm 19. I love blue eyes the most. Especially, that seduction blue. Actually, I would love to publish. It is my foremost dream.
|
|
|
Post by rad on Jan 11, 2011 13:07:25 GMT -5
Going on your skills with music, writing and costumes, I wondered if you'd ever gotten into other forms of art as well?
|
|
|
Post by mdpthatsme on Jan 11, 2011 13:32:54 GMT -5
Like dancing or painting? Nooooooo...I'm terrible at both. Ceramics as well. I'm too picky about dirt under my nails.
|
|
|
Post by rad on Jan 11, 2011 14:54:56 GMT -5
Or photography? Graphics/Digital art? Drawing? Just curious, as I would imagine you'd have a flair for a few different forms.
|
|
|
Post by mdpthatsme on Jan 11, 2011 18:40:28 GMT -5
I do some photography, photoshopping, and lots and lots of drawing with layout pencils.
|
|
pinkfiend1
Full Member
Missing everyone
Posts: 467
|
Post by pinkfiend1 on Jan 11, 2011 19:16:06 GMT -5
Interesting.
|
|
|
Post by celebkiriedhel on Jan 11, 2011 19:49:27 GMT -5
What sort of book would you like to publish? You have 3 characters that really stand out to me in their personalities and their general hunkiness Shadow Nova, Jack, and Vaidan. How did you come up with their personalities? Do they contain some parts of you? I've been in awe for sometime with your posing and set decoration skills in both TS2 and TS3. How long do you spend finding the right shot? Or does it just come naturally?
|
|
dinuriel
Full Member
Torturing characters? Me? Nooo...
Posts: 374
|
Post by dinuriel on Jan 12, 2011 14:08:35 GMT -5
I know it's not the most original question, but I'm curious: Do you write first, or take pictures first?
Hopefully I'll be able to think of a better question soon :S
|
|
|
Post by mdpthatsme on Jan 12, 2011 15:25:48 GMT -5
Kiri: Everything I write usually ends up as a series so if I'm to publish it'll be a supernatural phenomenon of fantasy books. How did you come up with their personalities? Do they contain some parts of you? I believe all my characters' personalities just evolved in the creation of them. How they look + the background I created for them = personality. However, sometimes, as with Jack, their looks are just a mirage of who they really are. Let's go in order of creation. I created Jack back when I was ten years old. He's my perfect guy...though I've added some strangeness to him since then. In personality spectrum, he's the sweet/compassionate/standing-for-something one. He got the standing-for-something from me. Usually when there's this perfect, totally gorgeous guy in a story he ends up being the full-of-himself/arrogant/big shot, but I decided waaay back then that just wasn't Jack. Vaiden was a character I created for non-seriousness back when I first played the Sims on the PC. I posted a little more background on where he and Tatiana came from on this thread over on Thoughts of Hell. Of course he's evolved since then. Vaiden's a little mixture of a lot of personalities. He's sometimes arrogant, Mr. tough guy, Mr. I don't care, but then there's a soft gooey interior. I knew he was going to be an assassin this time around in the Sims when I was reconstructing him in CAS. He had that look of him. Vaiden's pickiness about his stuff came from me. I don't like people moving or touching my things. Nova was my last character that I sent back to the drawing board. He actually was originally created back when Jack was, but I never spent much time in developing his character so he just kinda sat there in the dark awaiting his turn to be polished. That was until a few years ago. His looks and such are about the same, but I worked a little more on the personalities to go with the looks. Nova is Mr. I'm-full-of-myself. He's a big time flirt. However, I always go more in-depth with character personalities than just that. Nova became over-emotional and neurotic with his power of being able to feel everyone's emotions, and as a Shadow Being, the power really is multiplied. So sometimes, Nova's moods are created by whatever emotion is the strongest in the area so it can change the structure of his personality at any given time. He can be sweet and innocent or psycho killer the next. He's quite unpredictable to be around. He also has quite an ego for his father being the universe's most powerful sorcerer and being trained by him and all. Nova is quite powerful all by himself as well. How long do you spend finding the right shot? Or does it just come naturally? It matters if I know what I want from the scene. If I didn't write it down first then I'll spend a lot time taking pictures from many different angles. Usually when I write scenes down I know exactly which angle goes with what paragraph and such. In a few sit downs or photo-shoots I have taken up to 200 pictures for one scene. It's basically pausing then taking every possible angle of the scene then changing poses/facial expressions/etc. pause and take shots from every angle again. Right now with The Gang I'm remastering pictures from TS3 to TS2 so I try to look at the pictures already up there and match them up in the Sims2. So far everything's all right. I did however do a few chapters by memory so not everything matches up completely. dinuriel: The Shadow and The Gang I always wrote first, mostly because they are in TS3 and I wanted to write the action and then see if I could match it in the game. Alternate Universe...usually the pictures are taken first. There are a few chapters that I wrote out long hand then mapped out in the game.
|
|
|
Post by heredoncove on Jan 12, 2011 21:48:29 GMT -5
These are so fun. I love reading them.
|
|
|
Post by laura on Jan 13, 2011 12:51:40 GMT -5
I love that you play saxophone! What a surprising and fun detail! I enjoyed reading about your thoughts on character backgrounds and histories. Ha, and I totally relate to the 200 pictures thing, lol! Hey, you never know what you might need, huh? Great interview!
|
|
|
Post by mdpthatsme on Jan 13, 2011 14:07:54 GMT -5
Well, yeah. Got to make sure I have all the right shots from the right angles. I've played the saxophone, going on 10 years now. It's a wonderful instrument.
|
|
|
Post by muzegoddess on Feb 11, 2011 11:26:51 GMT -5
Very interesting interview. I just took a look at your character profiles and I like the depth to which you create your characters and you certainly seem to have a lot of them. Very intruiged and hope to be able to catch up on your story soon.
|
|