Creativity

Steve’s Creative Resources 1/30/2020

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I realized I hadn’t published one of these roundups in ages, so here you go – creative resources I’ve found, heard of, and often use!

Art Sources

  • Free
    • Pixabay – A source for art that is free as well as royalty-free. There’s a lot here, and much of it is professional.
    • Unsplash – A source for photos that are free as well as royalty-free. The quality is very high.
  • Royalty Free
    • Canstockphoto – A great source for royalty-free art, photos, and more. Has a subscription system and a pay-more-get-more credit system.
    • Shutterstock – The classic source for royalty-free art, photos, and more. Has both monthly and specific purchases available.
    • The Noun Project – A fee or membership-based site for downloading a huge selection of royalty free icons! Once you pay for it or download it, it’s royalty-free! Useful for all sorts of projects

Book Covers

  • Premade
    • Go On Write – Premade covers for books – pick one that looks right and the artist will change the title and author appropriately. A great bargain, and even has series of covers at discount! Will do custom work to.
  • Services
    • Paper and Sage – A reliable source of both premade and custom book covers.
  • Tools
    • 3D Book Cover Design – Makes 3D Mockups of book covers.
    • Canva – Book cover creator, though you will want to provide your own art if you don’t want to pay for rights to their stock photo. Also has other services.

Book Reviewers

  • Review Sources
    • Midwest book review – Will review books for free, but it’s a matter of choice.
    • Self Publishing Review – A classic paid review service (where a pool of reviewers is available) for books. Not always a guarantee of the best reviews of course, so you take your risks . .
    • The Indie Review – A large, constantly-updated list of indie book reviewers.

Color Tools

  • Collections
    • Color Tools – Plenty of useful online color tools.
    • HTML Color Codes – Useful color tools, with a focus on web-focused colors.
    • Material Palette – Useful tools for desginging palettes, finding icons, and locating specific colors
  • Color Schemes
    • Color At Adobe – A color theme creator that lets you create schemes, or even get one from a picture, and has a powerful interface.
    • Color Calculator – A color scheme creator that also has useful advice and guides.
    • Colormind – A color theme creator that creates schemes with simple clicking, or get one from a photo.
    • Colors at Halfpixel – A simple palette creator (with a mobile option) with intuitive controls.
    • Coolors – A useful and powerful color palette creator that’s easy to use and powerful.
    • Huesnap – A palette repository and creation tool

Contact Management

  • Mailing Lists
    • Mailchimp – Mailchimp may have some restrictions, but it’s the go-to for easy mailing list management, which is perfect for authors and artists. It also integrates well with other tools.
  • Professional
    • LinkedIn – The classic business networking site, and pretty unavoidable for most professionals.

Game Creation

  • General
    • Game Maker Studio – A powerful game creation tool, with free and paid options
    • Unity – A popular, well-supported game creation tool, not only popular, but one with many tutorials available.
  • Interactive Fiction – Graphics
    • Ren’py – A powerful game creation tool with an inclination to visual novels and life-sim, and capable of powerful customization.
  • Interactive Fiction – Text
    • Choicescript – A choice-based game system, both for fun and used commercially.
    • Twine – A web-based Interactive Fiction development tool with multiple options.
  • RPGs
    • RPG Maker – Game creation tools – the original was RPG focused, but the company has also expanded into Visual Novels.

Generators

  • Generator Sites
    • Chaotic Shiniy – A diverse source of generators in a variety of styles.
    • Darkest of Nights – Fantasy-oriented generators.
    • Donjon – Generators for a variety of genres and game systems, some of which provide graphics as well!
    • Dropping-the-form – Generators for various settings.
    • DunGen – A powerful dungeon generation tool!
    • Eposic – Generators – among other imaginative efforts.
    • Fantasy Name Generators – And there are a LOT of them here. About anything you could want, and a few you didn’t know you needed.
    • Feath – Generators of various types, conveniently categorized.
    • Generator Blog – Links out to many other generators.
    • Generatorland – Lots of generators and generator tools.
    • Mithril and mages – Generators for a variety of genres.
    • Name Pistol – Band name generators.
    • RanGen – Random generators, from fantasy to helpful writing tools.
    • Serendipity – A generator site with some setting and name generators.
    • Seventh Sanctum – A gigantic collection of generators founded in 1999, with a focus on writing and RPGs.
    • Springhole.net – A site of generators and other creative tools.
    • Squid.org – Home of a complex name generator with many, many options.
    • The Force – A powerful name generator with multiple options.

