In this course, you will see the creation of a character from A to B with these three steps: sketching-inking-coloring. You will get all the valuable tips to create your own character based on these three steps. You will see the creation of the character with the explanations going with every things done like the layers, the brushes and the use of these brushes.&nbsp;

English

Starting with the sketching

Starting the inking

Completing the inking

Inking, additional tips

Coloring

Final steps

CLIP STUDIO PAINT: How to draw a warrior face

Illustrator and storyboard artist

Tier 1

Arts and Crafts

Lifestyle

If you want to know how to use the drawing software Krita, and how to draw heads and faces with it, this course is done for you. I'm presenting you in this course several techniques and examples about drawing faces, by using different tools of the Krita software. 
 
In the end of this course, you will know more about Krita and about drawing anatomy of the head.

Drawing comicbooks faces with Krita

Error

Other

Design

It’s no secret that the holidays are a trap for endless weight gain, making New Year’s weight-loss resolutions even more difficult than they need to be. With a barrage of turkey and trimmings, and an endless array of sweets, it’s the toughest time of year to stick with your resolve to eat healthily and get fit, but it doesn’t have to be a total loss. Here are some handy tricks to trimming the fat this holiday:

When it comes to the pre-dinner snacks, it’s not difficult to end up eating as many calories as you might normally eat in an entire dinner…and that’s before you even get to the turkey and scrumptious sides! The answer to this puzzle is pretty easy: stick to the fruit and veggie trays, lay off the dips, and stay far, far away from the fattier and more tempting snacks, such as the Swedish meatballs, mini-quiche, and savory pigs-in-a-blanket. If you’re hosting the holiday party, stick to healthy & nutritious foods, and add in some interesting ones, like hummus dip with pita chips, to keep your guests intrigued. With these few tricks, you can save yourself between 500-1,000 kcals!

While there are some people out there who’d rather chew their calories than drink them, the holidays are a difficult time to stay away from high-calorie drinks. Hot Buttered Rum or thick, cold eggnog can be as tempting as the pumpkin pie. If you’re going to have a drink, stick to red or white wine or just enjoy one of the tempting calorie-laden drinks. If it’s eggnog you’re after, try the low-fat variety, which can save you over 200 calories and almost 20 grams of fat.

The main meal is where you can quickly make the most damage – that is if you’re ladling on the sauces and going back for seconds, and possibly thirds. If stuffing yourself like a Thanksgiving turkey is part of your holiday pleasure, there are still a few tricks you can use to cut calories and enjoy more quantity:

Turkey – Eat only the light, skinless breast meat instead of dark meat with the skin. Three ounces of skinless turkey breast is only 115 calories and less than 1 gram of fat, while the same amount of dark meat with the skin on is nearly 200 calories and has over 8 grams of fat.

Stuffing – Serve yourself a smaller portion and have an extra helping of cornbread to make up the difference. Also, keep in mind that stuffing cooked outside of the turkey has less fat than stuffing cooked inside of the turkey.

Mashed Potatoes – Leave off the extra butter – there’s plenty in there already – and limit your gravy use, especially if you like gravy on your turkey as well. If you’re the chef, add chicken stock to the drippings to get more mileage out of it and give your gravy taste without adding a lot of fat.

Green Bean Casserole – A favorite of most family’s at the holiday, the green bean casserole can be the healthiest thing on the menu or the least. Select fresh green beans and sauté them in a small amount of olive oil and butter, add in some petite diced stewed tomatoes, and slivered almonds. Leave out the can of golden mushroom condensed soup and use turkey bacon instead of regular.

Cranberry Sauce – Canned cranberry sauce is mostly jellied cranberry juice and added sugar. Instead, make your own cranberry chutney.

Other Holiday Favorites – Just remember to use moderation in everything you choose, and if you have to go back for seconds, only choose the second helping of your most favorite items.

Sweets are the toughest temptations for most, but they do not have to be your enemy. If you’re bringing the apple pie, try baking apples topped with brown sugar for a crust-free treat. Buy nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt instead of regular ice-cream or whipped toppings for a fat-free, lower-calorie treat with no loss of flavor. Munch on dried fruit instead of fruitcake. If you want your favorite dessert, just pick one and have just one small piece. If you get hungry after a couple of hours of chatting with relatives, treat yourself to another small piece, if you want it. Dessert, in moderation, is not a bad thing.

