Why I Write

Why I Wrote It: Food, Culture, and Worldbuilding

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

The third of my “Worldbooks,” my 50 question coaching guides for worldbuilding, was on food. So why did I do this? Oh, I had reasons because I cook, and cooking is a gateway to the rest of the human experience.

Food is far more than food.

Food fuels humanity. It’s vitally important to us, obviously, but because it is so important, we miss how important it is to us. We need food to be fueled, to be healthy, and if you’re aware of how people have battled over diets and how famines affected history, you realize how much food matters. Food must be in your worldbuilding.

Food is about experience. We have sensations we associate with food, we have meanings we attribute to it, we have food that has meaning to us. Food is personal. It is part of your characters and culture.

Food is about history. Humans have been seeking food and how to get more of it for the extent of our existence on earth. We have fought wars to survive, tilled land, found what is edible, and tried new things we thought would kill us. Every meal you have bears the impact of ages. Food is the result of your entire setting’s history.

Food ties into many other things – health, religious symbolism, traditions, and more. Every holiday meal, every religious law about food you follow, is just a sign of how deep food connects to our lives. Food is one of the places in culture where everything very visibly comes together – which is so obvious we miss.

It shocked me there wasn’t more worldbuilding books on food because of these items, but I think it’s because food is an intimate part of our lives, and thus we miss it. We’re too close to it, and thus we miss it.

So I wrote one. I won’t lie, I was looking forward to it because of all those above issues, and because I thought it’d get people to think.

If anything, I could have probably gotten a much larger book out of it. But on reflection, had I made a larger book, it would only appeal to serious foodie writers. Better it be left some coaching questions to let people find their own paths.

A lesson here is that just because something is common doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about it – the commonality is why a deeper analysis is warranted. You may have a book in mind that seems as if it’s “just common sense,” then it probably needs to be written, if only as a reminder.

Steven Savage

Why I Wrote It: The Art Of The Brainstorm Book

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

This book has a pretty simple origin – I wanted to write about my Brainstorm Book technique.

In short, for awhile I’d been keeping what I called a Brainstorm Book. I used this notebook to write down ideas, think them over, save them, or action them. It’s pretty simple stuff, but I’d built a system around it, and that system worked. I had found a way to keep my inspirations going, analyze them, and bring them to life effectively.

(I still fondly recall a gentleman who brought his kids to a con I spoke at, and then heard me, and used my idea not for writing, but for security reviews).

I’d done some blog posts about my Brainstorm Book system, but had updated it over time, and figured it was best as a book. That’s what I’d like to talk about.

Here’s why I figured my Brainstorm Book techniques fit, well, a book.

THE BOOK STRUCTURE FIT: The way a book is organized just fit the system I had. Sometimes things are just best as a book (print or otherwise, for sale or otherwise).

IT FORCED ME TO ORGANIZE MY THOUGHTS: This was a side effect. I figured the structure of a book fit, then I realized how I had to organize my thoughts better.

A BOOK WAS ACCESSIBLE: I had enough information and ideas to share, and these were concepts that people would want to review over and over. A book encourages review and re-review, and I didn’t want people to have to come back to my blog.

IT FIT MY OTHER WRITING: I had been writing about creativity, so this book was perfect for the series. Plus it encouraged people who looked at my other works to check out this system and get ideas.

I’m pretty happy with the book. People can get access to my ideas in a useful form, and apply things that helped me. Sure, it’s not my bestseller, but that’s not the point.

If you have something in another form – blogs, videos, etc. consider what other forms it could be in. Sometimes a good idea is best realized in something other than its original media. In this case, the Brainstorm Book was a good example of that.

Steven Savage

Why I Wrote It: The Power of Creative Paths

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

This book was written when I realized I knew more than I did.

Let me rewind, because this involves Project Management, seminars, and Seventh Sanctum.

Anyway, awhile ago I was asked to speak at a seminar for local members of the Project Management Institute. I have a bit of a reputation as being a creative type, so I spoke on the role of creativity in Project Management. This is more important than it seems.

See, Project Management in the broad sense (yes, I’m including Agile) requires creativity. You have to think around problems. You have to imagine solutions. You have to communicate in interesting ways. It was a natural subject for me.

But what I needed was a way to talk about different forms of creativity, giving the people there ideas of how they could understand their strengths. I turned to my Seventh Sanctum work for that, and realized Generators fell into five categories:

  • Expansion (adding things on)
  • Combination (combining things in set patterns)
  • Reduction (removing items)
  • Fusion (fusing concepts)
  • Mapping (metaphorical)

That gave me a great way to describe creativity so people could ask about their strengths. I put a lot of thought into this, then used it as maybe 25% of the presentation, and let it sit.

It was only years later when it hit me that “duh, this would be a great book to organize my theories on creativity.”

I know, yes, it was obvious. In hindsight. To someone who wasn’t me.

So I realized, yes, I should expand on this way of viewing creativity. I often advised people on creative endeavors, and this gave me a framework within which to think and coach.

Which meant then I had to organize my way of coaching to help people. So the framework I had carefully assembled now drove me to organize my thoughts. That’s what a good framework does – it’s a skeleton to put things on. Frameworks may not be complete or perfect, but they let you do a heck of a lot because they help you think of the big and small picture.

The book got a lot more intense than I expected because I had this framework. I organized my advice, found things that made me think, had to give examples, and so on. Writing on creativity, using that structure, required me to be more creative and more aware.

The result is a book I’m proud of, but I’m thinking I should revisit it now and then, rewrite it every few years. That way it keeps up with the times, that way I don’t let things sit, and that way I stay aware of my own thoughts.

Amazing what you can learn when you pay attention and have a framework.

Steven Savage