What was the thing that made you start writing your series?

Oh I love this one
So my world and characters is quite old - I designed the world for D&D and my oldest character was made in 2008. I already had one-chapter introductions for each character. I started learning to draw in 2020 (i got really bored lol) so that I could draw my OCs. Eventually, people started asking their story.

Then, I got a very specific fan art, this one, that the artist called The Last Dance, based on a moment I told them about

I wrote down the scene. And then another and another and another. Nothing really in order, just drabbles and small chapters based on scenes I would think up.

Later, more and more people started asking me their story. When I put my drabbles in order, I realized I could actually write something out.

Here I am, almost exactly a year later, with a book and a half up on Tapas :3 These characters especially mean the world to me, and I'm so happy I started properly writing out their stories!

I´m an artist and never considered myself a writer.
I tried to find a writer but didn´t find someone who writes the genre / stories
that I want to draw. I don´t know with how many writers I communicated but
it was a lot. I tried working with my brother who is a writer and artist and it
also didn´t work. I was close to giving up the whole comic idea and wanted
to focus on teaching + making illustrations but I still felt that I really wanted to
create a comic book.

I started to write situations, which lead me to write episodes for a bigger
story, I wrote a lot of short stories and now I´m working on a series.
I´m probably the only writer who can write the story that I want to draw.

I always wanted to do Wild Nights, Hot and Crazy Days. Finally, after nearly thirty years of procrastination I no longer had an excuse to procrastinate: COVID had everything shut down so I had the time. I just started writing.

Well, the first push to write most of my released novels was for competitions. But the first push that got me writing stories and releasing them in the first place is because I didn't get much of an education in my teens, and I needed to develop a skill I could use to say something for myself. My parents didn't want me to get a part-time job, so I couldn't develop any job experience that way and I knew I'd be stranded when I turned 18 if I didn't get some sort of credit to my name, so I started writing. I got published for the first time at age fifteen and have been stocking up writing credits and experience ever since. Maybe it would sound like I'm a better writer if I said it was because I was attached to the stories, but while I love writing, which is why it was what I thought I could teach myself to excel at, it's largely come this far because writing was my one saving grace

This specific story started as a literal dream I had one night about kids playing in a forest in front of a giant ship sticking up aboving the trees. It seemed so magical and I had a writing assignment due the next day so I wrote out like 20 pages of a screenplay about it. It got critiqued to hell by my classmates (genuinely one of my worst critiques), but I ended up falling in love with the idea so I developed it from there. The biggest problem I had was discovering the reason why a bunch of kids would be alone in this forest lol.

Couldn't contain the "downloads" anymore... started getting the plot points and scripts, characters, etc around July of 2023. When I was going through some IRL trials and tribulations. Experienced lot of suffering and mental breakdowns.

And when the smoke cleared... AngHell Dela Blackpill was born.

The other two comics (Brood Knight [2003], MAG ISA [2007] ) were also born through a similar process.

Well, I started off writing fanfic, so by the time I started writing original stories I was pretty used to posting online so any anxiety was long gone, lol. Didn't expect people to like my stuff, but I got a good enough reception in Fictionpress, then I moved on to Wattpad because I liked the social aspects of it back then (they're gone now) and I did really well there. Then I moved to Tapas because the site looked neat, and then the last two novels and my short comic came about because of contests on Tapas.

Mostly, I just really like telling stories and sharing them with people! I love stories in all forms and the effect they have on people, so I hope to write things that make people feel something. Even if it's just wanting to wring my neck for a particularly evil cliffhanger or something.

It's in the title, actually: matcha coffee. Well, for some reason, while I was walking home from university, I bought a cup of matcha coffee from the thrift coffee store nearby like I usually do. Just then a lightning bolt stuck on me: what if, just what if, Camilo, you write a story about matcha coffee?

And so, the story A Cup of Ice-Cold Matcha is born. It is currently in its 11th chapter; the 12th being scheduled at the 31st/1st September (I don't know what Tapas's deal was but so be it); and the 13th being written at the moment while my parents are lying asleep at 4 in the morning at my bed.

Maybe what pushed me into really getting into the mood was I am quite concerned that the last failed attempt at making a novel was 2 years ago. I tried writing a novel dedicated to someone I tried to court, but when I was already at the second chapter of what seemed to be a great novel (for me, just let it be, ha-ha), we had already called it quits. It was really a downward spiral for me at that time (which led me to co-author one poetry book which is now on paperback in my country, sort of). I guess that two-year hiatus did fill my creative juices to the rim to the point that the night after, I wrote down my initial synopsis.