What’s more fun than holiday leftovers? Wisdom would tell us that since you pigged out all day yesterday, today you would tone it down, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. In fact, you’re more likely to go too far with the leftovers since nobody’s watching. Don’t forget your ultimate goal to keep the holiday weight off. Make your next-day turkey sandwiches using mustard instead of mayo, and pile on the lettuce and tomatoes. Just switching to mustard from mayo can save yourself about 80 calories and 8 grams of fat.

It’s no secret that the holidays are a trap for endless weight gain, making New Year’s weight-loss resolutions even more difficult than they need to be. With a barrage of turkey and trimmings, and an endless array of sweets, it’s the toughest time of year to stick with your resolve to eat healthily and get fit, but it doesn’t have to be a total loss. Here are some handy tricks to trimming the fat this holiday:
 
1. Appetizers
When it comes to the pre-dinner snacks, it’s not difficult to end up eating as many calories as you might normally eat in an entire dinner…and that’s before you even get to the turkey and scrumptious sides! The answer to this puzzle is pretty easy: stick to the fruit and veggie trays, lay off the dips, and stay far, far away from the fattier and more tempting snacks, such as the Swedish meatballs, mini-quiche, and savory pigs-in-a-blanket. If you’re hosting the holiday party, stick to healthy &amp; nutritious foods, and add in some interesting ones, like hummus dip with pita chips, to keep your guests intrigued. With these few tricks, you can save yourself between 500-1,000 kcals!
 
Alcohol
While there are some people out there who’d rather chew their calories than drink them, the holidays are a difficult time to stay away from high-calorie drinks. Hot Buttered Rum or thick, cold eggnog can be as tempting as the pumpkin pie. If you’re going to have a drink, stick to red or white wine or just enjoy one of the tempting calorie-laden drinks. If it’s eggnog you’re after, try the low-fat variety, which can save you over 200 calories and almost 20 grams of fat.
 
Dinner
The main meal is where you can quickly make the most damage – that is if you’re ladling on the sauces and going back for seconds, and possibly thirds. If stuffing yourself like a Thanksgiving turkey is part of your holiday pleasure, there are still a few tricks you can use to cut calories and enjoy more quantity:
 
<ul>
 <li>Turkey&nbsp;– Eat only the light, skinless breast meat instead of dark meat with the skin. Three ounces of skinless turkey breast is only 115 calories and less than 1 gram of fat, while the same amount of dark meat with the skin on is nearly 200 calories and has over 8 grams of fat.</li>
 <li>Stuffing&nbsp;– Serve yourself a smaller portion and have an extra helping of cornbread to make up the difference. Also, keep in mind that stuffing cooked outside of the turkey has less fat than stuffing cooked inside of the turkey.</li>
 <li>Mashed Potatoes&nbsp;– Leave off the extra butter – there’s plenty in there already – and limit your gravy use, especially if you like gravy on your turkey as well. If you’re the chef, add chicken stock to the drippings to get more mileage out of it and give your gravy taste without adding a lot of fat.</li>
 <li>Green Bean Casserole&nbsp;– A favorite of most family’s at the holiday, the green bean casserole can be the healthiest thing on the menu or the least. Select fresh green beans and sauté them in a small amount of olive oil and butter, add in some petite diced stewed tomatoes, and slivered almonds. Leave out the can of golden mushroom condensed soup and use turkey bacon instead of regular.</li>
 <li>Cranberry Sauce&nbsp;– Canned cranberry sauce is mostly jellied cranberry juice and added sugar. Instead, make your own cranberry chutney.</li>
 <li>Other Holiday Favorites&nbsp;– Just remember to use moderation in everything you choose, and if you have to go back for seconds, only choose the second helping of your most favorite items.</li>
</ul>
Dessert
Sweets are the toughest temptations for most, but they do not have to be your enemy. If you’re bringing the apple pie, try baking apples topped with brown sugar for a crust-free treat. Buy nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt instead of regular ice-cream or whipped toppings for a fat-free, lower-calorie treat with no loss of flavor. Munch on dried fruit instead of fruitcake. If you want your favorite dessert, just pick one and have just one small piece. If you get hungry after a couple of hours of chatting with relatives, treat yourself to another small piece, if you want it. Dessert, in moderation, is not a bad thing.
 
