Starting up a fresh thread for The New Phantasmal Reading Circle. Current writers/stories in reading order: @Firande's Xaos@lone_cat's Supernatural Misadventures@lilypadmeulin's Not So Charmed@katrinasforest's The Kids of Straud MansionWe will discuss a new story each week, beginning on Mondays. This week (12/21/20), we'll be chatting about Not So Charmed.And for anyone looking over this thread who hasn't read @simscognito's amazing Friends of Foes story, you should absolutely check that out, too.Previous stories (welcome back anytime): @15aewar's Keeping Up With the Slayers@AuroraStorm's Building a Foundation

The order looks right. Thanks for remaking the circle thread, @katrinasforest Some Meli x Vin sweetness to properly open this thread up :)https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49406117166_6f0a05a5ba.jpg

Aww...love it, @NyteRose!Okay, now that I've gotten organized, let's open up the chat proper. @rainbowwithfangs, what are some questions you have for us readers this week? This is the first mermaid-based challenge I've seen, so I'm curious how the idea came about. :)

@katrinasforest @Firande @rainbowwithfangs I hope I'm not spamming the thread, but I'd like to share some writing programs/apps that I frequently use and swear by.Grammarly- Grammarly is a spell checker, grammar checker, and style checker to improve your writing. It offers both free and paid (premium) options, a phone app and plug-ins for MS Word and Google Chrome.ProWritingAid- The big gun for many writers. ProWritingAid is a grammar, spelling, and style checker, and offers a plagiarism checker and is customizable to various writing types (Creative, Business, etc.) There are free and paid (premium) options, plus extensions for Chrome, MS Word, etc. A free 14-day trial of the premium version is available.WPS Office- A full-featured, free, and easy-to-use alternative to MS Office/Word. This is my staple word processor. WPS Office offers 1gig of free Cloud storage, various templates for documents, interface skins, and both free and paid (premium) versions. The free version has minimal ads, the paid option is an ad-free experience offering more templates, interface skins, and 20gigs of Cloud storage.

Hey everyone! First of all, thank you so much for creating a new thread @katrinasforest. You're the best. <3 I totally forgot about the order too, but this sounds about right. :blush: @NyteRose Thank you for the recommendations on writing programs! I'm always looking for some new ones. I have always used OpenOffice even though I do also have Microsoft Office, but I've been wanting to use an online program so I recently tried out Google Docs but man... I write a LOT, and Google Docs is really sucky with bigger documents, since it gets so much slower so much faster. Also loving the Meli/Vin sweetness as always! <3 These two are just so great.@lone_cat Welcome! I can't wait to start your story. As for mine, it's currently already at chapter 42, so I apologize in advance for that LOL. If you want to, though, you can also just hop in at Chapter 40. I've divided this story into seasons, and Season 4 just started at Chapter 40 so if you just start there, you'd be totally OK too. There'll be some things you might not understand but it shouldn't be all too much. If you check out my Tumblr, I have some snippets of stories on there too that might help out a little bit and won't take as much reading as catching up on my blog does. @rainbowwithfangs That's so interesting as to the why's of your current story! I'm a water child too, totally grew up with it, so this story brings me an extra lot of joy. :blush: It's so cool that you're doing the legacy challenge! I would've loved to do something like that too but unfortunately for me, I always end up getting way too attached to my founders LOL. I do have somewhat of a legacy going right now, but because I alternate between aging on long and aging off and have a whole lot of immortals to boot (all of my founders/gen 1 Sims are immortal LOL), it isn't going all that fast. I always have major respect for people who can play on normal aging and still make a super cool story out of their legacy with these super fleshed out characters to boot!I just read your chapter 2 and it's looking so good! It's so nice to see Gemma interacting with all these people... she's already building quite the social circle from what I'm seeing! I do have experience with following legacy challenges and have been following my friend's, who also turned it into a story, and she's currently at generation 7 so I'm beginning to kind of notice how the whole thing is generally played out. I see you looking about for a proper suitor, there. ?So this is the first time you're doing the Legacy Challenge? Is this also your first SimLit you've written? What is your usual play style, when you're not doing this challenge? What are your goals for this generation? Or is that gonna be too spoiler-y? I'm thinking it through now and it probably is LOL, so feel free not to answer. To everyone: So I finally decided to put like, a bit of a regular schedule to my story LOL... felt like it was much-needed. You can expect a new chapter for Xaos every Sunday or Monday!

