(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
The pizza generator is very close to done. I’ve got to expand the formulas for meat/veggie combos and maybe tweak the probabilities, then it’s good to go! Check these out!
- A pizza with Apple, Pinto Beans, Zucchini, Pineapple, Natto, Garlic, and Roasted Fennel, topped with Fontina and Bulgogi Sauce.
- A pizza with Apple, White Onion, Salami, Short Rib Meat, Hot Dogs, and Bacon.
- A pizza with Artichoke Hearts, Broccoli, Cilantro, and Parsley, topped with Gouda and Pesto Sauce.
- A pizza with Artichoke Hearts, Mushrooms, Burdok Root, White Onion, Fennel, and Roasted Fennel, topped with Tomato Sauce.
- A pizza with Cauliflower, Jalapenos, and Herbs De Province.
- A pizza with Green Pepper, Cauliflower, Banana, Egg, Prosiccuto, Pulled Pork, Tuna, and Butter Chicken.
- A pizza with Ground Beef, Egg, Ham, and Banana Peppers, topped with Parmesian.
- A pizza with Pickled Ginger, Yellow Onion, Cashews, and Parsley.
- A pizza with Red Onion, Scallions, Zucchini, Pickled Ginger, Argula, and Red Chillies.
- A pizza with Romaine Lettuce, Kimchi, Red Pepper, Fennel, and Garlic.
- A pizza with Argula, Eggplant, Yellow Onion, Cashews, Roasted Fennel, and Cilantro, topped with Swiss Cheese and Tandoori Sauce.
- A pizza with Canadian Bacon, Linguica, Prosiccuto, and Bannana Peppers.
- A pizza with Carmelized Onions, Black Olives, Sauerkraut, Chipotle Pepper, and Herbs De Province, topped with Barbeque Sauce.
- A pizza with Clams, Pulled Pork, Salami, Herbs De Province, and Red Chillies.
- A pizza with Jalapenos, Burdok Root, Pickles, Potatoes, and Green Pepper, topped with Colby and Fontina.
- A pizza with Kidney Beans, Pine Nuts, Pinto Beans, Butter Chicken, Hot Dogs, and Tuna.
- A pizza with Mushrooms and Bacon.
- A pizza with Roasted Fennel, Bell Pepper, Olives, Black Beans, and Basil, topped with Colby.
- A pizza with Salami, Tuna, Garlic, and Italian Spices, topped with Cheese Sauce.
- A pizza with Zucchini, Caramelized Onions, Shredded Carrots, Pickled Jalapenos, Mango, and Cilantro, topped with Ricotta and Cheddar.
The updated version has options for any, meats only, veggies only, and of course mixes. It’s led to some insane stuff – but also some delicious ideas.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
So I’m back to work on the pizza generator, using all that data I collected before things got nutty. This one is coming along well, but the data structures are surprisingly complex, so it’s going to take a week or two more to finish depending on my schedule. However the results . . . well they speak for themselves!
- A pizza with broccoli, black olives, zucchini, mango, pickled ginger, egg, clams, bacon, and linguica.
- A pizza with butter chicken, linguica, salami, and ground beef, topped with fontina.
- A pizza with chicken, bacon, and roasted fennel, topped with paneer.
- A pizza with garbanzo beans, red pepper, kimchi, pickled garlic, apple, and egg.
- A pizza with ground beef and jalapenos, topped with asiago and havarti.
- A pizza with ham and butter chicken, topped with paneer.
- A pizza with hot dogs and cilantro.
- A pizza with mango, roasted fennel, canadian bacon, prosiccuto, ham, linguica, and pepperoni.
- A pizza with pickled ginger, kimchi, shrimp, pulled pork, butter chicken, and steak.
- A pizza with roasted fennel, steak, clams, bacon, sausage, and hot dogs.
- A pizza with salami, butter chicken, meatballs, tuna, and short rib meat, topped with mozzarella and brown sauce.
- A pizza with salami, egg, pepperoni, and shrimp.
- A pizza with short rib meat, garlic, and parsley.
- A pizza with spinach, shredded carrots, apple, pickled ginger, and argula.
- A pizza with yellow onion, argula, canadian bacon, clams, tuna, and sausage.
