That's the number of submissions in my FA feed which are advertisements.

I've had an anecdotal sense that I was seeing a lot of ads for YCHs and such, but no data, so on a lark, a few weeks ago I started keeping track. I categorized every entry in my feed as either an "advertisement" or "actual art". Advertisements I classified as anything intended to induce someone to buy a product (YCH ads, art packs, etc.) or media announcements (now accepting commissions, streaming now, etc.). I only included submissions, not journals.

I don't watch a TON of artists, but I have about a hundred in my list. Over the course of collecting data, I found 119 ads and 190 pieces of actual art.

That comes out to a rate of about 38.5%. I checked a few times throughout, and that ratio actually held true within a percentage point or two throughout the entire scope of collection.

For comparison's sake, modern television runs from about 30% to 32% advertisements on average. That is a considerably higher number than back in the 50s (average 13% advertisement time) all the way up until the 90s, where it broke 20% for the first time.

Does this mean anything? I don't know. No one likes proliferation of advertisements in any media format, and that includes me, and that includes FA. Artists need to make a living, sure. Does making a living require devoting thirty-eight percent of your bandwidth to marketing? I also don't know. Ravager doesn't advertise, and it's doing pretty well so far - is that an exception to the rule? Do video games operate on different rules from visual art?

I realized I had a handful of commissions I got ages ago that, for whatever reason, I never uploaded to my gallery. So now they are posted, for your viewing pleasure. I should have more coming in the weeks and months to come, if you're into that kind of thing.

It's been a long pause. Lots of "life things", you know: getting laid off, moving cross-country, getting a new job. Phew. But I'm starting to write again, too, so maybe there will be some more on that front coming soon also. I'm still open to the idea of taking writing commissions, though I never did get much interest the first time - of course, no one knows who I am, so that's not exactly surprising either. Still, maybe one rando or another will read my stuff and find their interest piqued.

All of my short stories are also over at SoFurry, which might be a more convenient place to read them if you're interested. You can find me there at https://malakim.sofurry.com/

Cheers!

I've been thinking about expanding my body of works and getting some inspiration for writing about different themes, and given how I've started to feel like my writing is good enough to really be appreciated by people other than me, I've been thinking about opening myself up to requests or maybe even commissions.

I'm anxious about accepting commissions right off the bat, though, because once you add money into the equation, people tend to get a bit antsy, and the burden of having to produce material under that kind of regime--at least to start off--could easily make it difficult to complete a work to my satisfaction and that of my client. So I thought I would start off by accepting requests for short stories. Less fuss, less obligation, and no sense of being cheated if it takes me longer than anticipated to complete a work.

So my question to you is: does this sound like something you would be interested in? I know I have a lot of people watching me for the sake of the commissions I get of my characters, maybe not so much for my writing, but first and foremost I am a writer, and a good one. So my idea for this is: if you've read anything I've written, and you think you've got an interesting idea for a short story, leave me a comment.

Some caveats apply, though. I don't write fanfiction, though I might be able to do something loosely "inspired by" some particular setting if I am interested enough. I also prefer not to write fiction using other people's characters, and here is the reason: in order to really, accurately portray a character, you need to know everything about how they function. How they think, how they speak, what they like, what they dislike. Physical mannerisms, personal idiosyncracies. And unless it's a personal character, or a character that I can create out of whole cloth, there's no way I will be able to apprehend the nuances of another person's character deeply enough to accurately portray them. So I won't try.

Now, if you have a character concept that you have only painted in broad strokes, and don't mind me filling in the details--that's fine by me. In fact, that's sort of what I'm imagining: rather than writing short stories about specific characters in very specific scenarios, I'm imagining taking suggestions or requests in a broad form and then fleshing them out however my muse directs me. It's a bit of a wing-it for writing, if you want to think of it that way.

Of course, I have no idea if anyone will be interested in such a thing. But if you are, let me know, and give me some ideas that you might like to see represented. I suppose if there is sufficient interest, I'll draw up a more formal list of requirements, since there are some themes I'm not interested in writing in or which I don't feel that I would be able to do justice to. But I won't put the cart before the horse quite yet. Comment below!

It's "only" been four months since my last substantial short story, though it feels like a lot longer--I suppose that's just the guilt speaking. Still, a new piece of adequate length and sufficient quality has gone up, so I have the satisfaction of knowing my muse isn't dead yet. The funny thing is, it doesn't take me nearly that long to actually write something once I've got the idea formed in my mind. The Cycle took me only a few man-hours' worth of work to produce, in terms of actually writing and editing, though I spent an awful lot of time beforehand letting the ideas percolate before ever putting pen to paper.

That seems like the pattern: think about it for a couple of months, and write it in a couple of days. At least I work faster than GRRM.

Thematically, it's a rough piece. A commenter on SoFurry called it "horrifying", which he meant as a compliment, and which I took as one. He was right; it's meant, at least in part, to induce that kind of feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach, to evoke a sensation of helplessness as events beyond the protagonist's control play out to her ultimate detriment. Except that's not all of it, not really. The events depicted aren't entirely beyond her control: she could have avoided all of it with a few simple decisions. Not that it's entirely her fault: the fusion of grim circumstance, poor judgement, and exploitative opportunism came together to make it difficult to know that there was even a "right thing" to do, let alone what that thing was. It's also not clear that she really thinks she's done anything "wrong", either from a purely moral perspective or even from the more basic perspective of self-harm.

Like the real world, it's messy and awkward and there's no single clear-cut line leading from here to there. An event, or person, is rarely all bad or all good, and the contributing factors are usually a mix of both, scattered at various points on the continuum. I like that, and I like writing things like that. Even when writing about fantastical things--whether it's just "normal" furry characters or more exaggerated fantasy or science fiction themes--I want to imbue my writing with an honest realism, even if it makes for uncomfortable and unsentimental themes.

After a few years of lurking and watching and the occasional commission, I decided to actually start putting up some stuff I write instead of letting it sit in a dusty corner of my computer. I don't exactly have a lot of followers or a community presence, but I'll put my hope in the quality of the writing speaking for itself--assuming that people do like it.

I intend to cross-post everything that I post here to SoFurry as well, so people have a choice of where they prefer to read, comment, and watch. Not that I wouldn't mind both sites taking off.

Here's looking forward to more and better as time goes on!