Graphics

  • Graphic Tools
    • Art Rage – A painting-oriented digital art program supporting many operating systems, tools, and formats.
    • Clip Studio – A comics, painting, and illustration tool with many options and features
    • Mediabang – A comic and painting application that’s free and multiplatform!
    • Paintstorm – A low-cost digital painting program with many advanced features.
  • Graphic Tools – Free
    • Gimp – Aka The GNU Image Manipulation Program. A free, open source graphic tool that will take care of almost all of your graphic needs (barring a few limits like CYMK conversion and the like).
    • Krita – A free graphic tool focused on professional workflows.
    • Made With Mischief – A quick, free sketching and brainstorming tool.
    • Sketchbook – A free sketching program.
  • Graphic Tools – Painting
    • BlackInk – A painting program, focusing on stylistic work as opposed to realistic
  • Mac
    • Pixemlator – A low-cost alternative to Photoshop for Mac, with lots of compatibility options

Helpful Tools

  • Relaxing Backgrounds
    • 4 Ever Transit Authority – Ride the bus through randomly generated art deco cities. A great program to run in the background or on your TV or monitor to relax you while you create.
    • Anomolies – A relaxing background display/artgame that creates surreal spacescapes, often with strange nebulas and sites that resembe anything from devices to lights to disturbing lifeforms.
    • Becalm – A relaxing journey via sailboat through surreal worlds with a relaxing soundtrack and audio. Can be run for a few minutes or in a loop and you can switch between multiple settings.
    • Panoramical – Available on Itch.io And Steam. Panoramical is an audio/visual remixer where you can tweak settings in multiple environments, turning them into audio/visual displays. Find your favorite setting, leave it on, and relax.
    • Station To Station – A simulated train ride through imaginary environments. Run it in the background or through your television while you create to help relax you

Portfolios

  • Services
    • Adobe Portfolio – The popular porftolio site – that comes with many Adobe subscriptions.
    • Artstation – Multimedia-focused portfolio and blog platform
    • Format – A portfolio site with store services as well.

RPG Resources

  • Random Charts
    • Chartopia – A site with a huge and expanding amount of charts for RPGs, easily sortable and classified.

Self-Publishing

  • Audiobooks
    • ACX – Amazon’s self-publishing audio platform
    • Audible – Another amazon audiobook publishing platform
    • Findaway – A wide-ranging audiobook distribution service.
  • Cards
    • Drive Thru Cards – Self-publishing for card games, both physical and downloads.
  • eBook
    • Itch.io – Itch.io doesn’t just do games – it also allows for people to publish books, and is very open-minded.
    • Kobo Writing Life – Distribute your eBook via Kobo
    • Nook Press – Distribute your eBook via Nook
  • eBook-Multiple
    • Draft2Digital – A service that distributes to multiple eBook platforms.
    • Smashwords – A wide-ranging ebook distribution service.
  • Physical And Ebook
    • Ingram Spark – Ingram’s eBook and physical book publishing platform. Wide reach, but may require some setup fees and has some limitations.
    • KDP – Amazon’s full-service print and Kindle publishing service. Warning, the eBook distribution is only through Amazon.
    • Lulu.com – A print and eBook creation and distribution service.
  • RPGs
    • Drive Thru RPG – Self-publishing for RPGs, both downloadable and in print. Also supports related merch like calendars.
  • Video Games
    • Itch.io – Itch.io is a supportive, indie-oriented game store site. It also has a lot of self-published resources for game development, as well as supporting books of all kind.

Website Creation

  • Services
    • Squarespace – The popular website creator with many options.
    • Weebly – Easy and simple to use website, blogs, and stores.
    • Wix – A simple And effective website source, though paid options are reccomended.
    • WordPress.com – The classic site, with free and paid options. Obviously blog-focused.

Writing Research

  • Maps
    • Old Maps Online – A way to find and view old maps of the world. Great for research and imagining.