It’s a bit meat-centric right now (results in the end will split between vegetarian and meat results), but looking good and properly crazy-yet-possible.
So strap on, your culinary dreams will continue!
After this I may take a break from food generators – they’re surprisingly challenging. But I still want to do more, just maybe not one after another.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
I’m actually getting back to these! Awesome!
Work should be a bit calmer now. We had some changes in organization and process that look to be more efficient and effective, and it’s already paying dividends in just a week. So let’s hope you see more writing out of me (though my goal is to be writing anyway).
So from here . . .
Next Way With Worlds Book
Way With Worlds Book 2 is still being edited, and I sink my teeth into it next month. It’s definitely not going to be out until February, but I can’t see it being any later than March.
The “followup” works on Way With Worlds are underway. As usually, not spilling much here (but you can find out a bit more in my newsletter if you’re really curious). More and more I’m thinking it may be worth releasing early, but I don’t want to stress myself. At this rate, I’d like to actually get people’s opinions – release it early or after Book 2?
I will say after all this I may take a break from writing on Worldbuilding. Think I’ll have said my peace for awhile.
Random Creativity Book
So now that I’m pretty sure I’ll be writing on randomization and creativity, I’ve got to figure out just how to do it. I probably won’t start brainstorming it for at least another month, to be honest. What I want to do is distill all my wisdom from Seventh Sanctum into book form (hopefully, one book). The hardest part is figuring out where to start and then how to put it in some organized form.
The second part? A title.
Seventh Sanctum
Trying to find time to bang out the Pizza Generator as the data is all ready, so I can do something else. I think having it hanging over my head kind of killed the fun and I need to move to another generator. That happens. Maybe I’ll revisit it another time.
But we must have random pizza, because who doesn’t want kimchi and bacon pizza with havarti? Wait, that sounds good . . .
Speaking
I’ve got a full slate coming up – be sure to check my speaking page!
Con-Volution is my next convention, and I’ll be speaking on worldbuilding and monsters on Friday! Go, attend!
That’s it for me – what about you?
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
What is this? Another update? Yes, amazing.
So anyway, to give you a bigger story on my slow blogging it’s pretty much been one thing after another. Mostly work and some shuffling around duties, software releases, and more. It’s also been a bunch of other stuff going on from helping friends out to errands. I haven’t had life get this much on top of me in awhile, though the smoke appears to be clearing.
The funny thing is it all goes back to that two days of classes I had. I’m sort of wondering if losing two days was a catalyst. Plus side, I got a great certification out of it.
Now let’s get to a REAL update here.
- Bonnie and I were interviewed about our new Sailor Moon Book on The Crystal Chronicles. Go check it out!
- The Pizza Generator. Haven’t done a thing on it, plan to return. That was pretty low on my list, which is kind of tragic as I’ve got enough data to go with – and learned a few things about Pizza. Going to see about getting that sucker out.
- The Next Generator. Still gonna be food, but I’m still conflicted between coffee (which would be more funny considering pretentious names of coffee types) or a real serious one on candy bars based on my analysis of candy structure. The candy bar generator would literally make candy bar ideas that would be real and you or someone could make. Oh and in other news, I am anal-retentive enough to analyze candy bar structure – are you aware that there have been multiple forms of filled/chambered candy bars? I am now because I am weird.
- Way With Worlds Book 2. At the editor, and it’s the same person who did the Sailor Moon book. She rocks hard so this is gonna be a great edit. I miss my other editor, but life got busy and I can damn well relate. Still looking at Q1 in 2017.
- The Way With Worlds “extra” book(s) I keep dodging about are in the works. I’m debating if I should release “something” early as the other book is delayed. Still haven’t decided – but let’s just say you’re gonna keep seeing Way With Worlds stuff into 2107. What, you think I used ALL my material?
- As for other writing, I have a few small books in the works, some of which are creativity-based. These are going to be good but also act as more “fun” to write so have no deadline. One of my big projects in 2017 on (about 12-15 months) is to do a book on what I’ve learned about randomization and procedural generation and the psychology of creativity.
That’s it for me – what about you?
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
Wait, so where have I been?
Sorry to vanish for, well, nearly two weeks, but it got crazy.
