Frenzy: The December Holidays Issue

After a lot of hard work, we released our third issue of Frenzy: December Holidays yesterday.

You can also see our entire magazine on Frenzoo or on Issuu.

We had a lot of contributors this month. LdyDth assembled the Helpful Tips pages and the Newbie page and FrenzOoops for Vera, who was unfortunately absent this month. Pinknife did a beautiful job on our first central topic fashion spread ever.  We were even able to include the "under 100 coins" page suggested by lo_specchio. Brielladream created a useful creator tutorial. Ninjaboy continued to support the magazine by writing not just one, but two articles. Kudos to his Noob Day article, which highlights a holiday only a true gamer would know.

Chrissy Wai, provided the first ever celebrity fashion article. Her beautifully written piece makes me want to go Christmas shopping for myself. Zuzuboogaliboo and Sunkiss contributed a poem about fashion, while Kitten Disaster displayed some very cute images in our FrenzArt topic.

A special thanks to Sudoku-puzzles.net, a site that offers free sudoku puzzles for magazines, newspapers, educators, and more. If you are looking for a trivia puzzle, check them out.

The Frenzy magazine team donated their effort and time into their wonderful pages. We added a new official magazine member this month. Skittles (xoxskittlesxox) offered her graphic talents and wonderful ideas. Check out her new section, Fashion Culture, which features fashion from all over the world.

A job well-done everyone! A big thanks to the entire Frenzy team and contributors.

Is you are interested in contributing, please PM me on Frenzoo. You can find my profile here.

Building a community magazine is an amazing process to watch. Our first issue was small, without too much diversity in topics. Not a lot of people were interested enough to volunteer and contribute. The next issue presented more excitement. Our December Holidays issue is even better. The growth process is gradual, but each issue is an improvement. I hope we can continue to grow and include quality content in our magazine.

Our new magazine schedule is to thanks for this issue's improvements. Doing monthly, rather than bi-weekly, issues really helps. We can thoroughly brainstorm with enough time to create each page. No rush = better magazine. Especially because our contributors are full-time students or workers with families.

I am visiting my family in Las Vegas for Christmas, myself. It made the editing process a little more interesting than usual. I was creating pages in the airport and on the airplane, where the lack of leg room quickly became a nuisance for my easily bothered knee. Nonetheless, the pages were done on time.  Admittedly, I was a tad behind on releasing the magazine. I wanted to have it live by 3:00 PM HKT (Hong Kong Time). However, that seemed impossible between being with my family for Holiday rituals, learning how to use a Mac, and my overly cautious editing approach.

A few spelling errors plagues the last two issues like horrendous cankers. Thankfully, the wonderful found of Frenzoo, Simon, pointed out these discrepancies. I can always count on him for constructive criticism and support. I implemented new methods to avoid more spelling and grammatical mistakes. First, I promoted Silentbutterflies to official proofreader. At only 15, she is a wonderful writer and editor. Not to mention, it always helps to have an extra pair of eyes. Secondly, I amended my own editing method. Instead of reading the word, I go through every letter and read passages out loud in search of every awkward phrase or grammatical error.

The end result? Just look at my chat log with Simon:

Miidasu: So did you see any errors in the mag?

simon_is_yeti: I didn't

simon_is_yeti: :)

My heart was happy.

There are probably still grammatical errors lurking amongst the letters of the magazine. Still, the lack spelling errors is a satisfying step.

Now that the December Holidays issue is finished, it is time to work on the January 20^th issue. The Frenzy team is already throwing excellent theme ideas around.

And the cycle continues…

Mission: January 20^th Magazine Team

If you want to give any feedback on this issue, click here. If you have any suggestions for the next issue, then post them in our Suggestions topic.

Introduction

Hello World!

This is the first blog I've ever really done. I don't really know how blogging works, but I'm sure I'll catch on eventually.

This is entirely dedicated to the efforts of the Frenzy Magazine Team. Frenzy is a community made magazine for Frenzoo, a virtual, 3D community.

How did I get involved with Frenzy magazine? Here is my verbose explanation:

I’m a newb when it comes to the metaverse. I am one of those stubborn people who have been avoiding immersion into virtual reality. Myspace? Facebook? Twitter? No way. Second Life? IMVU? You mean I have to figure out all of that cyber technology stuff?

I did play WoW for a few days. I actually liked it, but it was frightening to see my brother completely enamored with it. He came home from work and played WoW until 4 in the morning. He woke up at 6:00 AM to get ready for work. He came home...You can see where this is going. It was obviously addicting. Because I have an addictive personality, I decided it would be best to stay away from WoW, for the sake of my college GPA.

Now I’m not in college anymore! Yay!

I have my Bachelor’s in Anthropology. In this economy - you can bet I don’t have a job. I can’t even rely on my clerical skills to get a position. So, while job searching, I have been sitting on my ass enjoying virtual worlds. Now, I'm addicted to the Sims 3 and Sims Societies, and giving Second Life and IMVU a try.

I’m more of a Real Time Strategy game player myself. Being a History Buff, I enjoy games like Age of Empires and Sid Meir’s Civilization. I always though that games like the Sims would rot my brain. Then I tried it.

I was right, it has rotted my brain. But at least it’s fun! Not to mention, the distraction from daily life is worthwhile.

There is one world I decided to join a while ago. As expected, I became incredibly addicted. Frenzoo is an up and coming 3D chat and 3D avatar world that has some promising features. My favorite, the reason I joined actually, is the create tool. It basically let's you make your own clothing. No need for photoshop experience, or paying for VIP status (although you can for the option of having a shop and more advanced create options). I can make my own clothes, for free, all bundled in a simple creating tool.

For the past few years, I have been watching America’s Next Top Model.

I know! How could I?!

I’m not interested in modeling, or even fashion. I am interested in photography, though, and I love watching the photo shoots. As I watched it more, I became more and more interested in fashion. And this is how I became so addicted to Frenzoo’s create tool! I had come up with all these designs in my head. Surprisingly, I'm pretty good at the designing part. Now if I could only sew....

With Frenzoo, I can finally bring out my designing ideas.

My Virtual Self

I have been a member for almost a year now. One fateful night, someone asked me if I would be interested in running the community magazine. This was about four months after I graduated. By that time, unemployment depression was hitting me hard. I was feeling useless not doing anything AND mooching off of my poor, saint of a boyfriend. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity.

Editing a magazine? Not sitting on my ass all day wafting in self-pity? Of course!

So this is how I became an editor for Frenzy Magazine. I coordinate the efforts of a very talented, international group of contributors. It’s completely community made, and it is all volunteer work. No one is getting paid for their efforts. So it’s pretty astounding that we are able to do this project. Especially since most everyone who is involved has full-time jobs, are in school, and have families. Except me…I’m still mooching off my boyfriend.

If you want to see our magazine, check us out at Issuu.