Leftovers
What’s more fun than holiday leftovers? Wisdom would tell us that since you pigged out all day yesterday, today you would tone it down, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. In fact, you’re more likely to go too far with the leftovers since nobody’s watching. Don’t forget your ultimate goal to keep the holiday weight off. Make your next-day turkey sandwiches using mustard instead of mayo, and pile on the lettuce and tomatoes. Just switching to mustard from mayo can save yourself about 80 calories and 8 grams of fat.

Fitness instructor 

It’s no secret that the holidays are a trap for endless weight gain, making New Year’s weight-loss resolutions even more difficult than they need to be. 

Sneaky ways to cut holiday calories

I'm going to share all of this feedback with the fine folks at Grinfer as well, but I wanted to take a minute to acknowledge that everyone has a learning curve, and while some of these are UX issues, they're also things that I have to work with.

I've committed myself to trying out Grinfer as a blogging platform, which has worked out nicely since I was preparing to launch an online course anyways. This means I can create my content in one place instead of several. There are updates coming to the platform, so this may not be your experience, but it is what I've found in my first few hours on the platform. Before I get to the rocks, I need to say that the platform itself has some huge potential, and that the sign up process is fantastically easy!

There’s no auto-save function to save my writing. I’m actually on my third blog post of the night because I didn’t hit save on the first one, and the second one glitched out after I’d spent a significant amount of time on it. This is a relatively minor problem, but means that writers can lose hours of work if we're not saving regularly. Speaking of which, the "Save as Draft" button actually takes you right back to your stories page and doesn't immediately let you keep writing. Again, a relatively minor problem, but it increases friction and can cause some frustration.

I'm not sure if this is a browser issue, but when I select something in the writing area the formatting bar is tiny! The bar itself shows up in very tiny font, with giant quotation marks obscuring most of the actual writing. Huge quotation marks and itty-bitty formatting bar means I can’t actually use any formatting in my stories!

These are minor issues, but it makes for a bit of a rocky start. I'm hoping that things will change as the platform grows, and I'm looking forward to where this platform could go! Make no mistake, I'm here for a while and am not walking away just because of a rocky start, but I do want you to know what you're getting into when you start here!

I'm going to share all of this feedback with the fine folks at Grinfer as well, but I wanted to take a minute to acknowledge that everyone has a learning curve, and while some of these are UX issues, they're also things that I have to work with.
 
I've committed myself to trying out Grinfer as a blogging platform, which has worked out nicely since I was preparing to launch an online course anyways. This means I can create my content in one place instead of several. There are updates coming to the platform, so this may not be your experience, but it is what I've found in my first few hours on the platform. Before I get to the rocks, I need to say that the platform itself has some huge potential, and that the sign up process is fantastically easy!
 
Auto Save
There’s no auto-save function to save my writing. I’m actually on my third blog post of the night because I didn’t hit save on the first one, and the second one glitched out after I’d spent a significant amount of time on it. This is a relatively minor problem, but means that writers can lose hours of work if we're not saving regularly. Speaking of which, the "Save as Draft" button actually takes you right back to your stories page and doesn't immediately let you keep writing. Again, a relatively minor problem, but it increases friction and can cause some frustration.
 
Mini Formatting Bar
I'm not sure if this is a browser issue, but when I select something in the writing area the formatting bar is tiny! The bar itself shows up in very tiny font, with giant quotation marks obscuring most of the actual writing. Huge quotation marks and itty-bitty formatting bar means I can’t actually use any formatting in my stories!
 
These are minor issues, but it makes for a bit of a rocky start. I'm hoping that things will change as the platform grows, and I'm looking forward to where this platform could go! Make no mistake, I'm here for a while and am not walking away just because of a rocky start, but I do want you to know what you're getting into when you start here!

Founder and Executive Director

I'm starting something new here, and it hasn't gone quite as smoothly as I'd hoped!

A Rocky Start

In the interest of getting my writing out to a wider audience, I’ve been exploring some of the other options out there for writers. There are lots of places where we can put our writing, and there are benefits to all of them.

For those of you who don’t want to go all the way through the article, here’s the tl;dr version: I’m sticking with Medium as my primary destination, but sharing to other platforms when the stories are right.

Let’s start with the place where I spend a lot of time: Medium.com. This is one of the best places for writers to get started and to make a name for themselves. It is simultaneously the easiest and hardest place to get started.