Fun fact, Arthur's initial name was Amon, based off from the Ars Goetia, but I kinda scratched that name because it doesn't make sense to me later on. It was when I got to start typing it in my word processor on my laptop that I changed the name to what it is now.

Then, later on, tea ahead, one of my professors asked me if I still liked that guy I used to court. (Our slightly sad story was a bit of an open book, although there were a few who never knew about it.) Yes, it has been two years since then, but then I wondered, do I f-king like this man? And there the Interludes got inserted between the chapters. Those Interludes were dedicated to him. For one last time. Then I'll go adios with these feelings and move on.

That's all there is to it. I plan to end the series on Dec 31st and start a new one on January 10th. I had plans for the second book, so I couldn't afford to not finish it, or it'd be another dagger in my heart as a hopeless writer.

You could read ACOICM here:

My sister wanted me to do a diary type thing so instead I did a diary from my ocs perspective

I wrote my web novel, The Game We Play1 for an advance fiction writing course in college. I wanted to expand my writing skills because I feel like fiction writing is my worst genre.

I love the characters and the world I created and felt it was unfair to them to never complete their story. I already know that I didn't want to query people for my novels since I'm not really interested in all that. Instead, I rather just share my stories and if something comes of it that's great!

When I was a kid, I loved reading Choose your Own Adventure books, and after reading Problem Sleuth, I thought making an interactive comic would be fun.

I think Problem Sleuth also had a huge influence in the art style of this particular comic.

Regarding my BL novel, Idyll in its Decline, it was because I had already written a similar story many years ago, in a warlike world and although I liked it, over time I understood that I needed to improve the writing. I rewrote it again and focused on a more realistic world with characters that had their charm through a novel. Also because it was based on personal experiences and I felt identified with much of what happened there.

Regarding my comic, The Hours, that was a story I drew when I was 15 years old, although it was a very short comic of five chapters. I especially liked a character that I felt was worth creating a longer story about. She is someone who does not care who she is, who makes mistakes but that does not affect her in the least, I admire that about her and with her personality, she has managed to make many readers empathize with her. ^^

I had stacks of notes on the side adventures of my characters for "Apparent Secrets" and had wanted to get a start on "Of Lowlifes, Lutes, & Liars" after I was finished with my first novel. As it turns out, Tapas announced the Action Fantasy Tourney and I'm like "Yeah, why not? You'll never know until you try, right?"

So, now I'm 30,000+ words deep into a second novel as a companion piece to my first novel.

As for what made me want to start writing in the first place, oddly enough, I was inspired by Tapas. More specifically, there was an absolutely TERRIBLY written story on the platform with over 150 chapters (which shall remain nameless to protect the poor thing), and I thought, "I bet I could do it. If this can make it, maybe my little story can too!" I had ten years' worth of notes ready, and felt the urge to give it a go.

The initial idea for Friar Chicken came during the COVID years from me confusing fryer and friar, so I thought, "hey, how about a comic where there is a chicken who's a friar?"

Did loads of research on chickens, and some on friars/religions, and even looked up if the idea had been done before. The research actually gave me ideas for jokes and puns, and eventually, a funny but also dramatic story. I spent a few years offline just drawing out the first episodes and one full story arc ("Pestilence") as a test. I burned out several times, quit for several months on several occasions, but I was able to pick up and got close to finishing.

Reason that pushed me to finally publish online was actually to finish that story arc, so I uploaded a ton of eps and buffers as well as added in a few things for the story. (started publishing in Jan 2023, "Pestilence" hit in August and it was finished in November and series is still ongoing today)

Ultimately had decided to publish on Tapas because I was an avid reader at the time, and still am. So, uh, here I am among you all!

LOSTLAND started as a super experimental comic that I mostly did to get better at drawing comics. Years of writing it with a rough idea of where it was going left me pretty dissatisfied with how well it was doing over time. I wanted more readers to see the potential in the story that I saw in it, as I started to refine it in the background, but it was just too rough and unpolished at the time.
So I took a metaphorical leap of faith with it, ended the old version after the 8th chapter and stared from scratch, really put my nose to the grindstone on the art and story.

Did it work? In about 3 chapters, the current form of LOSTLAND surpassed the reader count of my old, 8 chapter long version of it, and it hasn't stopped growing from there