Whew, last update on Crossroads Alpha here.  Busy week.

So I’ve been explaining how the different members of the Crossroads Alpha site alliance work together.  The final one in our list is another one I run, MuseHack.

MuseHack has a long and slightly weird history.  It was originally an idea for a book on people going fan to pro.  Then it became a site called Fan To Pro, which inspired my book Fan To Pro.  Then we realized we should broaden it out to cover more applied geekery – with a big focus on jobs and such but also community building, skill development, and so on.  So then it became MuseHack.

MuseHack focuses on using your hobbies, obsessions, and geekdom.  There’s a career column, a column on geek citizenship, a weekly examination of media adaptions and remakes, interviews, and more.  We’ve also got about five years of content from news, to writing columns, to predictions.  I even rerun Way With Worlds there.

With the Alliance, MuseHack provides our “applied” pillar, especially for careers.  For Sanctumites it’s a place to go and get – or contribute – professional advice or advice on ways to use hobbies.  For MuseHack it provides readers a place to go that’s fun and creative – Seventh Sanctum.  A pretty good pairing.

So that’s the roundup of Crossroads Alpha.  Well, until we add more sites . . .

– Steven Savage

So what’s currently in the works generator-wise?  Well one of the requests was for a Magic Guild generator, specifically a request for guilds like the anime Fairy Tail (which is a show best summed up as “World Wrestling Federation writes Harry Potter”).  The guilds have some pretty colorful names like Grimoire Heart and Blue Pegasus, so a little tweaking of the core patterns let me great a good Magic Guild generator with plenty of detail.  here’s a beta run:

• Ape Rune Sect
• Ascended Satyr Crew
• Conjuring Blade Unit
• Cyclops Tooth Two-hundred
• Dog Codex Guild
• Dragon Light Guild
• Elemental Vault Guild
• Forgotten Ghost Guild
• Medic Harpy Guild
• Necromantic Hand Gang
• Nymph Staff Guild
• Platinum Djinn Family
• Purple Grave Cult
• Rune Mouth Guild
• Scholar Totem Band
• Smith Ogre Assembly
• Sorcerous Eye Eight
• Staff Hand Guild
• The Banshee League
• The Potion Cult

So, in the future we could see the Purple Grave Cult take on the Dragon Light Guild in a smackdown of epic proportions!

– Steven Savage

OK, the roundup continues of the members of Crossroads Alpha, the Site Alliance.  In this case, let’s meet IndieHaven!

IndieHaven is a site managed by my friend Jose, who I met as part of a geek networking group that spawned out of a con meetup (I should revive that).  This guy is a professional journalist – paid to do this in an age where journalism is tight – and he does it as his hobby on games.  Guy is seriously hardcore.

IndieHaven is a great place as its an independent site on, of course, Indie Games.  For many members it’s even a kind of training ground, and Jose really knows what he’s doing.  I figure it’s a good pairing here as Sanctumites into games can access a unique site that also includes professional advice (and is always looking for writers), and IndieHaven’s creative types can come here.

Besides, procedural content is big these days, and I am ALL about procedural content.

So, go over, say hello, and enjoy!

– Steven Savage

OK gang, I went through the recent poll and got an idea of what people want. Thanks for participating!

Now where do we stand:

What do people want in the codex:

The first thing people wanted was crazy, funny, and weird stuff to inspire them. That I didn’t expect (I expected more practical column requests), but then I realized hey, generator site. Maybe someone out there wants to regularly collect and share crazy links since I’m busy.

Yes, that’s a hint.

Columns on writing came in next, which makes sense.  A lot of you are writers.

Things got a little less focused after that, though folks did like Worldbuilding and useful resources. I was surprised there was less interest in artistic advice, but I think our response demographic was writing heavy (see below)

So now when I go to those people who volunteered to write, I have some idea of what to look for. Speaking of . . .

What can people write in the codex?

We had plenty of people wanting to give advice on writing – but then it kind of split up among various categories, from games to art to resource gathering. I’ll be contacting these brave volunteers to see what they’d like to do.

By the way, we had EIGHTEEN of you respond that they might be interested in contributing! I’ll be in touch with you this week!

One warning – TWO of you gave me the wrong emails.  So if you didn’t hear from me yet . . . write me.

What do people want in generators.

Well the short answer, is “most everything” but it seems that settings, names, and characters stand out, along with beings and writing advice. In short people, where they are, and how to write about them.