Anyone can publish on Medium, and many people do. Making money on Medium is harder, especially with a pool of authors that is growing faster than subscribers. When you consider that Medium has 1.25 Billion monthly page views and only a few hundred thousand subscribers, either those of us who subscribe are viewing a LOT of pages, or a lot of those page views are from people who aren’t subscribers.

I would imagine that many of these authors will slowly drop off the platform as people return to work during the pandemic. I’m hoping that the number of subscribers will increase as people have more disposable income as well.

For those of you who take earnings from the Medium Partner Program without paying the monthly fee (it’s only $5 USD), you may not be breaking any rules, but you need to consider whether you are playing the game fairly.

With the recent changes to Medium’s Curation and Distribution system, it is more important than ever to publish high-quality articles regularly and to get as many eyes on them as possible. You can do this in two ways: get into publications as often as possible, and build your network by engaging regularly with other authors.

Ultimately, Medium offers the best opportunity for writers to get noticed and to make money off their stories, but you have to work at it. It’s not enough to post something and leave it expecting others to find it.

Vocal is one of the new players in this arena, it hasn’t been around as long as Medium and works somewhat differently. Where anyone can publish on Medium, Vocal’s “editors” review every article to make sure it meets their standards before publishing it. They have a selection of 34 different “communities” into which your writing has to fall. This isn’t a major challenge unless you write about some lesser-known topics.

The text editor is a little bit clunky, especially when compared with the Medium text editor. It doesn’t have quite as many options and doesn’t have the same easy style that Medium’s does.

My biggest complaint about Vocal is that it doesn’t have the same level of options as Medium for getting eyes on your writing. If you’re lucky, you might get 6–12 hours on the front page of your primary topic. Then, you’re gone into the abyss of the archives unless someone is deliberately looking for you or your story. Self-promotion is key here, and Vocal is best if you have a strong following already.

Like Medium, they pay their writers based on views, however, I’m not totally sure how they measure the engagement or how they distribute the money. They offer both a free and a “Vocal Plus” subscription offer, with the “Vocal Plus” offering writers more money in return for a $10 monthly fee.

To give you a comparison, my first three stories on Vocal (I’ve only been on there a couple of weeks) have netted me a grand total of $0.08 — while my first two stories on Medium (about the same time frame) netted me $0.27. I’m going to stick it out in both places (actually three — more about that in a minute) for a while, so I’ll keep you updated.

I used to maintain a personal website where I would post all my writing before importing it over here. I was running WordPress with monetization through ads, and while I didn’t really find any problems with it, I also wasn’t making much from it.

When I looked at the return on investment when you counted the time that I was taking to write, update links, maintain the backend, and deal with all the spam that accumulated in the comments sections it just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It also meant that I was responsible for the personal information of anybody who visited my website, left a comment, sent me an email, etc…

If you have your heart set on being a professional writer, then a personal website isn’t a bad way to go. You control your audience there, and that’s where you are going to find the people who really care about your work.

I never set out to be a professional writer, and any paid writing gigs that I’ve picked up have been as a result of being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people. While I may go back to having a personal website in the future, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for me unless I become the kind of writer who can afford a marketing budget.

The grand-daddy of them all is still around, and still being used by writers of all types. It’s free, it’s easy to use, and gives you lots of opportunities to write about whatever you want. Also known as Blogspot, this continues to rank in the top 100 websites by traffic according to Alexa — the internet rankings company.

It’s easy to maintain, simple to use, but your monetization options are almost non-existent unless you have a huge following. Really, this is where you go to write about your family and to share experiences, not to make money as a writer.

Again, you will need to work very hard and to have lots of people who are deliberately looking for you in order for you to find success on Blogger. Very few people are just going to stumble upon you like they can do here on Medium.

Now, before I get too far into this, I’m going to be fully honest and transparent with you. I was invited to join Grinfer by a member of their team who reached out to me after reading some of my work on Medium. I am not paid by them, nor am I going to sit here and feed you feel-good stories about them. But, I didn’t find Grinfer by accident, and I wanted to be clear about that before we got into this.

Grinfer is a new site that is focused on online courses, though they have also added one-on-one consultations with the experts on their site as an added feature. They’ve only been around since the early part of 2020, and have some growing to do. I was asked if I would be interested in blogging over there after one of their employees saw my work on Medium.

They were really good about answering my questions, and seeing as I don’t have anything to lose by having another outlet in which I can share my work, I jumped in over there as well. They’re preparing to launch blogs and stories as part of their next phase, so I thought it was awesome that they wanted me to be in on the ground floor. I’m also preparing to launch an online course, so being able to have one “home base” where people can go for my content is also a big appeal.

