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Steve’s Update 6/5/2017

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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 the audience – and you’ll notice it’s now Monday.  This is because yes, the week starts Sunday but those updates kind of invited me to move more week stuff into my weekend.  So now updates are Monday..

And now on to what’s up!

What’s Up For The June Sprint?

  • First, Way With Worlds Minibook #1 will drop eom.
  • Speaking at Hydra Comic Con.
  • Finishing the full plot outline and writing the first chapter of “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet” hopefully.
  • Donating some books to libraries.
  • A few social events.

So what have I done the last week?

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #5:  Got behind on this, trying to get back to it.  I think I’m kinda of tired writing these, so maybe book #6 just needs to be done in one go.
  • Social: Finished up Fanime.
  • Her Eternal Moonlight: The sale completed!
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” I think I’m back on track.  I’ve got an expanded plot outline done more or less on time.

What am I going to do this week:

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #5:  Try to, well . . . write for it.
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” I’m going to finish up the full plot outline – scene for scene – this weekend.  This is the big one.  If I can get this to work I’m ready to write.  Not 100% sure I’ll do it, but let’s give it a shot!
  • Writing: More blog posts – now alternating my agile findings and my writing experiences.

Challenges and blockers:

  • My allergies are back, so we’ll see how bad that hits me.
  • I realized I’ve not done any new generators – I might shift some priorities to do a fun one.

– Steve

A Writer’s View: A May Roundup

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

I figure with all the writing I do and have planned, it’d be fun, educational, and good experience to reguarly share my findings on writing.  So . . . I am.  Probably about once a week or so I’ll spew forth the latest seltzer water of wisdom I happen to have handy.

Right now most of these insights come from my first public fiction project, “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet.”  I’ve written fiction a lot before, have edited, have consulted, but figured it was time to return to fiction in style – with a novel.  Short summary: science fiction/fantasy fusion combination of road-trip and religious pilgrimage goes dreadfully wrong.

So the insights to share for May – any one of these might become a later column.

  • Agile works really well for writing – the mindset and the methods.
  • Writing is about loops, finding cycles and patterns in your story.  Because of this plotting one idea may lead to changes, expansions, or new ideas.
  • Never assume anything in your story is “true” until it’s written – discovery is part of the process.
  • Look for Congruence – when things “feel” right.  You want this on all levels of your work, and before you move on from one thing (say from a character idea to a character outline) make sure things “feel” right.
  • Your inner voice is probably right.  The voice that comes after that voice and points out all its flaws is probably less reliable.
  • When plotting, your story may become “timey-wimey” – ideas later on may influence earlier sections.  That’s fine.
  • Characters are the true measure of your world and writing – knowing them means you know your world and story.
  • Characters are a great way to discover your world – designing them makes you ask specific questions you may have missed.
  • Think of your audience – keep them in mind in your writing, what you say, what you deliver.
  • Enthusiasm beats self-loathing for a writer every time. Better to succeed by creating better than tearing down.
  • Beware “Big Rock” ideas that you’re so committed too they drag the story and other ideas down.
  • Don’t “commit” too early to ideas, concepts, or scenes.
  • A small change may quickly scale up and affect your story.
  • Give yourself a place to record ideas without commuting to them.
  • Start over as early as possible so you don’t have to later.  My restarting the plotting cost me 4-6 weeks, but I can’t imagine what’d have cost me if I’d rammed through with my lame initial plot.

Hope these give you something to think about!
– Steve

My Agile Life: Breaking It Down So It Works Together

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

(My continuing “Agile Life” column, where I use Scrum for a more life).

One of the challenges of doing any work is that things we want to get done can conflict with each other, are hard to schedule, can only be done at certain times, etc. That makes anything, from delivering software to my own attempts to organize my life a bit more challenging.

What I found is that when you figure out the things you want to do – the stories and tasks – don’t just design them or break them down in a vacuum. Design them so they’re as easy to do as possible, hard to block or disrupt, and of a size where you can have a good chance to complete them in a reasonable time. This way you can maximize value, deliver quicker, and be disrupted less – and even when you are disrupted, you can switch priorities easier.

Here’s a few examples:

  • You’ve got to buy gifts for Christmas. You could have a simple Story “buy gifts” and “order for everyone on the list” but there’s a lot that could go wrong – lack of gifts, delays, a need for research, and that’s one big block-of-work. If you make a task for each person you can do them in order in one go – but if there’s any delays or unavailable items, you can take care of some of the orders a different way. This lets you timeshift or adapt (and is good policy).
  • You’ve got a massive art project to do. You prefer to do it in one 8 hour go, and you really can’t subdivide it without losing your mojo. You make sure your other tasks are broken down so you can easily fit them around the needed 8 hour block, and get the important stuff done early. (By the way, in my experience the Big Block does not always work, so be careful)
  • You plan to deliver a book chapter for a technical manual to an editor. It’s going to be a hefty chapter and require some research. You decide to make each section its own story.  This allows you to adapt (by doing them out of order), get them to the editor quicker (thus avoiding lots of WIP), and gives you a good sense of organization.

A rule I found helps is this: break down stories so that they don’t just deliver value, but require as few tasks as possible, and those tasks are as small as you can reasonably make them.

This will mean more stories, but stick with me here.

Stories deliver value. If you can break down stories into the smallest chunk of actual value, then you can deliver (and evaluate) that value faster. In turn because you are working on smaller pieces, you can shift them around, scheduled them, deal with interruptions by working on something else, etc. This also lets you focus better – and change focus if needed.

So if you’ve got lots of small stories, it’s probably a good sign. Sure there may be some big ones, but if a lot are small then you can move them around while you deal with the big ones.
– Steve