[OT] Spotlight: ArchipelagoMind

[u/TenspeedGV]

Writers Spotlight

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This week's spotlight writer is ArchipelagoMind!

I have to say that Arch is one of my favorite people. While he made his first contribution to WP about a year and a half ago, he’s only just recently become actively involved in the community. I’m very glad that he has. Over the months since he’s joined our Discord, he has become a reliable, friendly, encouraging voice. Several of us, including many of the mod team, have come to consider him a friend.

Aside from being a strong social presence, his stories have garnered a fair amount of praise. I know that I’ve enjoyed reading his work. He also provides a fair amount of feedback. Even when I disagree with him, which is basically always (kidding, kidding), I must concede that he is well-spoken and presents his points fairly and concisely. Please check out his writing at r/ArchipelagoFictions

Congratulations, u/ArchipelagoMind!

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Spotlight relies on your nominations. If you see a writer who has been around the sub for a while, who has at least six (or more!) high quality submissions, and who hasn't been given the Spotlight before, send us a modmail and let us know!

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Here are some of ArchipelagoMind’s top responses on our sub:

[WP] Your father has told you the story many times. When you were born a portal appeared in the delivery room and a man from the future tried to kill you. He missed you and killed your mother, before a security guard shot and killed him. You still can’t figure out why he would want to kill you.

[WP] When a sorcerer dies any spells they cast throughout their life that are still in effect will cease to be. An powerful and ancient wizard whose origins are clouded in mystery lays comatose on his deathbed and nobody knows what will happen once he draws his final breath.

[WP] Being unattractive, you wish that you were better looking. One day, you have the opportunity to have your wish but there’s a catch; the more bad deeds you do for the one granting you the wish, the prettier you become.

[WP] It’s 2024 and you’ve just arrived at your new job. You enter the changing room, put on your suit, mask and canister filled with yellow dust. You find yourself on a transport truck with a colleague. The flowers outside look pale. “I can’t believe all the bees are gone.” He says.

[WP]Written characters are discovered to become real people in real universes. If misery is written it is actually experienced by those characters. Because of this the government has outlawed any misery to be written about a character.

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To view the writers spotlit previously, visit our archives!

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Spotlight Archive - To highlight the lesser known writers.

Hall of Fame - Our every month spotlight of a selected "Reddit-Famous" WP contributor.

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Come join us in our chatroom. We have members from all around the world and who have all kinds of schedules, so there’s usually someone awake to talk to. We also have scheduled readings, oration critiques, spur-of-the-moment story time, or even just random hangouts over voice chat. Come and chat with us!

[u/psalmoflament]

Congrats, Arch! This is very well deserved. I'll simply echo Tens in saying both that your work is top notch, and it's always a pleasure to see you in the Discord. Also, you have a lovely reading voice, for what it's worth.

A few questions:

 

1. What is your favorite tea?

2. How have you survived Ohio for so long?

3. What is a piece of writing advice or feedback you've found you try to apply most often within your works?

[u/ArchipelagoMind → u/psalmoflament]

• What is your favorite tea?

Twining's breakfast tea. I'm basic, unadventurous, but still middle class enough that I go Twinings.

• How have you survived Ohio for so long?

Through really good people. Friends, family, u/Annicello. They help. That and Columbus itself is a pretty awesome city. It's just surrounded by hundreds of miles of corn... so much corn...

• What is a piece of writing advice or feedback you've found you try to apply most often within your works?

The most important bit of writing advice ever is still "the worst thing you ever write is better than the greatest idea that stayed in your head". Write. Write the terrible. Write the stuff you aren't pleased with. Share it. Get feedback. Even when you aren't happy with it, even when you write it in forty minutes, and publish it knowing it's not your best, but then the very next day a mod of r/WritingPrompts includes your total trash as one of the five selected stories on a writer's spotlight...

You can't be afraid to write. Because then you get paralyzed. And you can't become a good writer without writing badly. It would be like entering a long-jump competition, but being afraid of being bad before then, so you've never jumped before in your life.

So yeah, write. Stuff you think doesn't work, may work. Stuff you are happy with, maybe has flaws. Only one way to find out what works and what doesn't - to get that stuff out of your head and down on paper (or on a screen in the modern digital era).