@Firande If you're looking for an online word processor you may like this one. I tried it and liked it but prefer the downloadable programs I can install on my PC. It has an offline/desktop app, and you can configure it to publish posts to WordPress.Zoho Writer

Phantasmal Reading Circle III: Newness Returns!

Anonymous
5 years ago
The order looks right. Thanks for remaking the circle thread, @katrinasforest

Some Meli x Vin sweetness to properly open this thread up :)
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49406117166_6f0a05a5ba.jpg
xmerer
5 years ago
Aww...love it, @NyteRose!

Okay, now that I've gotten organized, let's open up the chat proper. @rainbowwithfangs, what are some questions you have for us readers this week?

This is the first mermaid-based challenge I've seen, so I'm curious how the idea came about. :)
Anonymous
5 years ago
@katrinasforest @Firande @rainbowwithfangs
I hope I'm not spamming the thread, but I'd like to share some writing programs/apps that I frequently use and swear by.

Grammarly- Grammarly is a spell checker, grammar checker, and style checker to improve your writing. It offers both free and paid (premium) options, a phone app and plug-ins for MS Word and Google Chrome.

ProWritingAid- The big gun for many writers. ProWritingAid is a grammar, spelling, and style checker, and offers a plagiarism checker and is customizable to various writing types (Creative, Business, etc.) There are free and paid (premium) options, plus extensions for Chrome, MS Word, etc. A free 14-day trial of the premium version is available.

WPS Office- A full-featured, free, and easy-to-use alternative to MS Office/Word. This is my staple word processor. WPS Office offers 1gig of free Cloud storage, various templates for documents, interface skins, and both free and paid (premium) versions. The free version has minimal ads, the paid option is an ad-free experience offering more templates, interface skins, and 20gigs of Cloud storage.
Fierande
5 years ago
Hey everyone! First of all, thank you so much for creating a new thread @katrinasforest. You're the best. <3 I totally forgot about the order too, but this sounds about right. :blush:

@NyteRose Thank you for the recommendations on writing programs! I'm always looking for some new ones. I have always used OpenOffice even though I do also have Microsoft Office, but I've been wanting to use an online program so I recently tried out Google Docs but man... I write a LOT, and Google Docs is really sucky with bigger documents, since it gets so much slower so much faster.

Also loving the Meli/Vin sweetness as always! <3 These two are just so great.

@lone_cat Welcome! I can't wait to start your story. As for mine, it's currently already at chapter 42, so I apologize in advance for that LOL. If you want to, though, you can also just hop in at Chapter 40. I've divided this story into seasons, and Season 4 just started at Chapter 40 so if you just start there, you'd be totally OK too. There'll be some things you might not understand but it shouldn't be all too much. If you check out my Tumblr, I have some snippets of stories on there too that might help out a little bit and won't take as much reading as catching up on my blog does.

@rainbowwithfangs That's so interesting as to the why's of your current story! I'm a water child too, totally grew up with it, so this story brings me an extra lot of joy. :blush:
It's so cool that you're doing the legacy challenge! I would've loved to do something like that too but unfortunately for me, I always end up getting way too attached to my founders LOL. I do have somewhat of a legacy going right now, but because I alternate between aging on long and aging off and have a whole lot of immortals to boot (all of my founders/gen 1 Sims are immortal LOL), it isn't going all that fast. I always have major respect for people who can play on normal aging and still make a super cool story out of their legacy with these super fleshed out characters to boot!

