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Steve’s Book Roundup for 9/4/2022

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I write a lot and have quite a few books.  So now and then I post a roundup of them for interested parties!

The Way With Worlds Series

This is what I do a lot of – writing on worldbuilding!.  You can find all of my books at www.WayWithWorlds.com! 

The core books of the series will help you get going:

  • Way With Worlds Book 1 – Discusses my philosophy of worldbuilding and world creation essentials.
  • Way With Worlds Book 2 – Looks at common subjects of worldbuilding like conflicts in your setting, skills for being a good worldbuilder, and more!

When you need to focus on specifics of worldbuilding, I have an ever-growing series of deep dive minibooks.  Each provides fifty questions with additional exercises and ideas to help you focus on one subject important to you!

The current subjects are:

Fiction

Take a typical fantasy world – and then let it evolve into the information age.  Welcome to the solar system of Avenoth, where gods use email, demons were banished to a distant planet, and science and sorcery fling people across worlds . . .

  • A Bridge To The Quiet Planet – Two future teachers of Techno-Magical safety find trying to earn their credentials hunting odd artifacts backfires when they’re hired to put some back . . . on a planet where gods go to die!
  • A School of Many Futures – The crew is back, and finding having secrets and keeping them isn’t the same thing! Unfortunately they also find “very normal” is a cover for “anything but” . . .

Creativity

I’m the kind of person that studies how creativity works, and I’ve distilled my findings and advice into some helpful books!

  • The Power Of Creative Paths – Explores my theories of the Five Types of Creativity, how you can find yours, and how to expand your creative skills to use more Types of Creativity.
  • Agile Creativity – I take the Agile Manifesto, a guide to adaptable project development, and show how it can help creatives improve their work – and stay organized without being overwhelmed.
  • The Art of The Brainstorm Book – A quick guide to using a simple notebook to improve brainstorming, reduce the stress around having new ideas, and prioritize your latest inspirations.
  • Chance’s Muse – I take everything I learned at Seventh Sanctum and my love of random tables and charts and detail how randomness can produce inspiration!

Careers

Being a “Professional Geek” is what I do – I turned my interests into a career and have been doing my best to turn that into advice.  The following books are my ways of helping out!

  • Fan To Pro – My “flagship” book on using hobbies and interests in your career – and not always in ways you’d think!
  • Skill Portability – A quick guide to how to move skills from one job to another, or even from hobbies into your job.  Try out my “DARE” system and asses your abilities!
  • Resume Plus – A guide to jazzing up a resume, sometimes to extreme measures.
  • Epic Resume Go! – Make a resume a creative act so it’s both better and more enjoyable to make!
  • Quest For Employment – Where I distill down my job search experiences and ways to take the search further.
  • Cosplay, Costuming, and Careers – An interview-driven book about ways to leverage cosplay interests to help your career!
  • Fanart, Fanartists, and Careers – My second interview-driven book about ways to leverage fanart to help your career!
  • Convention Career Connection – A system for coming up with good career panels for conventions!

Culture

  • Her Eternal Moonlight – My co-author Bonnie and I analyze the impact Sailor Moon had on women’s lives when it first came to North America.  Based on a series of interviews, there’s a lot to analyze here, and surprisingly consistent themes . . .

My Sites

So Where Have I Been?

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

You may have seen a lack of posts for a few weeks. Don’t worry, everthing is fine, I just got interrupted.

I got a very mild case of covid – so mild my doctor didn’t prescribe anything (as she noted, any medication would probably make me feel worse). All I had was sore throat for a day, then a 48-hour fever two days later. However I had to isolate (which was tough), and I spent all the time I could resting to ensure the best outcome. Psychologically it was kind of tough – isolated, tired, avoiding infecting anyone else, and waiting for the ten day isolation period to end.

That lasted ten boring days. I did a little work during my illness and then slowly back to normal – but it’s the end of the Financial Year and I had training to complete. So I had things to keep me busy when I wasn’t sleeping – in general people my age seem to need about 2 weeks to recover. I didn’t even return to any exercise until a week after I recovered.

I’m fully recovered about 11-12 days after the infection ended! However my sleep schedule got thrown massively off and there’s still some leftover stress. So I plan to use this weekend to “catch up” on life and sanity (and get back to my full daily walks!).

So most every project of mine got delayed one month. However I also had a lot of time to think about my projects for 2023, so stay tuned on my developing vision. And, yes, it involves worldbuilding of course!

I may also post how I handled isolation to protect my girlfriend – who did not get infected despite being in the same house as me.

Steven Savage

Steve’s Update 7/10/2022

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

“Think Agile, Write Better”: I had a few interruptions, but seem to have my pace back. It’s still slower than I’d like because of the “change of voice,” but that’s the way it goes.  I’m going to push this hard so I can get a draft out to people.  

It’s fascinating to write because it’s helping me review my own writing and see where I did well – and flaws where I didn’t practice what I preach!  It’s really a personal book and I can’t wait for my beta readers to check out the new tone.

The Seventh Sanctum rewrite: I’ve got the setup tested, but did not get it out like I wanted because my attempts at “uninterrupted time” did not happen.  There’s a few parts where I need an uninterrupted block of time and focus, which I haven’t had.  So at this rate I’m just going to keep trying to ram it out while staying nimble.

The Way With Worlds series: As note on hold until Q3 or so, when I’ll write “Disaster Response and Worldbuilding.”  Cover conversion goes well – I’m going to try to do one a week.  As for converting the books over, that’s probably much later this year.

The Compendium of Writing Advice: I’m putting off even thinking about this until September.  I need it off my mental plate!

Plus there are giveaways!

Steven Savage