Writing Tools

  • Ebook Creation
    • Calibre – A free ebook creation tool.
    • Jutoh – Not only converts your book to various ebook formats, it’s a powerful enough tool that you could even write books in it.
  • Word Processing
    • LibreOffice – A full, free, open source office suite. Beyond the free price, it’s fantastic ad using ODT format and creating PDFs.
  • Word Tools
    • Describing Words – Ideas for how to describe a given word.
    • Dictionary.com – The classic online dictionary.
    • Related Words – Helps find words similar to or related to one you’re using.
    • Rhyme Zone – A tool to help you find rhyming words.
    • Thesaurus.Com – The classic online thesaurus, with plenty of useful options and displays
    • Wordsworth – A tool to see if words you’re using fit the time period you’re writing
  • Writing
    • Scriviner – A writing tool that combines note taking, tracking, and writing into one application.
  • Writing Checking
    • Grammarly – A pricey but powerful service and software for checking grammar, spelling, and even plagarism if you need. There are free, limited options.
    • Hemmingway – A grammar checking tool with both web and desktop versions.
    • Pro Writing Aid – A subscription-based writing checker service/tool.

The Creative Rebellion Of Finding Yourself

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

Creativity is a powerful force that shapes worlds and shakes tyrants. Through it we connect ideas to find new possibilities. Through it we connect with others to understand them and share with them.

But more, creativity lets you connect with yourself.

A creative act teaches you about yourself. When you create, you find more about yourself, what inspires you, and how you work. Connections appear that you never expected, from parts of yourself you weren’t aware of. When you look at a creative work, you learn about the creator – more so when the creator is yourself.

A creative act teaches you what you can do. To write a book, compose a song, or finish a video game shows your power – to yourself. That finished work is a testimony to your capabilities, capabilities you might not have known. Who can take your power when you see it embodied?

A creative act teaches you what you can be. To create, to compose, to write, to code, to draw requires you to grow. The person that starts writing a comic is not the same person who finishes it. Every paragraph, chapter, or code module is a path to growth. Your finished song or cosplay is a testimony to becoming.

If someone tries to control you maliciously, creativity reminds you of what you can do.

If someone tries to make you their idea of you, creativity reminds you of who you are and what you can be.

If someone tries to rule you and others, creativity lets you grow – and perhaps “think around” that malicious limiter.

However, there is also an obligation to this power. If you can know yourself and grow yourself, share it with others. Don’t limit yourself or allow them to be limited. To share this “creative rebellion” is to help others, and to have allies in freedom and creativity.

To share this power also protects you from becoming a ruler, a controller, a tyrant. To care that others can grow and be themselves helps protect us all.

Steven Savage

Plots, Pants, And Flows

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

Writers have heard this over and over again.

Some people are plotters, detailing out their stories before writing.

Some people are pantsers, charging ahead writing with little or no outline.

Some people are “plantsers” walking a line between both.

Though these are convenient ways to classify writers, they’re limited. These classifications are much like the classic and oft-mocked D&D alignment chart – interesting originally, but restrictive in the end. Are any of us one of the above all the time, in all of our writing?

As of late I’d struggled with my latest novel – I tend to more of a “plotter,” but it hadn’t quite worked for me. At the same time, pantsing or “plantsing” didn’t work for me either. I felt disconnected from my work, my writing lacked an intimacy.

This had rarely happened with my nonfiction work. Indeed, it seemed I could step into that work with ease for the most part. This wasn’t surprising, as I’ve done mostly nonfiction the last decade – a second novel being a challenge presented no surprise.

So as I meandered towards a solution, I decided to replot a troublesome chapter. This suddenly awakened my imagination, that intimate connection with one piece of my work to the exclusion of all else. Everything felt alive.

Then, I took a look at authors I knew with both challenges and lacks of challenges. Those who had trouble with their works had lost a connection with it, from not liking it to fearing audience reaction to not caring. Writers with few troubles felt an intimate connection to their work – it could be love of characters or joy in “mechanizing” a story, but it was intimate.

My rewrite of a single chapter felt more intimate. That told me what I’d been missing – I’d let so many things distract me from my work. Replotting a chapter reconnected me.

Looking at my past works I could see when works had been easy, I had a sense of intimacy and connection. I had made books on potentially boring subjects and had been absolutely enjoying it. I write many worldbooks and those involved a well-polished system, and it’s fun.

So let’s stop thinking about pants, plotting, and “plantsing.” Let’s ask what methods keep us connected to our works and intimate with our goals. Maybe one time we plot, maybe one time we “pants,” and another time we do something else.

If you’re not feeling connected to your work, then it’s time to switch up how you do things. Who knows, you might invent an new way to classify writers we can all misuse . . .

Steven Savage