I have shared my experience so far with the team over at Grinfer, so there should be no surprises here. It’s been a rocky start.

Their writing editor is clunky and difficult to use. I’m having an issue where when I highlight text, the formatting bar shows up with giant quotation marks for block quotes, but everything else is tiny. They also have no auto-save function, and clicking “Save as Draft” takes me out of my story and back to the listing of my stories — not what I want when I’m trying to write while in the flow. I’ve also had some issues where the writing editor has glitched and sent me back a page instead of just backspacing. As a result, I’ve lost a few hours of work over there.

As I said, I’ve shared my feedback with them and offered to work with them on their User Experience from a writer’s perspective to help improve their offering.

Their monetization system is very similar to the Patreon Model where I can choose to put my stories behind a paywall that is only accessible by my subscribers. But, this also allows people to have a subscription to any of my courses as well, so this has some possibilities. I’m going to stick around over there and will let you know how it goes as the company and website both mature.

Finding the right platform can be challenging, and there are lots of other options available than just the five I’ve talked about. Every writer is going to need something different, and it’s important to find what is going to work best for you.

If you want to read more of my work, sign up for my mailing list here: https://mailchi.mp/58c7f27447d6/sign-up  where I'll share the latest and greatest from my brain to your screen!

This was originally published over at Medium. https://medium.com/@matthewwoodall/5-platforms-for-writers-52e433adb85b 

In the interest of getting my writing out to a wider audience, I’ve been exploring some of the other options out there for writers. There are lots of places where we can put our writing, and there are benefits to all of them.
 
For those of you who don’t want to go all the way through the article, here’s the tl;dr version: I’m sticking with Medium as my primary destination, but sharing to other platforms when the stories are right.
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Medium</h2>
Let’s start with the place where I spend a lot of time: Medium.com. This is one of the best places for writers to get started and to make a name for themselves. It is simultaneously the easiest and hardest place to get started.
 
Anyone can publish on Medium, and many people do. Making money on Medium is harder, especially with a pool of authors that is growing faster than subscribers. When you consider that Medium has 1.25 Billion monthly page views and only a few hundred thousand subscribers, either those of us who subscribe are viewing a LOT of pages, or a lot of those page views are from people who aren’t subscribers.
 
I would imagine that many of these authors will slowly drop off the platform as people return to work during the pandemic. I’m hoping that the number of subscribers will increase as people have more disposable income as well.
 
For those of you who take earnings from the Medium Partner Program without paying the monthly fee (it’s only $5 USD), you may not be breaking any rules, but you need to consider whether you are playing the game fairly.
 
With the recent changes to Medium’s Curation and Distribution system, it is more important than ever to publish high-quality articles regularly and to get as many eyes on them as possible. You can do this in two ways: get into publications as often as possible, and build your network by engaging regularly with other authors.
 
Ultimately, Medium offers the best opportunity for writers to get noticed and to make money off their stories, but you have to work at it. It’s not enough to post something and leave it expecting others to find it.
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Vocal</h2>
Vocal is one of the new players in this arena, it hasn’t been around as long as Medium and works somewhat differently. Where anyone can publish on Medium, Vocal’s “editors” review every article to make sure it meets their standards before publishing it. They have a selection of 34 different “communities” into which your writing has to fall. This isn’t a major challenge unless you write about some lesser-known topics.
 
The text editor is a little bit clunky, especially when compared with the Medium text editor. It doesn’t have quite as many options and doesn’t have the same easy style that Medium’s does.
 
My biggest complaint about Vocal is that it doesn’t have the same level of options as Medium for getting eyes on your writing. If you’re lucky, you might get 6–12 hours on the front page of your primary topic. Then, you’re gone into the abyss of the archives unless someone is deliberately looking for you or your story. Self-promotion is key here, and Vocal is best if you have a strong following already.
 
Like Medium, they pay their writers based on views, however, I’m not totally sure how they measure the engagement or how they distribute the money. They offer both a free and a “Vocal Plus” subscription offer, with the “Vocal Plus” offering writers more money in return for a $10 monthly fee.
 
