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Steve’s Update 6/26/2017

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

It’s my weekly Scrum style standup for my audience.  I also am going to try to focus a bit more on what it delivers to you.

So what have I done the last week?

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #1: This is now queued for publication!  So you’ll be getting it ready very shortly!  I also need reviewers.
  • Way With Worlds Minibook #6: Writing but frankly – not enjoying it.  I’ve got more on that below.
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” I kid you not, Chapter #1 is in draft form and I’m editing it now.  I’ll be looking for prereaders in a few days!  So hit me up!
  • Blogging: Queued up a new blog post for tomorrow on Agile methods.
  • Other: Not much else to be blunt, lots of chores and catchup and a few other things.

What am I going to do this week:

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #1: I’m going to get that out this week.  I’ll post alerts of course and will be letting people know via my newsletter and usual posts.
  • Way With Worlds Minibook #6:  See below.
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” Get Chapter #1 to being editable.  Then I’ll make it available!
  • Writing: I have one or two more posts to do on writing.  I am in a regular cadence here.
  • Sprint Planning: Time to plan the sprint for July!

Challenges:

  • Some friends are moving, and though I now don’t think it’ll take any time, I don’t know.
  • As of Way With Worlds Minibook #6 I am actually kind of tired of writing these.  I may take a break this month to regroup as it doesn’t have to be finished for awhile.  I’ve written five of these over the years already!  I may poke at it now and then but it’s not scheduled – it’s a stretch goal.

– Steve

Civic Geek: Whew, here we are!

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Man I haven’t done one of these in awhile!  I’ve scheduled myself to do one a month though.  If you fell off this series, this is where I blog on civic geekery.

Let’s make this more of a catch up.

What am I doing?

  1. I am helping with a country political group.  I’ve been doing this for awhile, running social media.  Most of it is posting links and events, but it does keep people informed – and when elections are around they promise I’ll get busy.  A bit boring, but it keeps me in the midst of events and hard politics.
  2. I print a list weekly of what I want to call my reps on (boy are they gonna get an earful on the California Health Care bill).  Then I kinda do it.  That’s federal, state, AND local.  Bug them all people.
  3. As part of #1 and #2 I also keep on the news, having alerts for all my representatives.
  4. As part of #1 and #2 I follow the news through various forms – Twitter and a newsfeed – as well.
  5. I go to a regular monthly activism meetup that also has regular advice what to do.

I’ve not done as well as I wanted in late May and June, bluntly, as I’ve gotten real busy.  But the regular reminders I set up help and help me stay active.

The only thing I don’t feel is as connected as I’d like.  It’s probably as I’m comparing political involvement to, say, daily work or my professional associations.  So I’m always on the lookout for what more I can do.

A very, very important thing to do here is have that regular weekly plan.  I print it out and check it off every week.

Also don’t knock the power of the various sites that tell you what activism you can do like 5calls.  As you get active you learn ways to be a more engaged citizen.

And now a few findings

  1. When you call representatives, politeness goes a long way.  If they’ve disappointed you, feel free to be civil but with an edge.  I find representatives that are “gone rogue” respond to that.
  2. It really, really helps to meet with people.  I find the less I meet with people the less involved I feel.
  3. You have to keep trying out other groups and organizations to really know what’s going on.
  4. A lot of people do NOT know how government works – probably including you.
  5. I know a lot of people who were in military service, and as I talk to reps I see how many people just keep the country running.  When you see how many people are in the serivce, the government, security, etc. it can kind of make you feel inadequate.

(Oh and if you need some other creative boosts, check out my book on Creative Paths!)

– Steve

A Writer’s View: Plotting, Pantsing, And Agile

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

So this week I finished the plot outline of my book. I’ve been expanding it iteratively, from one-sentence summaries to full character profiles, based on the Snowflake method. The method itself works great with Agile – and brings up a very important point about writing.

Writing, it is said, is often divided into “pantsers” (seat-of-my-pants writers) and “plotters (organized writers like yours truly). As a plotter, I’d like to note that you do end up “pantsing” anyway, just on a finer-grained level. At some point in writing you can only plan so much before you have to write – it’s a matter of degree.

This truth can frustrate some plotters, because you can only define so much before there’s nothing left to do. Your ideas may be totally wrong, your plan may be horrible, your plot awful – but you won’t know until you start writing.

This is the same thing one faces in software, where Agile methods continue to hold more and more sway – you can only design so much before you have to write code to see if it works. It’s the same with writing.

So now that I have a plot, how will I confront my inevitable discovery of all my horrible mistakes?

First, I won’t be afraid. As I like to note, Eat Your Failure.

Secondly, I plan to do reviews:

  1. I will write a chapter at a time and share it with people for feedback.
  2. I will review my full plot outline every chapter completed to make notes and see what changed or what I want to modify or what I want to add.

I know my plot outline (all 8 pages in a spreadsheet) is only so good. But it’s good enough to get moving with an idea of where I’m going, and good enough to improve when I find mistakes or get new ideas. It also is stable enough that it probably won’t fall apart and deep enough it’s not shallow.

Two notes:

  1. I have trouble seeing how “pantsing” can work for complex stories, but perhaps I have something to learn there, no? Maybe I should “pants” a short story sometime.
  2. Based on my own experiences and what I’ve seen in the market you can in theory plot a novel pretty finely, and its very easy if you’re using tropes or taking a “light” approach. Not sure how good it’d be, but it seems doable.So what have you found?

(Oh and if you need some other creative boosts, check out my book on Creative Paths!)

– Steve