Avatar photoSteven Savage

Steve’s Update 1/21/2019

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

Let’s see where all my projects are!

So what have I done since last time?

  • Way With Worlds: The Gods and Deities Book came back from the editor! Also the next book is roughly outlined!
  • A School Of Many Futures: Chapter 11 is being worked on! The ending is a bit chaotic and will take some work, but i’m pretty happy!
  • Seventh Sanctum: My new generator, gemstones is pretty much ready to launch! I also have resumed work on a new codebase for launch nearer years end!

What’s next?

  • Way With Worlds: Edit and hopefully publish the next worldbook!
  • A School Of Many Futures: Keep writing. I might just get the draft done, let’s see!
  • Seventh Sanctum: Launch the new generator!

Steven Savage

Why I Wrote It: Fan To Pro

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

Ah, Fan To Pro. My attempts to give people advice on how to use their fandom in their careers. The first book I wrote — and the first book I rewrote.

Let’s ask just how it came to be, so we can share our stories of why we make books.

Fan To Pro didn’t start as a book. Or sort of did.

Fan To Pro’s origins go back to 2005 and 2006. Several friends and I kept discussing just how much talent there was in fandom. We wondered how we could support people, especially those wanting to use that in their careers. Our solutions were simple: we weren’t sure.

For a while, a friend and I considered a book, but we weren’t sure what to do. How do you take “hey, you could do this for a living” and make a book out of it? It went nowhere.

What did happen was we created a blog, now closed, called Fan To Pro (later MuseHack). This got us into blogging about careers and career news and introduced us to a range of similar people.

At the same time, I called upon my nascent coaching skills and began presenting about careers at conventions. I spoke on general career advice and brainstorming, and the act of speaking helped me mine my knowledge. This was around 2007-2009, after over a decade in my career, and I had a lot to share.

I also was always working on improving myself. I’d go to professional meetups, get training, and read books. I got exposed to the world of coaching and career books, and that led to a realization.

Why not share my geeky career advice from my point of view. Take what I’d learned and seen over the years and collate it into a book. I already had plenty of presentations and experience, after all.

This was an important lesson. I hadn’t realized what I knew or what I could share until I’d tried. Sometimes we don’t know what we know until we share it.

All my friends and family were supportive, so I got down and wrote my book. Also, they were kind of surprised it took me that long to realize my skills.

The first Fan To Pro was kind of mediocre. I mean, there was good advice, but it had an awful cover, some odd formatting, and there were a few things I missed. But I did get the book done, and I had a starting point.

There are some things where you have to do something and move on to see where you are.

But I wasn’t done. After a few years, I realized I had learned a lot, and it was time to rewrite the book. I sat down, got a professional artist, and revised the heck out of it.

The results were much better. I’m proud I wrote the first book, but I’m proud of the second book. I improved the style, added more information, shared my lessons, and organized it better. It was a far better book.

It also felt like I’d “gotten it all out.” I had shared more lessons, gone into more depth, and connected better with the audience. The book feels complete

Will I ever rewrite it again? I don’t know. I wrote it at a time in my life where it feels like a “got” the big picture. As my career continues, as I age, as the economy changes, I worry my more recent experiences are less applicable. Bluntly, I’d be afraid to screw it up.

But who knows – I never thought I’d do a book at one point in my life . . .

Steven Savage

Writing And Metaphor

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

What’s Your Metaphor for writing?

Returning to fiction with my novel, A Bridge To the Quiet Planet and its upcoming sequel, a School of Many Futures, required me to think about writing a lot. Thinking about writing, how to conceive of it, how to pace it, how to develop it helps you, well, write. A metaphor gives you tools to think in and ways to improve.

For nonfiction I think of it in abstract, visual forms. I’m so used to writing it and have for so long that my metaphors are things I see and feel. Perhaps once I had to use more concrete terms, but time makes things unconscious and automatic, and I don’t remember.

But fiction? That was harder because I’d not thought about – and when I was rethinking my writing methods, I realized I was treating fiction as a “physical” thing.

You’ve heard me talk about “Big Rocks” as pieces of fiction and plot. I’ve discussed Agile and stories, but Agile comes from physical manufacturing and store stocking – it often has “physical” ideas built in. I treated stories and chapters as scenes as boxes containing various events.

Did these limit me? Hell yes, because fiction – and indeed a lot of writing – probably isn’t best thought of in physical metaphors. It’s too limiting, too atomistic, too confining.

Now how did I realize this? Because I was analyzing writing (as I always do) and realized how important editing is, and editing requires a product. You make something then improve it.

Writing fiction is like writing computer code.

Computer code is more a living thing, with components and distinct parts, but it works because all its parts come together. It’s about flows of information and functionality. Best of all, as long as you have it working – no matter how awful – you can improve in. In fact, you often have to make bad code to get good code because you don’t know how it’s going to work until you have something.

Seeing this metaphor, this new metaphor, really helped me get over some of my writing challenges. Thinking about the parts of a fictional story as physical started to fade away. I had a way to see things differently.

My metaphor or metaphors may not be yours. Even my more abstract ways of thinking are my ways, not yours. But a challenge to you, my writing friend, is to find what metaphors help you write. What is a good way to compare writing to something else that helps you?

Maybe you have it. Maybe you don’t. Or maybe you just thought of it and have more to explore . . .

Steven Savage