Now among the specifics people had:

• Alcoholic Beverages
• Alien Worlds
• Animals
• Biomes
• Cities
• Civilizations
• Clothing/Fashions (which came more than once)
• Combo generators to tie my other generators together (something I can do but I’m not up for it yet)
• Detailed magic artifacts
• Disease Cures
• Gangster groups
• Lots of name generators
• Magic Guilds
• More descriptors
• Planets
• Plot Twists
• Prophecies and/or quests.
• Secret projects
• Specific plot generators
• Story Arcs (that’s intriguing)
• Themed names
• Trope mixers
• Writing prompts

So yeah, plenty of ideas. I addition I have one generator in the works (from that list, actually) and one possible on that’s related. More to come – and no I’m not telling you!

However one thing I took away is that when it comes to writers, more is better and there’s more I can do. I always figured it was best to do setting stuff and some basic plots, but maybe I can do more.

The only issue is that I have to get “inspired” to do a generator, so I’ll need to see what mojo gets fired up by the list. But now I have a list to get fired up with . . .

Closing

OK gang, thanks for the feedback. Now that the site is rewritten, has a content section, is part of an alliance, and is on the new host maybe I can do more generators. They’re fun so I can really build them as a way to relax as well . . .

– Steven Savage

So I promised I’d introduce everyone to the members of Crossroads Alpha, the site alliance the Sanctum is part of.  Let’s check out Comics Bulletin!

Comics Bulletin and I go back a ways – I used to do a column for them a few years ago on professional issues and comics.  I’ve known the founder, Jason, for even longer.  CB has maintained quality over the years, and has expanded into a lot of promising areas.  It’s a good site with a big base of people backing it.

In the case of Seventh Sanctum, I like it because it gives people here a reliable place to go for comics news, a place for hopeful writers here to write about the subject (I’ll introduce you), and articles that may be useful to hopeful comics professionals (I know you’re out there).

So enjoy, and get to know a member of the Alliance!

– Steven Savage

Hey gang, it’s another update.  Two actually

Crossroads Alpha

The short form is that a group of friends and I decided to work together as an alliance of sites, Crossroads Alpha.  The idea is to pool talent and knowledge, network sites, and work together in a way that compliments each other.  Seventh Sanctum is part of it because it provides creative tools and encourages creativity.

The long form?

Two friends and I had been discussing how we could work together to support each other.  Each of us had our own sphere (comics, games, creativity and careers), and so on.  Also we’d each known the challenges of working on a website and realized having people to work with is a great idea – the rewrite of Seventh Sanctum really only originated from bouncing ideas off of friends and getting their advice.  Our sites are independent, but cooperating.

So the idea is that we’d ally together, build a name for the alliance, and cooperate.  The Affiliate Bar at the top is how we link together beyond sharing talent, advice, and support.  It also gives us room to introduce others we know that have their own unique sites and visions into the alliance.

In the case of Seventh Sanctum, it provides a site that focuses on utility and tools, assisting creativity.   That’s a great compliment to sites based on media like comics and games.

On the flipside, I’m interested in sites for Sanctumites that will help them with using their creativity.  Yeah I have MuseHack, but working with a comics and a game site gives people here access to  sites that may help them use their skills – so as you can guess one of my big hopes is we find people who have writing and art sites . . .

So that’s it.  Me and my crew are working together and helping each other out and hopefully find other ways to do do some neat stuff.

The Poll

The poll is closed – and it was very helpful!  I’ve still got to analyze all the results, but I’ve got some general ideas, have already started a new generator, and have people interested in writing for the codex!

There’s actually a lot I didn’t expect about what people wanted or needed, so it’s going to be very helpful – and there’s a few things I never thought of or had considered ages ago and then forgot, such as a planet generator (yeah, I know, duh) or a fashion generator.  It gives me some good things to go on in the future.

There is also a new generator in the works, mostly based on one person’s suggestion that just got me going “hey . . .” so we’ll see.  Making these things is always easier when something fires off my imagination.

– Steven Savage

And I’m back!  Crazy holiday, plenty of fun, busy returning to work, you know the story.  So where are we now?

Well first, the poll thing is definitely working out for the site, so I have a poll up asking people what they’d like to see in 2014 and how they’d like to participate.

Yep, participate.  The Codex isn’t just going to be me posting, I’d like to get other folks involved to share advice, ideas, reviews, and more.  It’s not only fun, it can be a great creativity, career, and community boost as well.  So let me know if you’d like to jump on board the crazy train of Seventh Sanctum!

I got a little exhausted with the last generator (which was really informative), so I’m picking my next one carefully.  That’s ALSO in the poll, and I think I want to add some regularity to generator development and updating, but I’m still getting a framework around it because it’s a pretty creative endeavor that doesn’t sit well on a schedule (yet).  This quarter also promises to be a bit busy as my next book is coming out, so I’m pacing myself.

