(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
Well this has been awhile. It’s been crazy time with illness, changing to a new contract, roommate starting a new job, social events, more illness, and general chaos. Honestly, I feel like I need to take some time off.
So I just sent out a newsletter update, but let’s cover where I am right now
- The Way With Worlds Book 2 is in final edits. If all goes well I format and run a first print next weekend. If not . . . uh well it doesn’t happen. I think it’ll be out end of March or early April with no other interruptions.
- Those Way With Worlds Minibooks are coming out great! I’m working on the fourth (yes, they’re small and I’ve been doing them for awhile). I think you’ll enjoy them.
- There’s a new generator in the works, inspired by my gamecrush Failbetter games. Oh and go back their now project, Sunless Skies!
- I’m trying to write more than just updates and books, and hoping the lack of illness will make that easier.
- I and my roommate have become addicted to RWBY.
That’s it for me. Just letting you know I’m still working away here to make your life geekier, professional, creative, and interesting. As long as I stop catching colds from other people.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
And Merry Post-Christmas everyone! I hope you’re doing well. Me, I’ve got over a week off and am enjoying it – which means plenty of time to do projects. And by that I probably mean play videogames, but still.
So let’s catch up!
Way With Worlds Book 2 – I have finished my latest edits and am getting feedback in from pre-readers. Very positive on this one. Still looking to be end of March. I will need reviewers too . . .
Way With Worlds Followup – I’ve been bouncing this idea around here and there, but there are followup minibooks to Way With Worlds. Those are in the works. Those probably drop in April, over time. There’s more in my newsletters.
The Next Generator – Taking a break from Food, the next generator is a Magical Girl Team generator! The current alpha version produces teams like “Beguiling Rose Angels,” “Rune Ladies” and “Seraphim Of Energy” which seems to be on track!
Thats about it for me – enjoying the time off and relaxing. Of course that means writing . . .
– 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)
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)
OK got plenty of updates, so what’s been up? I figure I’ll just put in everything here
Way With Worlds:
- The sample print copy of Book One worked pretty well – though there were some edits. I’ve got a second copy on the way now and if that works out . . . it’ll be good. So dropping in July looks quite likely!
- I did note the draft copies that I get are kinda lower quality than final prints. That has made cover formatting a tad harder.
- I’m hoping to do some blog promotions on the book – and to share my insights!
- Book Two is going to definitely be moved to November. The Sailor Moon book drops in September and the followup could be pretty busy. On top of that my editor is swamped so I’m giving her some breathing room.
- Yes, the followup plans are still in place. Stay tuned – though you may not see them until December 2016 or January 2017.
Skills Transfer Book:
- I’ve got a little minibook based on my previous column on skill portability. I’m rewriting and expanding the ideas to release a useful 99 cent guide. I mention it here as it may be relevant to Sanctumites.
Generators:
- Yep the theme is still food for 2016, though right now I’m juggling at least 3 generator possibilities. Stay tuned.
Whew, that’s a lot. How are you doing?
– Steve