I just read your chapter 2 and it's looking so good! It's so nice to see Gemma interacting with all these people... she's already building quite the social circle from what I'm seeing! I do have experience with following legacy challenges and have been following my friend's, who also turned it into a story, and she's currently at generation 7 so I'm beginning to kind of notice how the whole thing is generally played out. I see you looking about for a proper suitor, there. ?
So this is the first time you're doing the Legacy Challenge? Is this also your first SimLit you've written? What is your usual play style, when you're not doing this challenge?
What are your goals for this generation? Or is that gonna be too spoiler-y? I'm thinking it through now and it probably is LOL, so feel free not to answer.

To everyone: So I finally decided to put like, a bit of a regular schedule to my story LOL... felt like it was much-needed. You can expect a new chapter for Xaos every Sunday or Monday!
Anonymous
5 years ago
@Firande If you're looking for an online word processor you may like this one. I tried it and liked it but prefer the downloadable programs I can install on my PC. It has an offline/desktop app, and you can configure it to publish posts to WordPress.
Zoho Writer
lonecat82
5 years ago
Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. :) I’m kind of addicted to simlit, so this will be a great way to binge on some new stories!

@Firande I can't wait to read your story too! I'll try to start from the beginning, but thanks for the tip on starting on chapter 40, if I don't get caught up in time for next week.

@rainbowwithfangs I’m enjoying the story so far, it's a great start. I can’t wait to see what you have in store for Gemma. Sulani is one of my favorite worlds, it’s so beautiful and tropical, I feel like I’m on vacation every time I play it or see it used in stories.

I haven't read many legacy challenge stories, so this is a nice new look into a different type of simlit for me. I also have never played a challenge, but can see how it would be an interesting challenge with aging set to normal and no cheats allowed. I did have a legacy when I first started playing sims 4, but I never wrote about it, or took many screenshots. I had twelve generations, then I stopped, because I really liked the last generation and didn’t want to move on. I got too attached to my half alien, turned vampire, lol.

I like learning about a writer's process in writing simlit. Do you let your sims run around autonomously and take lots of screenshots and write later? Or do you try to control them, and have a basic plan or outline for what you want them to accomplish in their generation? I hope that makes sense.
Anonymous
5 years ago
@rainbowwithfangs Sorry to see you leave, but if writing feels like a job and not fun, you gotta do what you gotta do. Good luck to you.
lonecat82
5 years ago
"NyteRose;c-17378620" wrote:
@rainbowwithfangs Sorry to see you leave, but if writing feels like a job and not fun, you gotta do what you gotta do. Good luck to you.

I agree with NyteRose's comment.

@rainbowwithfangs Sorry to see you go. Take care. :)
Anonymous
5 years ago
@katrinasforest @Firande @lone_cat
I did a makeover on an elf maiden character I've had rotting in my library/Gallery for ages. Dying to play her again (I only briefly playtested her after creation to make sure she and her puppy worked) and am slowly remodeling WC/Newcrest to look like fantasy/medieval/elf worlds. She'll be made into a spellcaster since elves are known for being magically adept. Anyway...

Avianna Dawnleaf Before (No CC)
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/47945238092_860e5614e1.jpg

Avianna After
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49436221392_899e42ba40.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49436222247_a6efd29822.jpg

Sadie
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49435527008_b31d132ea3.jpg

I'm tempted to start outlining a fantasy story about her, but I don't who the male lead or other characters will be :D
xmerer
5 years ago
@rainbowwithfangs Really sorry to hear about your writer's block. It's so frustrating when a favorite hobby starts to feel like a chore. I've been there. I hope you get the spark back soon! I'll take you off the list for now, but feel free to jump back in to chat whenever you like. :) If you're still playing your legacy challenge, I'd love to hear how it's going, even if there's not a written story about it per se.