Well one big announcement here is that I’m releasing the very crude Alpha of the Writing Prompt Generator. How crude? Well I’d consider it at best 15% done, but the framework is there.
So this is where you come in – I want feedback and suggestions! I could do this all myself (and indeed I’m going over famous opening lines of books for ideas), but as this is quite an effort frankly, and could do in so many directions, I thought it’d be fun to get feedback while I worked on it.
So go check it out and tell me what you think it needs!
And now, some examples:
- A plague is just like marriage – he always said that.
- A war was just what I expected.
- And now the the cloud is speaking.
- And now the the ocean is howling.
- Disbelief requires love, and that’s where things get complicated.
- Evan knew that wisdom requires education.
- Famine, wisdom, and it seems the star is giggling.
- He died for faith, that was the problem
- He lived for evil.
- Isaiah was an astronomer.
- It was Wednesday, the day of birth, and that’s when the murders began.
- Mass murder – it was definitely Saturday.
- On Wednesday I became a linquistics expert.
- She lived for ambition.
- The communications officer was speaking.
- There was a case of sudden poverty, he was a starship salesperson, and he was going to be the problem.
- There was a famine, he was a bard, and he was going to be the problem.
- There was a war, but nobody knew that.
- This is a tale about justice and begin a zookeeper.
- We called her Makayla, but we didn’t know why.
OK gang, let me know what else to add, your favorite opening quotes, and more!
– 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/.
Well I doubt any of us need Sailor Moon explained to us. But if you ever need to give someone an overview, The Mary Sue is putting together a series explaining it all.
Now as a creative type, I’m following this pretty closely. The relaunch is a huge thing of a beloved franchise, it’s supposedly following the manga closer (which will make it fresher), and it seems that the American audience is even more receptive to the magical girl genre. This could be insanely huge.
Also if it’s huge (figure it will be) I’m thinking . . .
It’ll play into Hollywood’s unoriginality. They will jump on this.
I expect more attention to the magical girl genre in the US. Again.
It could be surprisingly mainstream as the seeds are there.
What do you think?
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/.
Well, what’s up?
- First you probably saw the Action Animal Generator. That’s a way to keep my mojo going as I cope with rounds of business, illness, work, etc. Q1 was not the calmest quarter. Also this was fun -and there’s a kinda-related-inspired generator I want to do that is more useful. I think I think I will have to block out time to do those more complex writing generators I wanted though. Then again this quarter really ambushed me.
- One of the reasons I was so busy was . . . a rewrite of my first book! Now there’s Fan To Pro’s Second Edition. I updated my career guide with lots of new information, reorganized it, and more. I learned a lot over the years and wanted to get that done – and that also was a larger drain on my time than expected – especially formatting. If you do a print book self-published, get ready to spend time or money to format it right . . . (If you want any advice, email me).
- I haven’t sensed a lot of enthusiasm for the mailing list so I left that by the wayside for awhile, but am considering it and other social options. Also, again, being darned busy.
- We’ve got more posts coming from me and Solar Scortch, and I’ll be diving deep into religious worldbuilding!
– Steven Savage
Whew, sorry for the slow update. Got over my illness, but still had a busy week. So what’s up?
The Magical Guild Generator is done, and you can use it here.
For those of you not familiar with what inspired it, “Fairy Tail,” it’s an anime I’ve seen that a Sanctum user mentioned – specifically they wanted names of Guilds for wizards based on the series. In general I think a “band of magical people” generator is a good idea, so I decided to make a Guild generator for Wizards, but also generalize it a bit more to have a diverse set of naming patters.
The end result? I’d say pretty good. The names are usable in the majority of cases, and sometimes it gets really inspired stuff. I think I managed to use both the source material well and make a general generator.
There were also a few insights into language in this case – and for you language buffs, they were:
- That many names do have a kind of alternating generic/specific pattern – something I explored before, but see prominently here.A guild named Witch Spell or Triton Potion would sound almost “too magical” but something named Witch Gear, Triton Gate, Wolf Spell, or Raven Potion sound find. “Contextual” language is something for me to explore further.
- Some terms for people – Queen, Watchman, etc. also act as descriptors/definers, and not just as titles. Thus you may have a guild like King Triton.
- I never realized how many names for groups there are – and how important it is to realize some groups are defined by using their number as part of their name. I mean, there was the Jackson Five – not a guild of magicians by the way – and I believe some Sentai team names had their number as part of their title. In fact that was part of my Sentai team namer, and again I see now how this is a pattern.
Now that you can go churn out Wizard guilds to your heart’s content, what’s next? Well I still have the list of what people requested, and a few personal things I want to try. But with skills re-primed, I think I want to do one of the writing-related requests, like plot twists or writing prompts.
Now I’m formatting a book – and of course always working on Way With Worlds, so as usual there’s no date. But I admit I’ve got some ideas . . .
– Steven Savage
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
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
Hello everyone! So let’s see how we’re doing at Seventh Sanctum!
- I’ve got some rough plans for the next few months, we’ll see how they work out after a little polishing and planning. I’m not planning anything as big as the rewrite for the next year because that took a lot out of me.
- As you saw, Way With Worlds is back! I plan to revisit the entire column line to rewrite, expand, or in a few cases just leave some old ones alone. Think of it as Way With Worlds updated – as I have a lot to add from my experiences!
- Didn’t see a lot of enthusiasm for a blog, but let me note that it will be basically running as part of the site but not take over the site – I don’t want to turn the site into a blog, so much as have one that belongs to the site if you get my drift. The purpose is the tools first and foremost – but it’d be nice to have content and people commenting on it and interacting. I’m still assuming adding a blog in Q1 or so – and a little feedback would help (even if it’s “really, don’t”).
- Do have a few more formatting tweaks I may try, so stay tuned!
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/.
Thanks for the continuous feedback folks. So a few updates
- First, you may notice a color change at Seventh Sanctum – the Blue Is Back. Frankly, a lot of people sort of missed it. So hey, if it’s part of the brand, there you go.
- Several people would like options to choose results back. I’m considering a few possibilities and debating if it’s worth restoring. But the feedback is appreciated.
- I’m considering a slight layout change with the comments to leave less blank space – but it actually makes the layouts trickier in some cases. Live and learn.
- Finally – and I really would like feedback on this – I’m considering how to add more content and interactive features. A message board seems a bit excessive and basic, the Disqus comments are nice, a mailing list may be fun, but I’ve wondered what about some direct content with a blog/posting element? It doesn’t even have to be me writing for it but could give a place for a lot of us to post ideas, creativity, theories, advice, and more. I’ve got a rough idea of how I can embed a blog into the site without overstraining it, but it’s pretty basic right now.
Let me know!
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/.