Short form is I had a crazy 4 weeks with work, book publishing, class, and a bit of illness. This then compounded with two more weeks of crazy brought about by exhaustion, more work, family and friend issues, and more. The smoke is finally clearing, but my major reaction is roughly A) WTF happened, and B) Thank goodness for No Man’s Sky and Gravity Falls as a break.
So six weeks so nutty it could be a candy bar. So what’s up?
- Way With Worlds Book 2 is now slated for “Q1 2017.” Getting the editing done has been a challenge – my editor herself got mobbed at work, had technical issues that mangled one of the documents, and more. After talking, she’s going to take it easy to focus and I’m moving the editing to someone else. On top of that the holidays are still approaching so I figured best to keep this scheduled within a given quarter – not a month.
- The Sailor Moon Book, Her Eternal Moonlight, drops in a little over a month!
- Though I’m insanely busy, I have made some plans for my next writing in the coming 18-24 months. This is not to overload myself so much as focus it and avoid overloading myself.
- The Pizza generator has data ready to go (try 100 different ingredients) so now I just need to set something up. I may not get it done this month but hope to soon. Not sure what food to do after that – I was considering coffee or pastry, but I also have some notes on a candy bar generator that would be descriptive enough to nearly be used as a recipe . . .
- I’m waiting to hear what I do at Con-Volution and Kraken-Con.
- I got accepted to speak at the PMI Silicon Valley symposium. I’ll be speaking on how to ruin a project. Yes, you heard that right.
That’s currently it for now. I’ll be back on top of this, return to Civic Diary, and more in the next few weeks.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
Hey everyone, had a busy time with the book launch and so on, so here’s the latest. I’ve had a crazy few weeks so it’s not much of an update:
- Way With Worlds Book 2 is now coming out in January. There’s two reasons: 1) Editing the last book was brutal and with the holidays I wanted more time, and 2) Deploying the book during the holidays is going to mean it’ll get lost among all the activities of the time.
- I plan to write more books on creativity, since after a few decades of writing, making generators, coaching people, playing RPGs, and more I’ve got a lot to share. In time of self-publishing, I figure more advice for creatives can’t hurt!
- The Pizza Generator is in progress. No delivery date in mind yet, mostly due to the recent craziness, but I think it’ll be worth it. Pizzas have an interesting philosophy behind them, and when you look them over, you can see patterns. For instance, there’s all sorts of ways to combine meats and toppings, but going outside the “normal” spices usually involves only one or two.
I hope to have more in the next week or two.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
Man, so much going on last week – ranging from work to all the terrible incidents in the world. Sorry for slow and weird updates. So where am I?
Way With Worlds Books:
Way With Worlds Book 1 is pretty much done. I just have to check the print copy one more time. The Kindle version is looking good, but a Kindle isn’t something requiring tricky page formatting and breaks. I’m really proud of it – which is good because there’s a few times during editing I got sick of it.
Way With Worlds Book 2 comes back from my editor really soon. As noted before my plan to edit this one is to experiment with a slower, but more detailed editing pace to see if that’s more efficient. Still planning to deliver in November, after Thanksgiving.
Oh and the project after those? Already halfway outlined. But I’ll keep teasing that . . .
Generators:
Sadly, not a lot of work on these as other things (work) ate into my free time. Still got my notes, still got my plans, just getting to the point of having time . . . though maybe having three freaking print books in the work in one year was a tad excessive.
And yes, the theme is still food.
Other Writing:
As you’ve seen I’m back to writing about No Man’s Sky – which makes sense as A) I like video games, and B) it involves procedural generation. I’m going to keep this up until the game comes out – which it looks like it will be doing on time in August!
I’m also queuing up some more items to blog about I think you’ll be interested in, so stay tuned as I always say . . .
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
So there’s a lot going here, but let’s get to the big new release . . . or small release. A new book!
I rewrote my old Skill Portability columns into a full guide on skill portability, complete with both hobbyist/fan and professional advice. You can get it here – and it’s only 99 cents!
This is part of a larger experiment of mine to see about revising, compiling, combining, and improving old columns into something more focused and applicable. I’ve got so much I’ve written I need to think about other formats to reach and help people. Also looking for reviewers if you want!
