Hello and welcome to DA
So... we're your cousins and we've been on DA for almost 7 years and when we learned that you're also on DA (hope you don't mind me locating you here
) and figured we might as well say hi
If you're looking to meet new people (there are some crazies around here, so be careful) there are a lot of hubs in the
chat where you can talk about a lot of things.
Same goes for the
forum, where you can create a thread that fits one of the topics ranging from jumping on the welcome wagon to help with life, politics, philosophy, etc. In this place you can stumble over a lot of trolls who'll say anything to rile you up (because they get a kick out of it) so best to stick with innocent ones like "Deviants".
Speaking of the DA welcome wagon, there's a group
DAWelcomeWagon who offers a lot of help for people new-ish to DeviantArt. They explain a lot of things, how things work, etc.
Considering groups, those are a great way to get your art seen. In the
groups search, you can look for all kinds of keywords for groups. You can watch them, meaning you get to see everything that's submitted to a group but also by a group. You can also fully join a group, so you can submit your own art there.
It's really easy - on the right side of each of your deviations is a button "add to a group". When you're a member of a group, you can choose that group and which folder it fits best. It then most likely goes through an approval phase, before being accepted.
If you want to write literature - either prose or poetry - it is best to use the big "Submit" button at the top. There, you can enter text, or a pdf file of text, write a desciption so people know the context of your piece of lit, and add tags/ keywords that help people find your piece of lit in the large offering of deviations. Then, below that, you choose the category - literature, and choose from there which fits best.
Right now, your literature is submitted is as a journal - journals are comparable to diaries, little tidbits about life, what's going; the more extensive version of a status update, really.
I'd encourage you to visit my page and look at some of the groups I'm a member of - a lot is aimed at (animal) photography, but there's also a lot of all-acceptance and some literature groups that have been a great help to me as well
Those would be good places to submit your literature to, if you want to share it with the broader community of DA.
I reckon you're not here for the faves, comments and llamas but things like
dAhub and the "llama for a llama trade" might see you get a llama or a favorite but most likely, they won't have seen it.
If you're up for a writing challenge, a lot of groups (and individual deviants) host contests where you can win prizes - CORE membership, points, commissions, etc - which is a great way to share your art as well.
Looking for art like yours, and favoriting and commenting will see more people checking you out as well. Or creating features, where you feature art of others.
I hope you've enjoyed DA so far, and will do so for a lot longer; I hope you don't consider my writing on your wall as too forward and if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them. Though feel free to look for it elsewhere - no pressure
Kindest regards,
Daniëlle (en Marisa)