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Steve’s Books: 9/8/2020

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I write a lot and have quite a few books.  So now and then I’m going to post a roundup of them for interested parties!

My sites:

Fiction

I’ve been returning to fiction with a techno-fantasy setting of several planets orbiting a star called Avenoth.  Take a typical fantasy world of magic and gods, and let it evolve into the space age and internet age . . .

  • A Bridge To The Quiet Planet – Two future teachers of Techno-Magical safety find trying to earn their credentials hunting odd artifacts backfires when you’re hired to put some back . . . on a planet where gods go to die!

The Way With Worlds Series

This is what I do a lot of – writing on worldbuilding!.  You can find all of my books at www.WayWithWorlds.com! 

The core books of the series will help you get going:

  • Way With Worlds Book 1 – Discusses my philosophy of worldbuilding and world creation essentials.
  • Way With Worlds Book 2 – Looks at common subjects of worldbuilding like conflicts in your setting, skills for being a good worldbuilder, and more!

When you need to focus on specifics of worldbuilding, I have an ever-growing series of deep dive minibooks.  Each provides fifty questions with additional exercises and ideas to help you focus on one subject important to you!

The current subjects are:

Creativity

I’m the kind of person that studies how creativity works, and I’ve distilled my findings and advice into some helpful books!

  • The Power Of Creative Paths – Explores my theories of the Five Types of Creativity, how you can find yours, and how to expand your creative skills to use more Types of Creativity.
  • Agile Creativity – I take the Agile Manifesto, a guide to adaptable project development, and show how it can help creatives improve their work – and stay organized without being overwhelmed.
  • The Art of The Brainstorm Book – A quick guide to using a simple notebook to improve brainstorming, reduce the stress around having new ideas, and prioritize your latest inspirations.
  • Chance’s Muse – I take everything I learned at Seventh Sanctum and my love of random tables and charts and detail how randomness can produce inspiration!

Careers

Being a “Professional Geek” is what I do – I turned my interests into a career and have been doing my best to turn that into advice.  The following books are my ways of helping out!

  • Fan To Pro – My “flagship” book on using hobbies and interests in your career – and not always in ways you’d think!
  • Skill Portability – A quick guide to how to move skills from one job to another, or even from hobbies into your job.  Try out my “DARE” system and asses your abilities!
  • Resume Plus – A guide to jazzing up a resume, sometimes to extreme measures.
  • Epic Resume Go! – Make a resume a creative act so it’s both better and more enjoyable to make!
  • Quest For Employment – Where I distill down my job search experiences and ways to take the search further.
  • Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers – An interview-driven book about ways to leverage cosplay interests to help your career!
  • Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers – My second interview-driven book about ways to leverage fanart to help your career!
  • Convention Career Connection – A system for coming up with good career panels for conventions!

Culture

  • Her Eternal Moonlight – My co-author Bonnie and I analyze the impact Sailor Moon had on women’s lives when it first came to North America.  Based on a series of interviews, there’s a lot to analyze here, and surprisingly consistent themes . . .

Steve’s Work From Home Findings: The Dam Bursts

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

I’ve been writing about Work From Home (WFH) a lot lately. You see a post here a week as I discuss my thoughts and findings. But it’s not just here I’m talking about it.

It’s a subject at work because, you know, pandemic.

It’s a subject among friends, as we’re almost all working from home.

It’s a subject at home as my girlfriend is dealing with it too.

And I realized I, the geek job guru, the WFH advocate, am tired of talking about working from home. It’s all over, it’s everywhere, it’s exhausting. So why am I not thrilled we’re discussing it?

We first of all, there’s the entire damn pandemic. It’s a pretty awful time to discuss it, as well as all the other awful stuff in the world.

But I realized it’s because it’s like a damn bursting, it’s an overload. Suddenly, because of the pandemic, we’re having to cope with WFH fast.

So now suddenly all our years of theories and ideas and experience are compressed into less than a year.

So now all of our repressed desires to discuss it erupt out.

So now we’ve got to adapt so fast and so quickly it’s hard.

The dam has burst. Years of tweaking WFH, or maybe talking about it, of doing a little bit weren’t enough. So here we are in a disaster we could be ready for, adapting fast, applying lessons from decades in a year, and going “I told you so” a lot.

There’s a lesson in this.

Look, by my best estimates we’re stuck doing this until March 2021, probably July. We’re then going to deal with a world post-pandemic, with vaccines and new protocols and the like. We’re going to be worn and tired.

In this time, its important we apply these lessons, but also to go easy on ourselves. Because this is not just a hard time, we’re overwhelmed with all the stuff we have to do for WFH, and we’re tired.

So apply the lessons, but apply the vital ones first.

Use the techniques we have, but don’t beat yourself up over doing them perfectly.

Move to WFH, but understand people can’t do everything and times are tough, and it’s not perfect.

Finally, accept that during a freaking pandemic none of us are at 100%. Hell, some of us are operating at 120% and we’d like to slow down.

The dam burst. All our ideas and maybes about WFH exploded into life fast because we had to use them, during a disaster. Go easy on yourself and on everyone.

It’s not like we’re going anywhere, sadly.

Steven Savage

Podcast Dreams

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

Yes, I’m thinking of a podcast. No, don’t panic, this isn’t something related entirely to the Pandemic or being a Dude With Opinions. It’s something I’ve been considering since before the Pandemic hit.

(The Pandemic HAS made me more desperate for human contact, so won’t lie, it plays into it).

So anyway, my idea would be to start a podcast that I do every week or every other week depending on my plans. This would replace one of my usual blog posts probably. Yes I’ve got a subject in mind, but I’m refinining it let’s say.

As noted, I’d been considering this for awhile. When I finally sat down and thought about it, I saw a lot of advantages to podcasts. So I wanted to share.

EASE OF ACCESS: I listen to podcasts when I drive, work out, walk, etc. It’s a way to give people something they can access and enjoy more easily.

PERSONAL: Look I love writing, as can be noticed from a large growing library. But there’s something about a Podcast that just connects you with people!

FORMAT: A podcast is a different format than writing – and as I do public speaking, it’d be fun to try it out.

SKILLS: Making a podcast also intrigues me as I’ll learn new things! Sound control, mic tech, etc.

ACCESSIBLE: Podcasts have so many ways for people to access them! It would let me connect more people. Speaking of . . .

CONNECTION: Yes, this is part of it. To reach people more personally. To team up in podcasts. This would be really nice to try.

So anyway that’s what’s crossing my mind right now. The current plan is to try to develop a proposal, run it by a few people, and probably try it somewhere October-November (when the novel goes to the editor).

Steven Savage