# Well, hi there!



## Jedi Knight Muse (Mar 25, 2017)

Hiya! My name is Ally (or you can call me Muse if you want - either one works). I'm thirty-one years old and have been writing stories since I was probably in third grade (that's a rough guesstimate, anyway). I started out writing...what was essentially fan fiction BEFORE it was fan fiction, and then when I was a sophomore in high school I wrote a story based on a one-on-one IM role play I was doing with a friend. From then on, I started writing fantasy stories. 

Sadly, I've never really finished a story/novel (at least, not one that I would count), but I'm working on fixing that. My current project is a barely written fantasy novel about two mages who are best friends. Arris is accused of murdering a councilman from a neighboring kingdom and Merek, his fellow mage and best friend, decides it's a good idea to break Arris out of prison and send him into hiding across the sea while Merek tries to find evidence to prove Arris' innocence. There's other stuff that happens, and I still have a lot of world building left to do, but I'm really enjoying these characters. I've never written a story with two male main characters as the point of view characters before, so it's interesting to challenge myself in that way. 

Besides writing, I also love graphic design and photography. This past December, I finished my associates degree in graphic design, so now I'm looking to find a job doing graphic/web design and/or photography. I love taking pictures of animals and kids. 

In case it wasn't obvious, I'm a big Star Wars fan (original trilogy+Revenge of the Sith+the new trilogy+Rogue One), but I also love the shows Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Supernatural (though I'm not as big into Supernatural as I used to be), as well as various Disney movies. I love The Princess Bride, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story, Ladyhawke, Willow...basically a bunch of fantasy movies. 

Um...what else? I currently run a forum for fantasy writers called Worldsmyths. It's been open for almost a year and it's on the smaller side but we have a lot of fun with discussions and writing challenges and such.

I think that's it! Hi!


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## Harper J. Cole (Mar 25, 2017)

Hi there, *Muse*!

I've a liking for sci-fi and fantasy myself, and enjoy many of the shows and films on your list. Hard to believe that BtVS is 20 years old already, isn't it?

It's good that you're enjoying your current project. Everything we write is part of the ongoing process of growing as an author and mastering the craft. We have an SF&F sub-forum here, so I'll hope to see some of your work in there.

Any questions about the forum, let me or another staff member know.

*HC*


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## aj47 (Mar 25, 2017)

Welcome to our community.  Fan fiction has been around longer than your purported age...it had another name and was even less respected.

As for finishing... I believe that you are never finished, you simply quit making changes. Computer programs​ are the same way.


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## Jedi Knight Muse (Mar 25, 2017)

HarperCole said:


> Hi there, *Muse*!
> 
> I've a liking for sci-fi and fantasy myself, and enjoy many of the shows  and films on your list. Hard to believe that BtVS is 20 years old  already, isn't it?
> 
> ...



Haha, seriously. I remember watching it when I THINK it was first on the air, but that was back in the days of dial up Internet/one phone line, and I only had one hour to be online each night before I had to go to bed. I had to choose between being online and watching TV, and I chose to be online. But I DID finally finish all seven seasons last year and oooh my goodness. I really wish I had watched it more when I was growing up, because I missed out on a lot when it first aired. There were episodes I saw here and there as repeats but I had no idea what was really going on. I'm bummed because they're taking all of the seasons of Angel off of Netflix starting on April 1st, but they have it on On Demand for free so at least I'll be able to watch it on that.

I'm not sure if I'll post anything of my writing here or not. There's (almost) nothing that I have written at the moment that I want _real _critiques on. I'm no where near being able to get anything from my main project critiqued (I have, like, 5,000 words written -___- Despite the fact that I started writing it last summer, but I also had school get in the way of me REALLY being able to write). I have things that I've written as challenge entries for Worldsmyths involving the two main characters of my main project, but they're not really anything I'm looking to have critiqued, either, because I mainly only wrote them as challenge entries. The last one I wrote, I ended up winning, but I posted it on another forum for fantasy writers and I was basically told that the first six paragraphs didn't make at least one person want to keep reading, and another person told me that they would cut everything up until the last scene and then go from there and I'm like -___-. It definitely hurt my ego a bit because I really liked what I had written, but not enough to not keep writing or anything drastic like that. I think I also am just not very used to writing short stories (the limit for the writing challenges is 5,000 words) and trying to actually write a story from start to finish in such a short amount of words. 

And again, I'm not really looking for actual critiques on that because it was just a challenge entry, and I mainly wrote it as a character background exploration thing. 

I will definitely let you know if I have any questions!


astroannie said:


> Welcome to our community.  Fan fiction  has been around longer than your purported age...it had another name  and was even less respected.
> 
> As for finishing... I believe that you are never finished, you simply  quit making changes. Computer programs​ are the same way.



Thank you.  

Haha, that's true, regarding the fan fiction thing. I would say that I PROBABLY didn't know it as the term "fan fiction" until I was in...maybe middle school, so that would have been the late 90's. 

Also true about finishing. I'm really bad about focusing on one story. Usually I end up getting frustrated and give up or I come up with another idea and decide to work on that instead. Knock on wood, that hasn't happened with this project. I'd really love it if I could actually get it written from start to finish.


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## Aquamarinesteph (Mar 26, 2017)

Hello, Ally Muse.  I am new here, too.

I used to write fan fiction AGES ago when I don't think it was called that.  They were just stories based on TV shows I liked.  I've done some since then, but it's a more widely accepted practice now.  And let's face it, fanfic is a great way to practice writing and hone your skills.

