Best social-networking to enlist a collaborator?
Posted: February 29th, 2012, 2:35 am
The post title didn't allow me to elaborate in full. There's a sub-board on here for critique partners, but that isn't exactly the same as a collaborator, i.e. someone who'd be creating the work alongside you. Like John Durvin here, I'm thinking of turning one (maybe more) of my ideas into a graphic novel/comic book, but while I myself could certainly write the dialogue, I can't draw at all, and have only minimal hobbyist skills with regards to graphics software. So my question relates to where/how is the best place or avenue to take to seek out an illustrator who'd work alongside me (well, not physically of course) to draw the pictures while I write the dialogue. I just did a brief search on "how to create a graphic novel" and one of the articles did say, common-sensically, that if your artistic talent isn't up to par, to seek out someone whose is.
This maybe isn't a social media question per se but I'm aware that there are some sites geared specifically to visual arts, Deviant Art being perhaps the most well known. New Grounds is another that seems geared more towards video game culture, and the popular webcomic XKCD has its own forum connected to it (which also tends to include a broad spectrum of discussions about nearly everything besides the comic itself). I think one of my great difficulties with the whole creative process is that I'm a visual person by nature and struggle with simultaneously "syncing" the movie-in-head with whatever I'm writing -- I'd like for there to be an eventual "image" outcome. (It may be "internet brain" or physical ADD, although this probably tends to prove the grownups right in saying that video games/TV/computers DID kill the imaginary magic dragon star.)
And if/when I do start on this highly intimidating venture of the social media realm, is it OK to discuss other things besides the creative process and/or the work in question while I'm "in progress" or does that lend itself to already being a fragmented, unfocused "platform"? Like say for instance my hypothetical collaborator and I are working on something, and/or I'm working on a solo project, and can't think of anything else "literary"-related to put up or discuss online, is it OK to have an article about some other topic, i.e. music or sports or the internet or what have you, as sort of "not putting your colored Easter eggs in one bunny basket"? I obviously don't have anything published yet or even satisfactorily in the works, and I might want some sort of confidentiality agreement between artist and writer (or even personally with myself, i.e. first rule of book club is don't talk about your unfinished entry into book club). Also, since mine is a special case in that I don't have real-world friends to pool from as potential "followers," I'd really be starting from scratch; how soon after one starts on the primary outlet (the blog/main site) should additional outlets be added? I've read something like six months of regular blogging is a good starting base before launching "spin-offs" into Facebook (which I probably won't use now at all because of stupid "Timeline") and Twitter and the other networks? Sooner? Later? Somewhere in-between...?
This maybe isn't a social media question per se but I'm aware that there are some sites geared specifically to visual arts, Deviant Art being perhaps the most well known. New Grounds is another that seems geared more towards video game culture, and the popular webcomic XKCD has its own forum connected to it (which also tends to include a broad spectrum of discussions about nearly everything besides the comic itself). I think one of my great difficulties with the whole creative process is that I'm a visual person by nature and struggle with simultaneously "syncing" the movie-in-head with whatever I'm writing -- I'd like for there to be an eventual "image" outcome. (It may be "internet brain" or physical ADD, although this probably tends to prove the grownups right in saying that video games/TV/computers DID kill the imaginary magic dragon star.)
And if/when I do start on this highly intimidating venture of the social media realm, is it OK to discuss other things besides the creative process and/or the work in question while I'm "in progress" or does that lend itself to already being a fragmented, unfocused "platform"? Like say for instance my hypothetical collaborator and I are working on something, and/or I'm working on a solo project, and can't think of anything else "literary"-related to put up or discuss online, is it OK to have an article about some other topic, i.e. music or sports or the internet or what have you, as sort of "not putting your colored Easter eggs in one bunny basket"? I obviously don't have anything published yet or even satisfactorily in the works, and I might want some sort of confidentiality agreement between artist and writer (or even personally with myself, i.e. first rule of book club is don't talk about your unfinished entry into book club). Also, since mine is a special case in that I don't have real-world friends to pool from as potential "followers," I'd really be starting from scratch; how soon after one starts on the primary outlet (the blog/main site) should additional outlets be added? I've read something like six months of regular blogging is a good starting base before launching "spin-offs" into Facebook (which I probably won't use now at all because of stupid "Timeline") and Twitter and the other networks? Sooner? Later? Somewhere in-between...?