Quote Originally Posted by Pokemon Trainer Sarah View Post
I have been doing a bit of job searching to see what's around for when I finally finish uni xD There is pretty much nothing in Australia right now thanks to the government cutting science funding. Plus there's a lot of competition because labs hire people from overseas a lot for these particular positions. :( I can't really be bothered going to another country just for work, blah.

I think it's a cool idea to do some volunteering, @Neo Emolga! I dunno if I could resist cute animals either though. xD I see quite a few ads for volunteer graphic designers for charities/small businesses and stuff, who just want some pamphlets or a poster. Plus you can work from home. Maybe you could do something like that with your elite graphics skills :D

P.S. How's your novel going?! I keep trying to come up with ideas for one and I always think of you and wonder how yours is going!
There's not a whole lot in the US either. It's a really difficult job market at the moment, but volunteer graphic design is another cool possibility.

As for the novel, I still need to write a synopsis for agents, and I need to get off my butt and do that. I didn't realize most agents want that and I can't really start contacting them until I have one ready to be sent over. It's basically summing up the entire novel in 500 words or less, chock full of spoilers. The idea of them just reading that and not the novel actually kind of irks me (because they'd miss out on so many good things), but that's just how the process goes. They get tons of these all the time and unless they like the summarized storyline, they're not going to plow through the rest of the novel.

But yeah, coming up with ideas is tough. Usually I like to build a setting first, come up with concepts, creatures, and characteristics, and then give it a story, all the while tinkering things along the way to fit with that storyline. It helps to think of your favorite movies and games, borrow a few of the things you liked the most about them as inspiration (tweaking them to your personal tastes helps make them uniquely yours), and weave them into your story.

Dreams also help, and there you don't need to worry about copying too much because it's not like it's copyrighted material! Sometimes dreams can get weird, but weird is good. I won't deny I've used events and themes from my dreams in stories. Sure, I tweak them to fit with the story, but often it's "you can't make this stuff up" kind of material that you just can't pull out of nowhere.