OK now on to my other projects!
Way With Worlds
Bopping along with this. I get what should be the final print copy this week, mostly to confirm the formatting. Then I’ll regenerate the kindle file and be ready for launch end of the month.
Book 2 is coming back from editor this week. Since I don’t intend to publish it until November (with so much else going on) I’m going to try some different editing techniques on it – mostly trying slower editing readthroughs as opposed to multiple readthroughs. Looking forward to it as it’s a completely different focus than the first book – more specific areas of advice with more depth.
New Generators
Sorry I haven’t started a new one yet – things have been incredibly busy, plus just a lot happening at the same time (classes, work schedule, social commitments, etc.). I hope to get back to the new one this month as I still want to focus on food.
The ones I’m considering are coffee, pizza, and chocolate bar recipes. I’ve got a few ideas on these on how to analyze the dada, and am looking forward to the insights I’ll get analyzing food . . . because I can apply it in various ways.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
Evening everyone, so let’s get to an update!
First of all if you want to hear me talk old ahead-of-their-time DOS games, tune in to this DOS Nostalgic Podcast.
Now let’s get onto the status update!
Seventh Sanctum:
Still not doing any new generators – I think it’s going to be another month or so before I get back to one. That’s because I’m busy with . . .
Way With Worlds:
Book one is pretty much ready, though I’ve got one more print copy to test. If all’s well then we’re good to go! I’ve also got some guest blogging going on during July when we build up to launch!
Book two will come back to me end of month, though not sure when I’ll do the first edit. I’d like to get to it right away, but . .
Sailor Moon Book:
This gets formatted this weekend – and if all goes well I’ll have a hard copy before the end of the month.
My only concern is the cover. The cover is actually wraparound, so there’s issues of centering the different sides of the cover, titles, etc. I’m going to give it my best, but I may nee to reformat the whole thing, which usually means going through 2 copies to get it right. Fortunately we have 3 months to get that right – but I always find this cover formatting to never be as smooth as hoped.
Other Books:
My skill portability book is about ready to go, and should drop to ebook in the next few weeks depending on my schedule.
I’ll also be working on some Way With Worlds stuff beyond the books as noted.
However, though I have other things I want to try . . . yeah I seem booked into 2017.
So pretty much no new projects except the above for the rest of the year. Well, as much as I’m able to stick to that . . .
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
Hey all, so where are all those projects . . . well still busy. New job has my busy, but here’s where we are.
Sailor Moon Book
Sent to my co-author, who in turn just edited it and sent it back. I plan to take one more crack at it next week or so then I can actually format it. If all goes well, we’ll be looking over a print beta sometime in early/mid July.
The editing went really well. Frankly, there wasn’t that much left to do considering how many times we’ve been over it. I’m starting to think extended editng periods of sometime and/or swapping among people has real benefits. It makes me wonder if editing is best done by long editing cycles – or many smaller ones.
We’re looking good for September people!
Way With Worlds Book #1
I’m editing the second print copy. Still a bit annoyed I’m finding issues or things I want to change (mostly a bit of formatting and such), but that’s the way it goes. I’m going to give it two read overs to be sure, then try to make the last run count.
The strangest things? I find more errors at the start of the book, even when I reread it. It’s like somehow I have to get into an “editing zone” to do my best work. Go figure.
As much as I enjoyed doing this I kinda confess I’ll be glad to get it finished. I think there’s only so long you can read your own advice, and I’m there.
Way With Worlds Book #2
Comes back from the editor end of Month. I’ll probably make the first editing run in July just because it’ll be fresh, but I might save it to August as I will be busy with Book #1 and the Sailor Moon Book. It sort of depends how well those go.
Skill Portability Book
This fun little experiment is probably out end of June. It’s pretty easy to do and needs only about one more big editing run – basically its my columns on skill portability expanded and improved. Going to be a neat little experiment.
The Blog
Holding off starting a new series for now as I’ve got so much on my plate. I will continue to blog on No Man’s Sky however, and Civic Diary.
New Generators
I’m afraid with everything else on my plate there will be no new generator in June. Now as for July, let us see . .
And that’s it for me! How are you doing?
– Steve
