Avatar photoSteven Savage

My Book Roundup 3/3/2020

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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 Update 3/1/2020

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Hey everyone let’s catch up on my projects!

So what have I done since last time?

  • A Giveaway:  I’m part of a giveaway of previews and entire books, and it focuses on interesting settings.  Check it out: https://claims.prolificworks.com/gg/o6UoQcWfmCQ8B0MR1eBM
  • Way With Worlds: I’ve started work on the Conspiracies and Secrets book, but got some delays due to a scrambled schedule.  It’s still in progress however.
  • A School Of Many Futures: I rewrote the first three chapters and outlined the book with the intent of re-organizing it.  It isn’t what I wanted, but it is a complete book, and has some great evolution – I’m really pleased with the deeper views of Reverend Beacon and Scintilla.
  • Seventh Sanctum: A friend helped me with the python coding, and I’m now designing the data structures for advanced generators.  Python is powerful, but having to learn new ways of organizing data is a challenge.
  • Bathroom Floor: The bathroom floor I groused about is fixed.  Thank goodness.  If you’re in the Bay Area I got a good flooring person for you.

What’s next?

  • Way With Worlds: Back to the Conspiracies and Secrets book with gusto!  It’s time to get back to my “regularly writing questions” approach.
  • A School Of Many Futures: I’m going to re-outline the book.  I’ll say even now I’ve got a better idea of how I want it to go and it’s going to lead to some intense stuff.  This is a techno-magical world, and The War left so much hidden and forgotten, including people . . .
  • Seventh Sanctum: Working to map out the advanced generator using the code a Python expert helped me with.  If I can get the data structure read, then I can work out the generator – and this means I’ll have figured out how to move my generators to Python.
  • More: I definitely put “Agile Darkside” on hold until a few months from now so I can focus.  I may also have a few potential half-written books I may finish for a lark that would be mentally easier in these busy times.

Steven Savage

Spread The Fun

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

I’ve written in praise of fun many times. Fun liberates, fun soothes, fun inspires, fun explores. Fun is a great thing, and I am totally behind it.

We also need fun as human beings. It can connect us to each other. Notice how we share fun, even if it’s just discussing cool things with each other?

So I want to encourage you to share fun with others. Buy people games and books that you enjoyed. Purchase art for them that fits their passions. Have viewing parties of great movies or television. You don’t even have to like what you share – as long as your loved ones enjoy it.

Spread the fun.

Now, why would you do this? I’d like to leave this “as is,” but analyzing it also helps us understand the value and think of better ways to do it.

Here’s why you spread the fun.

It makes people happy. That’s the obvious one, but it’s worth repeating. The world needs happiness and joy, and just one gift can make a different.

It connects you to people. A gift that brings joy connects you with the receiver. It’s a way to be closer to someone. We all need strong ties.

It teaches you about people. To learn what people enjoy and what they care about is to learn about them specifically and people in general. Giving the gift of fun teaches you deep things about people.

It exposes you to more. Giving gifts of games and shows and such that people enjoy exposes you to their tastes. You might just learn about the world and find new things to try.

It sets an example. Share with someone and they may be inspired to do the same. You become a role model or a source of ideas.

It puts money in the hands of creators. Help support creators with your money when you share fun. This is especially important in supporting innovative, small, interesting, and radical makers, writers, and more.

So the world needs more fun and more joy. One small gift can have a cascade effect.

Start spreading the fun.

Steven Savage