To give you a comparison, my first three stories on Vocal (I’ve only been on there a couple of weeks) have netted me a grand total of $0.08 — while my first two stories on Medium (about the same time frame) netted me $0.27. I’m going to stick it out in both places (actually three — more about that in a minute) for a while, so I’ll keep you updated.
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Personal Website</h2>
I used to maintain a personal website where I would post all my writing before importing it over here. I was running WordPress with monetization through ads, and while I didn’t really find any problems with it, I also wasn’t making much from it.
 
When I looked at the return on investment when you counted the time that I was taking to write, update links, maintain the backend, and deal with all the spam that accumulated in the comments sections it just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It also meant that I was responsible for the personal information of anybody who visited my website, left a comment, sent me an email, etc…
 
If you have your heart set on being a professional writer, then a personal website isn’t a bad way to go. You control your audience there, and that’s where you are going to find the people who really care about your work.
 
I never set out to be a professional writer, and any paid writing gigs that I’ve picked up have been as a result of being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people. While I may go back to having a personal website in the future, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for me unless I become the kind of writer who can afford a marketing budget.
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Blogger</h2>
The grand-daddy of them all is still around, and still being used by writers of all types. It’s free, it’s easy to use, and gives you lots of opportunities to write about whatever you want. Also known as Blogspot, this continues to rank in the top 100 websites by traffic according to Alexa — the internet rankings company.
 
It’s easy to maintain, simple to use, but your monetization options are almost non-existent unless you have a huge following. Really, this is where you go to write about your family and to share experiences, not to make money as a writer.
 
Again, you will need to work very hard and to have lots of people who are deliberately looking for you in order for you to find success on Blogger. Very few people are just going to stumble upon you like they can do here on Medium.
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Grinfer</h2>
Now, before I get too far into this, I’m going to be fully honest and transparent with you. I was invited to join Grinfer by a member of their team who reached out to me after reading some of my work on Medium. I am not paid by them, nor am I going to sit here and feed you feel-good stories about them. But, I didn’t find Grinfer by accident, and I wanted to be clear about that before we got into this.
 
Grinfer is a new site that is focused on online courses, though they have also added one-on-one consultations with the experts on their site as an added feature. They’ve only been around since the early part of 2020, and have some growing to do. I was asked if I would be interested in blogging over there after one of their employees saw my work on Medium.
 
They were really good about answering my questions, and seeing as I don’t have anything to lose by having another outlet in which I can share my work, I jumped in over there as well. They’re preparing to launch blogs and stories as part of their next phase, so I thought it was awesome that they wanted me to be in on the ground floor. I’m also preparing to launch an online course, so being able to have one “home base” where people can go for my content is also a big appeal.
 
I have shared my experience so far with the team over at Grinfer, so there should be no surprises here. It’s been a rocky start.
 
Their writing editor is clunky and difficult to use. I’m having an issue where when I highlight text, the formatting bar shows up with giant quotation marks for block quotes, but everything else is tiny. They also have no auto-save function, and clicking “Save as Draft” takes me out of my story and back to the listing of my stories — not what I want when I’m trying to write while in the flow. I’ve also had some issues where the writing editor has glitched and sent me back a page instead of just backspacing. As a result, I’ve lost a few hours of work over there.
 
As I said, I’ve shared my feedback with them and offered to work with them on their User Experience from a writer’s perspective to help improve their offering.
 
Their monetization system is very similar to the Patreon Model where I can choose to put my stories behind a paywall that is only accessible by my subscribers. But, this also allows people to have a subscription to any of my courses as well, so this has some possibilities. I’m going to stick around over there and will let you know how it goes as the company and website both mature.
 
Finding the right platform can be challenging, and there are lots of other options available than just the five I’ve talked about. Every writer is going to need something different, and it’s important to find what is going to work best for you.
 
If you want to read more of my work, sign up for my <a href="https://mailchi.mp/58c7f27447d6/sign-up">mailing list</a> here: https://mailchi.mp/58c7f27447d6/sign-up &nbsp;where I'll share the latest and greatest from my brain to your screen!
This was originally published over at <a href="https://medium.com/@matthewwoodall/5-platforms-for-writers-52e433adb85b">Medium</a>. https://medium.com/@matthewwoodall/5-platforms-for-writers-52e433adb85b&nbsp;

While Grinfer isn't currently my favourite, it's got a lot of potential!