We’ll also have some other interesting event in the next week or two (no, it’s NOT new contests) so stay tuned . . .

– Steven Savage

If you can read this then it means that my latest addition to the Sanctum is working.  If you can’t . . . well then you don’t know to laugh at me.

So what you’re seeing is codex.seventhsanctum.com – a non-generator section of Seventh Sanctum that will host columns, updates, and more.  Basically I wrapped the Sanctum theme around a CMS in a rather educational endeavor that yielded some pretty decent results.

Now I’m going to give it a few days to settle in, then start getting to work with it.  See, this is an entire content system, so it doesn’t just have to be me posting – it can be other people, autoposts, etc.  I’m going to play with this for awhile to see what we can do.

– Steven Savage

First of all thanks to everyone who participated in the poll!. I have to do these more often!

And the results? Well the results surprised me but also point in a clear direction.

First of all, only a bit over 20% of people wanted no social or content features on Seventh Sanctum – but the rest was near-evenly split over “yes” or “not sure” with a slight lean to yes. What was amazingly clear from the comments was that people were worried social media, forums, blogs, and so on would take over the site.

That at first surprised me, because the focus of the site is on generators – until I thought about it and agree, yes, social media and features can change sites and not always for the better. Buttons for social media end up everywhere. Forums can consume a site. A blog can become a giant mess of irrelevant articles.

So your voices were heard. Don’t worry I never intended the site to get like that anyway, but I now understand how people feel even better.

Now when it came to what people wanted to see content and feature-wise, it was very big on two things – tips and info, and user contributions. Message boards came in behind that and other features were more distant, with mailing lists losing out – but more on that later.

So people want information and useful stuff, and maybe some things about what’s going on with the users.

On top of this some people had other generator suggestions, so I may need to run polls like this regularly to get new ideas. Two things to get out of the way:

• Those of you wanting a way to subscribe to generators by email or RSS feed, I’ve actually experimented with it . . . no promises, but there’s a few fun things I’ve done lately that point at interesting directions.
• It seems people want the number options back on the generators. I’m considering some ideas (like having the HIGHEST be the default then you can choose less). The biggest challenge ironically is putting them in the new layout.

Now, this all gives me a direction. The site is fine, but more content would be great as long as it’s part of the site and doesn’t predominate, and social tools and interactions are good only in limited ways or when they don’t take over.

So here’s my plan.

1. The site pretty much stays as is. That’s a given, though obviously I’ll tweak things and add stuff, and of course occasionally redesign it.
2. I’ll add a subdomain like “zine.seventhsanctum.com” or “stuff.seventhsanctum.com” or something that will be sort of The Library. This will be part of the site that contains archives, information, and so forth. To do this I can probably wrap the Sanctum Bootstrap template around a blog or CMS system and make an ez-to-post archive (if I can’t then we’re back to square one – and my first goal is to keep the site stable).
3. The “Library” (or whatever I call it) will be where updates, advice, regular columns (like Way With Worlds), and so on are posted. It will allow discussion (via Disqus of course). The feed will display on the front page where the old blog is now.
4. The “Library” will be specifically for advice, updates, and discussing creativity in the comments. I will also invite other people to contribute so all of you can share your ideas and help each other out. We may also have “open discussions” for people to share sanctum-based works, and so on – so you can see what people are up to.
5. I may actually implement a mailing list at some point for tighter social discussion – in a nice, unbounded, but not-on-the-site manner. The mailing list was the least popular idea, but I think it’s bounded nature may be worth it for people who want to get social, but I don’t want to radically change the sites.

So I think this fills all requests. The site stays the same. There’s a subdomain for posting advice and guides and discussing creativity – and you out there can get involved. We may have a mailing list for socializing, for people who know each other and want to chat.

What do you think?  Go take the poll!

– Steven Savage

Another update?  Actually, yes.

• First, now that the redesign is done, I’ve actually gotten back to tweaking generators.  I actually wanted to expand the Mage Maker, because frankly the Spellslinger of Wildstar Online sounded really cool name-wise, so I wanted more names like that – the kind of “magic-manipulator” name like Spellslinger, Airbender, etc.  That led me down other paths . . . and you can see the results.  Frankly it also helps me get my mojo back after the redesign.
• I removed the affiliate bar with my sites as it got pointed out . . . it’s a bit tacky let’s be honest here.
• Ironically that affiliate bar WAS also part of a prototype for something else very cool that’s coming, so stay tuned . . .
• Still getting real mixed feedback on the idea on the site AND off of the site.  So I wanted to know what you thought – because I actually have several options for what I can do.  So go and take this poll!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.