PS - I love Supernatural, too, although, I haven't seen all of the seasons yet.


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## Jedi Knight Muse (Mar 26, 2017)

Aquamarinesteph said:


> Hello, Ally Muse.  I am new here, too.
> 
> I used to write fan fiction AGES ago when I don't think it was called  that.  They were just stories based on TV shows I liked.  I've done some  since then, but it's a more widely accepted practice now.  And let's  face it, fanfic is a great way to practice writing and hone your skills.
> 
> PS - I love Supernatural, too, although, I haven't seen all of the seasons yet.



Hiya!

Yeah, definitely. My early, early stories were really scripts (but also stories), and I did a lot of crossover fan fiction...I remember I had stories where I used different elements from different movies/TV shows I'd seen- _Wizard of Oz, The Swan Princess, Quest for Camelot, Star Wars (_Star Wars was, like, the big one that I ALWAYS used, but with original characters, and then I'd combine it with one of the other movies or TV shows), _Hocus Pocus. _My first character that I wrote all of those stories about was basically a character from the movie _Hocus Pocus _(the little girl, Dani), and I took her and stuck her into the Star Wars universe..I say this every time I give this explanation, but this was long before the prequels were even a possibility (since the first one didn't come out until 99, and I would have been writing these stories probably starting in 1993 or 1995). I gave Anakin Skywalker a twin brother and I made Dani the brother's daughter, which made her Luke and Leia's cousin. I made her a Jedi princess, too. She...was a massive Mary Sue. Even when I got older and started getting better at writing, I was still writing her and she was still a Mary Sue, but I had fun writing her. I used her as my first role playing character, too.

I sadly don't have access to pretty much any of the stories/scripts I wrote any more. They were on our old family computers, and they eventually stopped working (actually, the older of the two computers worked better than the younger of the two the last time I tried to use them and look at the stories I had on them) so they had to be brought to the dump. Definitely sad, 'cause these were the computers with floppy discs, so basically I had no way to print them out or anything. I would have had to try and transcribe them onto my laptop, which would have taken FOREVER because I wouldn't have been able to deal with NOT typing out the horrible spelling and horrible plots and such. And actually, I can't even remember if I had a laptop at the point before they were brought to the dump, but I think I did.

I had this computer program called Storybook Weaver Deluxe on the second of those computers. It only allowed up to 100 pages per file, but I wrote one giant, repetitive, probably super embarrassing story about Dani in it. It was 400 pages long. That's the longest thing I've been able to write to this day. -_- 

Ah, you've got some catching up to do. XD What season are you on? I've seen all of the seasons. I also got to meet Jared Padalecki, back in 2011. It was the one and only time they did a Supernatural convention close to me (in Boston - I'm in Connecticut), and it was considerably cheaper than it is now. Now it costs an arm and a leg to get into the conventions and get any photo ops/autographs (and that's not even including the cost of gas or hotel and food). The only two near me now are New Jersey and Washington D.C. but they always sell out so fast. I'm not sure if I'll ever get to another one, which sucks because I'd really love to meet Jensen Ackles. -_-


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## Aquamarinesteph (Mar 26, 2017)

I've watched Supernatural all the way through season 8.  I was binge watching last year, but that's as far as I made it.  I think I'll have to go back and rewatch it again to properly catch up on the later seasons.

The conventions are super expensive.  But how cool that you were able to meet one of the show's stars!


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## bdcharles (Mar 26, 2017)

Hey dude! Good to see you here 

On the subject of Disney movies, dunno if it's your sort of thing but I saw Beauty and the Beast tonight and was utterly blown away. Big Broadway numbers, spinning plates&camp teapots, fantastic beasts and ruined castles. Seriously - what's not to like?


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## Jedi Knight Muse (Mar 27, 2017)

Aquamarinesteph said:


> I've watched Supernatural all the way  through season 8.  I was binge watching last year, but that's as far as I  made it.  I think I'll have to go back and rewatch it again to properly  catch up on the later seasons.
> 
> The conventions are super expensive.  But how cool that you were able to meet one of the show's stars!  :smile:



Ah, yeah, you've definitely got some catching up to do. I honestly can't remember what happened in season eight any more. It all blurs together.

It was super cool. I mean, I only got about a minute or two with him (we took the picture and then he blinked so we had to take another one- no complaints there!) but it was totally worth it.


bdcharles said:


> Hey dude! Good to see you here
> 
> On the subject of Disney movies, dunno if it's your sort of thing but I saw Beauty and the Beast tonight and was utterly blown away. Big Broadway numbers, spinning plates&camp teapots, fantastic beasts and ruined castles. Seriously - what's not to like?



Hiya!

Haha, I've already seen the new Beauty and the Beast.  I saw it last Monday. I LOVED it. I also started the discussion thread for it on Worldsmyths.  Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie and I was very, very satisfied with the new one.


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## Bard_Daniel (Mar 27, 2017)

Welcome to the party! 

Dig in!


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## Jedi Knight Muse (Mar 28, 2017)

danielstj said:


> Welcome to the party!
> 
> Dig in!



Thank you!


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## H.Brown (Mar 29, 2017)

Hello Ally,

A warm welcome to you. Did you know that Raymond E Feist's magician series was born out of him role playing with friends? I think that you are going to fit right in amoung us here, if you like photography then check out Thousand words group which is a group for the photographers among us.

Pretty much ever film and show you have mentioned I have also watched and count among my favourites (great taste) and yes I love watching start wars too.

You wip sounds interesting that I look forward to reading more of it at somepoint.

I look forward to seeing you around.


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