creativity

Writer’s Advice: Too Many Ideas To Finish?

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

At Fanime someone asked me a simple question:

“What do I do when I have too many ideas and can’t finish any.”

I’m sure you can relate.  We’ve all been there.  Some of us may have overcome it – and as I did I wanted to share what I’ve found.

  1. List out your creative projects.  Only do the ones you’d really want to do.  I keep a separate Incubator for “maybes.”
  2. Force-rank them in order of value – nothing can be of equal importance – only one is #1, only one is #2, and so on.  Value of course depends on you to determine.
  3. Take the top project and get it done.  Do it until you’re finished.  And yes, realizing that you’re going to focus on one thing might make you rethink value and revise the last stage.
  4. Once you’ve gotten one thing done, then you might consider juggling multiple projects at once.  If you’re still getting your priorities in order, don’t do more than two at a time.
  5. No matter how many you do, always keep their priority in mind.  When time gets tight, when things go wrong, you’ll know what to focus on.
  6. Eventually you’ll figure out how much you can handle and still get things done.  I myself usually have about 4-5 projects at any one time, but they’re of various complexities and timeframes.  Usually one Real Big One, a few midrange ones, and one or two short range (one month) ones.

This method is a simple way to keep focused, get things done, and learn your capacity for work and how to stay on top of it.

So why does it work?

First, it requires you to ask what you want to do.  You find what you care about.

Secondly, it requires you to think about value.  That requires you not only to evaluate the value of something but ask just what is value to you.  If you’re just starting out getting in order maybe it’s just something you can finish easily.  Later it may be something that makes a profit or teaches you a skill.

Third, it makes you prioritize.  This helps you further think about value and focus your efforts.

Fourth, it helps you get something done.  The experience of completion, even if the work is small or flawed or simple, teaches you a lot about productivity, completion, and what you want.

Fifth, you feel good as you got something done.  That feeling of achievement will help you stay directed and encouraged.

Of course this comes from my work in Agile.  It’s all about value, ranking, adaptability, and learning – without being overcomplicated.

Give it a try and let me know how it works!

– Steve

Aggretsuko, Style, And Experiences

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I’ve just run a marathon of Aggretsuko for a bunch of friends.  If you haven’t seen or heard of this Sanrio cute-dark office comedy, it’s worth checking out.  It’s the story of a twenty-something office worker, her lousy job, her friends, and her attempts to do more in her life – and the tales of the people around her.

The obvious part of why you want to check it out is that it’s well-acted, surprisingly deep in its look at pathological office environments and people being supportive of each other, and more.  The fact it’s all done cute makes dealing with the horrific parts of life more palatable – until you realize what you just saw is something that should have depressed you.

But what stood out for me was not just the content – it was the style.  Aggretsuko has lots of brilliant stylistic choices, tricks, callbacks, and more.  Such as:

  • Using Avatar The Last Airbender like mystic visions (yes, in the middle of a dark office comedy).
  • Callbacks to anime/martial arts – for death metal karoke (and how music is like comedy).
  • Use of mask metaphors in animation for people’s interpretations of others.
  • Very effective use of character body languages – with simple and cutsey characters, how you use body language is both limited and enhanced.
  • Even the dub makes certain choices of translation to give context – it’s not word-for-word, but instead smartly thinks of the audience and makes appropriate pop culture callbacks.

Many of these stylistic choices, many derived from other media, work well in service of a story.  Music can be combat.  We do wear masks – but we put them on others.  Aggretskuo is clearly made by people who understand other forms of media and learned from them.

All in the service of a cute animal dark office comedy.

The show thus becomes a lesson that my friend Serdar has often repeated; to be good at any form of media you need to learn from many forms of media.  Each influence, no matter how unexpected, or odd, or not related to the media you make is a chance to grow, get insights, and get lessons to apply.

Aggretsuko could have just done cute animals and dark comedy.  It may have been amusing or insightful, but it wouldn’t have had the impact it had.  It used lessons from other media to tell its story to make it more impactful and more powerful – everyone I watched it with was relating to it and taken by it and we had fruitful discussions of what we took from it.

Always be sure to try and experience new media – and be open to learning from one form of media to use in another.  A few examples for myself:

  • Dave Barry, the comedic/commentary writer has influenced my fiction writing.  His style dovetails well with my Pratchett/Aspirin influences, but also he has a gift for commenting on the human condition.
  • I use comics as a way to visualize fiction, how things may appear or be described.  It also helps me determine what I might be missing.
  • Witty writing in a Dragon Quest game had some stylistic choices with alliteration I tried in my nonfiction.

You’ve probably learned more from other media than you realize – what more can you learn when you’re aware of it?

– Steve

Steve’s Update 5/19/2018

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Looks like I forgot an update last week.  Things are still a bit busy.  So let’s get to it!

So what have I done the last week?

  • A Bridge To The Quiet Planet: I got the first set of pre-read feedback in and it looks like my second big pre-read feedback and my own final twists can be integrated in one go – so that starts this week.
  • Agile Creativity I got this blog-posts-turned book into one book, formatted it and have it out to people!  Let me know if you want to take a gander.
  • Blogging: Posted my thoughts on an Overwatch MMO (quite proud of those) and more details on the Avenoth solar system from A Bridge To The Quiet Planet – Magic and Technology
  • General Chores: Getting ready for Fanime!

What am I going to do this week?

The name of the game here is “focus.”  I also have a baby shower to go to and an event to run, so it might be a bit occupied.

  • A Bridge To The Quiet Planet: Start the final editing run.  I have no idea how long it’ll take.  I also hope to get more character work back on the cover!
  • Agile Creativity: Send it out to a few more pre-readers.
  • Fanime: Gonna be busy there!

I also realized I have to get back to fleshing out the Nexus at Seventh Sanctum – got a bit rushed in various things (maybe I overdid it there and should have paced myself).

As a note, I’m going to try more “bookblogging” – trying out posting some blog posts out of a book idea to see how it works and if its worth fleshing out.  Look for more soon . . .

– Steve