OK a bit behind – been busy, been traveling, so here’s what’s up!

With the holidays coming, here’s some gift idea generators for you.  Because generators.

Got a lot more writing done on Way With Worlds – in this case I’ll cover RPGs and their pluses (and minuses), and voyage into conflict and cultural meltdowns later.  I’m glad I got to cover the use/misuse of RPGs in worldbuilding as I think games often influence our worldbuilding.

Next up for generators will probably be a magical power generator, for those anime like Fairy Tail and some early fantasy where “superpower” and “magic” and “martial arts” were kinda slammed together.  I’ve had this one brewing for a bit, sort of somewhere between “Anime Power” and “Magical Forms”  – but I want to add some stylistic options to try out.

I’ll look at the Plot Twist generator next year – I am thinking I need to learn how to pace myself on those crazy ones.  Still figuring out how to start that thing – genre limits?  Freeform?

I did get my mobile environment up – and then didn’t use it over the holidays.  I used XAMPP.

MuseHack, as you saw, is re-structuring – to be my more voice yet a voice of enablement.  That’s taking time, but I like how it’s shaping up – and expect a lot over the holidays!  I also just finished my Fandom Identity series, and started a new two parter on “Is There An IT Gap.”  I also have a few more things coming up after that as I focus more longform.  Also be sure to check it’s spinoff site for getting “Geek Involved” – CivicGeek.com.

– 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/.

I hope this finds everyone well.  As for what’s up with me?  Well beyond getting tired of Borderlands The Pre-Sequel, and being weirdly interested in Overwatch . . .

• Seventh Sanctum has been getting more attention due to NaNoWriMo – and folks let me know what you’re up to!  I’ve been occasionally calling out interesting NaNo updates on the Tumblr.
• I’m also still trying to make time to set up that mobile dev environment – I caught what was going around this week, which seriously, always happens when I have plans . . . also never work in a confined records room with 15 people.
• I’ve also penned the draft of the 52nd column on the Way With Worlds rewrite.  Can you believe it’s been that long?  Now I’m still doing rewrites so as you may guess it’s gonna be larger than the original run.

That’s it for me.  What about you?

– 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/.

And hello everyone.  In fact, let me get this out of the way . .

HELLO NANOWRIMO WRITERS!  Generators are there.  Please enjoy, and if you’re stuck, try the new Writing Prompt Generator.  Daily prompts are posted to the tumblr.

Actually the NaNo numbers have been weird.  Normally I don’t see a NaNo surge (yes, unbelievable, but I think that’s mostly as people gear up for NaNo a bit early), but this year I had some pretty notable traffic spikes.  Hope it’s helped all of you out.  Hmmm, maybe next year we should have a space to discuss this on Facebook or something?

My attempts to build a dev setup on my laptop have gone poorly as I got distracted and busy, so I hope to get that in order so I can do a bit more coding.  Right now I’m torn between one of the requests (A Plot Twist Generator) and two others based on magic in anime (those sorcery-meets-anime power type abilities) and a different kind of dragon generator inspired by more “Elemental” dragons.  The Plot Twist generator is intriguing, but it’d probably be like the writing prompt generator – a long-term project that I need feedback on, and that sucker was exhausting.

I interview authors and artists at MuseHack, so I’m actually going to start reposting them here to give everyone more advice.  That’ll be a week later after the posts go up there.

So let me know gang- how’s your NaNo going?

– 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/.

Hey everyone, hope you’re doing well!

Not much to update on Sanctum-Wise.  I probably should only post these when it’s relevant, but I like to stay in touch.

Way With Worlds is still churning along – originality will be a focus for a bit, and then some more rewrites.  Still debating if this thing should be one book or more.

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel is out.  It’s good, if a bit unpolished in some areas, and the new mechanics are nice.  So you can blame that for any delays on new generators.

I’ve gotten more suggestions on creating general fantasy names as a generator, along with the other queued up generators.  Will be keeping that in mind – admittedly I don’t have anything generic for someone like Logaz Starbinder or Murdag Mudclub.  Stuff that’s “fantasyish” but not like the Extreme generator.

 
– 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/.

Bit of an early update here!

First, the new generator.  After the Writing Prompt Generator I needed to do something fun and simple.  So inspired by cheesy monster flicks, I created the Creature Feature Generator.  You can just get monster names, or get  ones that are intermittently punched up to be “movieseque.”  So are you ready for . . .

• Atomic Tyranosaurus Part 7: The Final Battle
• Daughter Of Two-headed Beast
• Insectobot Reloaded
• Monster Orca : The Next Generation
• Octocuda Versus Atomic Beast Part 5
• Octorantula
• Snakeshark Part 8
• Snakestorm
• The Rise Of Toxic Dragon : The Legend Ends
• Viperasaurus

Of course I’m all ready to see Octocuda Versus Atomic Beast Part 5.  Part 4 really ended on a cliffhanger!