5 Platforms for Writers

You drink it. You bathe in it. But according to a recent study, that tap water you trust implicitly could be tinged with a variety of meds you probably don’t have – or want – a prescription for. And it doesn’t end at the faucet; that pure-looking bottle of drinking water in your fridge might also be hiding dozens of pharmaceutical drugs. Water polluted by pharmaceuticals has already had harmful effects on wild animals. Is it possible that drugs in your tap water can harm you, too?

A five-month long inquiry by the Associated Press found that millions of Americans may be drinking a variety of medicines such as sex hormones, antibiotics, cardiac drugs, pain medication, anti-convulsants, and others along with their tap water. Federal and state drinking water databases, scientists, public officials, and dozens of large and small water providers all agree: The nation’s water supply is drugged-up. But don’t start boiling your water just yet. Super-sophisticated instruments were needed to detect even the tiniest bit of contamination. The level of pollution in just one liter of water was so small, it had to be measured in parts per trillion. To give you a better idea of how minuscule the measurement is, consider this: One-trillionth of a liter is the equivalent of one drop of water in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools. In short, the levels are far below those you get when you take a daily dose of meds. And the chemicals are often not the original compound but byproducts of the original drug, further reducing any potential risk.

More alarming is the vehicle in which these contaminants reach the water supply, primarily the toilet. Human and animal excrement can contain small traces of any medications consumed or injected in the body, often manifested into byproducts of the original drug. These byproducts accumulate in septic systems and eventually find their way into the ground water.

Water recycled at sewage treatment plants is not always purged of contaminants before it is discharged into rivers or lakes. And certain medications such as cholesterol medications, tranquilizers, and anti-seizure medications are resistant to wastewater treatment. Nor are sewage treatment facilities rigged up to remove pharmaceutical compounds.

Only reverse osmosis systems – systems in which the water, but not pollutants, pass through a special membrane – reliably remove drug residues from wastewater, but such systems are expensive to operate and are not yet in common use by both large and small municipal treatment facilities.

Prescriptions also get into our water because we use our toilets as waste cans. Doctors write nearly four billion prescriptions each year, and we throw a lot of unfinished ones in the toilet where they find their way into the water table or the above-ground water supplies. Or we throw them into the garbage, which winds up in landfills, a major source of ground water contamination.

Federal scientists who studied aquifers (the layers of earth that hold water) in more than 20 states detected ground water contamination by drugs. They examined ground water supplies near sources of contamination, including animal feed lots and landfills. Around 40% of the nation’s water comes from these deep aquifers. Even New York City, famous for having some of the highest quality tap water in the country, has detected pharmaceuticals in its supply. Drawn from reservoirs high in the Catskill Mountains, New York’s water – 1.1 billion gallons piped to the city each day – contains small amounts of more than 15 drugs, including pain killers, antibiotics, blood pressure medicines, hormones for menopause, and caffeine, or their byproducts.

Even bottled water doesn’t have a clean record. Your pricey bottle of spring water may have been filled from a municipal water tap or drawn from an aquifer without sufficient filtering. And most bottlers don’t test for pharmaceuticals anyway.

Home filtration systems may not be much better, although reverse osmosis systems may be effective. But other kinds of filters attached to kitchen faucets are not designed to eliminate pharmaceutical residues. More than 100 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in streams, lakes, and rivers around the world, including Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Many countries are stepping up surveillance and initiating studies to examine the potential long-term consequences.

The pharmaceutical industry believes that the presence of drugs in the water supply does not pose a threat to human health. Some human cell research has associated changes in rates of cell growth with exposure to low doses of drugs. Most of the laboratory research has been on animals; determining its effect on humans is difficult. The evidence that drugs in our tap water have ill effects remains inconclusive.

In order to prevent ground water contamination from landfills, many communities in the United States, as well as the European Union, Canada, and Australia are establishing locations such as drugstores and police departments where you can dispose of medications. Local campaigns are also encouraging pharmacies, hospitals, nursing homes, and citizens to dispose of their unused medications properly. The collection programs also hope to reduce drugs available for diversion, theft, or accidental poisoning. Several states, cities, and counties have successful long-term pharmaceutical collection programs, while others hold only annual or single-day collection events. Most include regulated hazardous-waste incineration programs complete with emissions controls. To find a program near you, check with your pharmacy, hospital, or department of health.

