My Best Foot Forward

Feb 4, 20167 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Feb 4, 2016

1.1K Views

Update: So Chrome didn't submit my application so I quickly re-did it and submitted properly. Phew! That is definitely one way to get the heart racing

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Hi everyone, I am kiwi-damnation otherwise known as Sam. I am a Kiwi/Australian writer and novice digital artist who revels in helping to build the lit community.

I am a literary sadomasochist: I love to challenge myself to be a better person and a better writer, while also challenging everyone I know to do the same. I think it can be incredibly easy to fall into patterns and habits as writers; and these habits preclude us from growing as authors. There is no point in endless repetition, if, in the acquisition of our own particular voices, we lose our drive to evolve as writers.

It has been with this thinking in mind that I have applied to become a Literature Community Volunteer. For more information on this role, please read The Community Relations Team. I have a lot of ideas and challenges and I want to help our community to flourish even more. I don’t know how much of what I do and have done is evident from my profile page, and at the risk of being self-involved, I thought I’d make it easier.

I created DFC (The December Form Challenge) in 2008 to challenge myself. The DFC consists of thirty-one different fixed forms of poetry in thirty-one days — one poem per day. I then created ProjectDFC from which to host it, when groups became a feature of DeviantArt in 2009. I now run ten scheduled intensive monthly challenges on ProjectDFC — soon to become eleven, pending the announcement of a new challenge this upcoming November. The challenges are all vastly different but have one thing in common: they educate, inspire and challenge poets. This has been a labour of love that I fully intend to continue indefinitely.

In addition to running ProjectDFC, I have helped run many other groups as an admin — such as Poetry-Magnet, Multhaiku, Authors-Club, and BurdenedHearts. I have also found it personally important to help any deviant who needed it, taking time to answer questions, to run chatrooms, and to write educational articles on topics ranging from DeviantArt site mechanics to literary conventions, as part of the Mentorship program created by TheMaidenInBlack.

Recently, I had the honor of being featured in LiliWrites' Awesome, Literally! series, in a forum about ProjectDFC.

At the beginning of his year, I began a challenge for myself to expand my writing in the world of prose. I called it the Prose-ject, and the point was to write consistently daily until I couldn’t anymore. I wanted to build my own skill set and eliminate the self-doubt that, for me, would often arise when writing out of my poetic comfort zone.

This led me to the realisation that there is a definite need for more prose-related community engagement and challenges. I decided then and there to create Prose-ject to meet this need.

At the current moment, Prose-ject has ten challenges formulated and set up for the months of February to November, with smaller prompt challenges and mini-challenges. The challenges are designed to fit within the framework of NaNoWriMo and other major global literary events.

I am passionate about the work I do here, as an active member of the literature community on Deviantart. It is something that I strongly believe in, and I am happy to put in the hours to create and achieve the goals I set for myself. And while, like most serious writers, I wish to grow in my artistic capabilities, I also want to continue to serve the community that I love so much.

Amidst all of my passion and drive, I am a person with a disability. It keeps me home most of the week and in some regards, has paved the way towards being far more active on dA than I might have been otherwise. I love this place and dA has helped me become the person I am. The people here are magnificently kind souls and stunning artists.

So even though this is outside my comfort zone, I am putting myself forward — once again, challenging myself to grow in new directions. If I am not chosen to serve as a Community Volunteer, so be it. I know that whomever is chosen will be fantastic for the job and I respect the deliberation given to the process of selecting CVs. I wrote this introduction to show my determination, goals, and efficiency, in order to aid those researching CV candidates.

I love you guys. Thank you for supporting me through everything and for continuing to read my work. You are all phenomenal. Especially copper9lives