If you have any suggestions for additional creatures to add to the database or cheese extras in titles, like “Reloaded,” let me know.

Otherwise mostly been doing some site tweaks for search engines.  I’ve wanted to optimize them for awhile and figured I’d just get it over with.

So how’s everyone else doing?

– 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/.

Hey everyone, so what’s been up? A LOT.

Trying to get back to generators (as you can see below the last two weekends were packed).  Hoping to get around to dumping some ideas into code so I can get them out of my head (I have notes on three generators now).  I need to get my laptop setup with a proper dev setup so I can code at coffee shops.  I do my writing outside my apartment and figure why not code the same way?  Though fair warning, one or two coming aren’t serious.

Secondly for you career creatives latest job series, “The Dark Side Of ‘Do What You Love’” is complete. It was a chance to explore some more negative approaches to my usual career advice. I thought you folks might like it!

Last week I did Con-Volution. This is a hardcore, old-school SF con with a big focus on skills, writing, socializing, and development. I was on panels on religion and worldbuilding (amazing, has to be done again), general worldbuilding (very diverse), and general careers(with a focus on professional behavior). I’d recommend it to you – give it a check if you can make it, or at least check out their schedule for ideas.

This weekend I did Kraken-Con. Spoke on how to Make Japanese Curry (I’m branching into Geek Cooking and this was successful) and my Fan To Pro panel. Great con and it’s twice a year – only it went from 800 people 6 months ago to about 2K estimated. I’m suspecting it’ll be once a year.  This one also had practical panels (seems to be a trend) and was great fun -plus it is so well organized.  If you’re in the Bay Area, you need to check it out.

I was also wondering if I should run some Sanctum based events at these conventions – you know, do creative jams, etc.  I’m open to any suggestions.

Oh and by the way – this is a great reminder of how I need to pace my congoing  ahead of times.  Thats basically two weekends of being busy . . .

I do interviews with creative people over at http://www.musehack.com/ and was thinking of reposting them here.  Any thoughts on that?  Gives people more exposure and lets you meet fellow creatives who might have advice.

– 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/.

Not much of an update this time gang, had a crazy two weeks.  On top of that I’ve got some speaking engagements coming up – so if you’re in the area check out my schedule.  Oddly one is on my Japanese curry – I’m expanding what I speak on to cover my geeky cooking interests – which is one of my other hobbies.

Hey, it’s not all generators and columns for me. Sometimes a man has to eat curry. And if you haven’t had Japanese Curry, you are so missing out.

Do keep an eye out for the next Heroes and Villains column, a post by David Brin sent me in an interesting direction. He summed up a major plot issue that worked quite well with my current themes and got me thinking.

And one thing I do want to recommend people check out is looking for “masterlists” and tool lists on Tumblr.  I often find interesting lists of generators, creative tools, and more.  Quite helpful and interesting! At some point it’d be nice to get some here.

Any volunteers? 😉

– 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/.

Hey gang, not too much to report today.  I caught one of the apparent legion of new diseases going around and was just kind of bleh for most of the week.  Ever have those moments where you’re sick enough to not be as active as normal, but not properly sick so you can’t just lie down and be appropriately miserable?  Yeah, that was it.  Worked from home mostly, did a short outing to see friends, and walked to stay sane, and slept.

The next few weeks are going to be a tad busy, so I’m not sure what else I’ll be up to Sanctum-wise.  But if you’re in the Bay Area, let me know as I will be doing some speaking at a few events . . .

I’m really enjoying connecting with people more via Disqus and The Tumblr.  By the way, do check the Tumblr, some people are actually writing from the prompts . . .

I do have some next generators queued up, I just need to decide which is next.  One is based around magic, one dragons, and one SF pulp heroes.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.
– 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/.

Hey gang, it’s been pretty quiet on the Sanctum end – definitely taking a break from generators, the Writing Prompt Generator took a lot more out of me than I thought. Plus I’m busy with work, and am juggling some other projects. I have some conventions coming up. Also there’s some playing of Team Fortress 2 (Engineer-Pyro-Medic is my thing).

The Tumblr appears to be popular – and people keep signing up!  I’ll consider jacking in some more generators and stuff into it.

The next generator or three will be some different things I’m kicking around – and that accumulated while working on the Writing Prompt.  More stuff I wanted to do than anything else.

Also was wondering, with so many visitors a day, anyone think a get-together of some kind might be fun?

So about it for me.  How are you?

– 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/.

Not much to update today – mostly because I’m taking a break from doing the Writing Prompt Generator.  That one was pretty trying in retrospect and I definitely need some time off – though ironically I have three generator ideas in my head now.  Maybe I need to put a server on my laptop so I can tinker at the coffee shops I write at.

One thing I did to is connect the Writing Prompt Generator to the Tumblr.  That means that once a day you get a random prompt on top of the story and character prompts!  I admit I’m having fun experimenting with the Tumblr.

OK, enough for me, time to sign off, queue up some Rifftrax, and relax!

– 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/.