You drink it. You bathe in it. But according to a recent study, that tap water you trust implicitly could be tinged with a variety of meds you probably don’t have – or want – a prescription for. And it doesn’t end at the faucet; that pure-looking bottle of drinking water in your fridge might also be hiding dozens of pharmaceutical drugs. Water polluted by pharmaceuticals has already had harmful effects on wild animals. Is it possible that drugs in your tap water can harm you, too?
 
A five-month long inquiry by the Associated Press found that millions of Americans may be drinking a variety of medicines such as sex hormones, antibiotics, cardiac drugs, pain medication, anti-convulsants, and others along with their tap water. Federal and state drinking water databases, scientists, public officials, and dozens of large and small water providers all agree: The nation’s water supply is drugged-up. But don’t start boiling your water just yet. Super-sophisticated instruments were needed to detect even the tiniest bit of contamination. The level of pollution in just one liter of water was so small, it had to be measured in parts per trillion. To give you a better idea of how minuscule the measurement is, consider this: One-trillionth of a liter is the equivalent of one drop of water in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools. In short, the levels are far below those you get when you take a daily dose of meds. And the chemicals are often not the original compound but byproducts of the original drug, further reducing any potential risk.
 
Why Is This Happening?
More alarming is the vehicle in which these contaminants reach the water supply, primarily the toilet. Human and animal excrement can contain small traces of any medications consumed or injected in the body, often manifested into byproducts of the original drug. These byproducts accumulate in septic systems and eventually find their way into the ground water.
Water recycled at sewage treatment plants is not always purged of contaminants before it is discharged into rivers or lakes. And certain medications such as cholesterol medications, tranquilizers, and anti-seizure medications are resistant to wastewater treatment. Nor are sewage treatment facilities rigged up to remove pharmaceutical compounds.
Only reverse osmosis systems – systems in which the water, but not pollutants, pass through a special membrane – reliably remove drug residues from wastewater, but such systems are expensive to operate and are not yet in common use by both large and small municipal treatment facilities.
Prescriptions also get into our water because we use our toilets as waste cans. Doctors write nearly four billion prescriptions each year, and we throw a lot of unfinished ones in the toilet where they find their way into the water table or the above-ground water supplies. Or we throw them into the garbage, which winds up in landfills, a major source of ground water contamination.
 
How Serious Is the Problem?
Federal scientists who studied aquifers (the layers of earth that hold water) in more than 20 states detected ground water contamination by drugs. They examined ground water supplies near sources of contamination, including animal feed lots and landfills. Around 40% of the nation’s water comes from these deep aquifers. Even New York City, famous for having some of the highest quality tap water in the country, has detected pharmaceuticals in its supply. Drawn from reservoirs high in the Catskill Mountains, New York’s water – 1.1 billion gallons piped to the city each day – contains small amounts of more than 15 drugs, including pain killers, antibiotics, blood pressure medicines, hormones for menopause, and caffeine, or their byproducts.
Even bottled water doesn’t have a clean record. Your pricey bottle of spring water may have been filled from a municipal water tap or drawn from an aquifer without sufficient filtering. And most bottlers don’t test for pharmaceuticals anyway.
Home filtration systems may not be much better, although reverse osmosis systems may be effective. But other kinds of filters attached to kitchen faucets are not designed to eliminate pharmaceutical residues. More than 100 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in streams, lakes, and rivers around the world, including Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Many countries are stepping up surveillance and initiating studies to examine the potential long-term consequences.
The pharmaceutical industry believes that the presence of drugs in the water supply does not pose a threat to human health. Some human cell research has associated changes in rates of cell growth with exposure to low doses of drugs. Most of the laboratory research has been on animals; determining its effect on humans is difficult. The evidence that drugs in our tap water have ill effects remains inconclusive.
 
Actions You Can Take
In order to prevent ground water contamination from landfills, many communities in the United States, as well as the European Union, Canada, and Australia are establishing locations such as drugstores and police departments where you can dispose of medications. Local campaigns are also encouraging pharmacies, hospitals, nursing homes, and citizens to dispose of their unused medications properly. The collection programs also hope to reduce drugs available for diversion, theft, or accidental poisoning. Several states, cities, and counties have successful long-term pharmaceutical collection programs, while others hold only annual or single-day collection events. Most include regulated hazardous-waste incineration programs complete with emissions controls. To find a program near you, check with your pharmacy, hospital, or department of health.

According to a recent study, that tap water you trust implicitly could be tinged with a variety of meds you probably don’t have – or want – a prescription for.

Meds that might be hiding in your drinking water

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