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Steve’s Update 4/13/2021

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Here’s what’s up with me!

A School of Many Futures is going great. I’ve managed to combine two chapters to really ramp up the sense of mystery and accelerate the story. Still good to pre-read start of May, so get ready!

Look for more from the Way With Worlds in May or June. The Natural Disasters book is outlined, so I can write it in May as a break. June is a good time for a release – and you may see some new cover designs!

The Seventh Sanctum rewrite continues. I’ve managed to find a way to streamline some code for generators with certain options that will, hopefully, save time.

To help you see what my overall plans are, check out the new Roadmap – https://www.stevensavage.com/roadmap

Steven Savage

Why I Wrote It: Organizations and Worldbuilding

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Ever heard of “the book you were meant to write?” Organizations and Worldbuilding is one of those books for me. It’s a book on how to write fictional organizations, and it exists due to two personal

I am an organizer by nature and by profession. I was always organized in my youth, always with a plan or something to do. I became a Project Manager, then an Agilist. Now, I not only manage, but I also speak and write on organization.

However, when you’re naturally organized and trained in organization, you see flaws. I’m used to seeing deficiencies in processes, institutions, and teams. That’s how I help people get better at what they want to do.

I also write on worldbuilding, and you can imagine what it’s like when I turn my gaze on fictional organizations. I see flaws in fictional organizations – not appropriate problems, but ones where they’re not believable.

My job is to help organizations and teams run because that’s simply not everyone’s specialty. In turn, that means people writing fictional organizations may need some help. So I figured, “hey, time to write another book.”

I used my specialty.

It’s not like there aren’t other organization-related tips in other worldbuilding guides. Guides to political structures, discussion of genres, etc. all touch on organization. My goal was to create a general guide for worldbuilders making fictional governments, companies, etc. Something to cover those not-specific but oh-so-important questions like “how the heck do these people communicate.”

It’s another one I’m happy with, but it has a special place in my heart – it’s uniquely mine. Perhaps I’ll revisit it, do a sequel, or expand it, but it’s doing its job for now.

Steven Savage

Those Old, Unfamiliar Places

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

To keep my sanity during the Pandemic, I take a drive to see places I used to go before COVID-19. I go past apartments I used to live in, stores I used to frequent, or parks I liked to hang out at. These drives remind me of what went on before and what can again.

If a place is safely outdoors, I may even take a walk. Vaccinated, double-masked, avoiding people, I pass silently through places I miss. If an area looks to be filled with people, or if I see reckless behavior, I avoid it. It hurts to avoid places I loved.

It also hurts me that so much has changed in a year or three.

Stores I knew are gone. Apartments have sprouted up in places I’ve never seen. New shops have opened with hope and caution. I’m passing through a world I know that is totally alien to me.

What happened? What is this place? Who are these people? Where did this place go? I want to know what happened, I crave the story of the year gone.

A joke passed among my anime-loving friends is that when we finally have conventions, it’ll be like an Anime Timeskip. Everyone will have aged a few years, everyone will be different. The metaphor is funny, but it also acknowledges there will be stories of what happened. There will be a narrative because we can talk and because we kept in touch as best we could.

The empty buildings and new places where I used to go tell no stories. I didn’t witness their shutting down or going up. I wasn’t able to say goodbye or hello. They’re tales I can’t grasp quickly, and seeking them may be risky.

I feel a gap in the way the landscape of my life changed. People need narratives, we need to understand why something is and what happened. We are also creatures of place and context, from a comfy den to a favorite coffee shop. But places and their tales are different after the Pandemic, and there are holes in the story.

So I pass by and through these old, unfamiliar places. I want to know, I want to understand, I want to connect. I cannot.

I am a masked a ghost haunted by the new things and dead years.

Steven Savage