Steven Savage's Blog, page 68

Civic Diary: Everyday Stuff

First up, my monthly civic geek roundup. Where am I?

First, still doing the local political group. Trying to do more, frankly, but we’ve had trouble coordinating. I do have my posting down to a system. My usual calling and annoying my elected officials of course. Been a bit off on that, but overall keeping at it. I’ve vaguely scheduled a plan to get more into doing Op-Eds and writing newspapers/news sites. There’s a class I can take and a book I found.

Now this month’s thought is on the fac...

Career Thoughts Late 2017

I haven’t done a career post in awhile. I’ve been focused on my worldbuidling books and expanding my repetoire, but I’m still the Geek Job Guru, and it’s time I do a bit more of that.

So with 2017 stumbling along, from political chicanery to security issues to media scandals, let’s talk the career landscape so far. It’s . . . weird.

Economy:

The stock market is humming along, but in the midst of political chaos, assorted scandals, and growing social and economic issues. In short, I don’t tru...

Steve’s Update 10/22/2017

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

It’s my weekly Scrum style standup for my audience, so where am I?  Besides having missed last week? Yeah it was nuts.

So what have I done the last weeks? “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet”: Chapter 8 is published.  Chapter 9 is written.  Chapter 10 is almost done.  I finished my plot editing and revisioned. Way With Worlds Minibook #5: Queuing up this week.  It’s all ready to go! Columns: I’ve got a lot of columns written up! Ot...

A Writer’s Life: Method To Your Radness

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

My friend Serdar had opinions on my recent halfway-point review/light rewrite of “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet.” Namely, he was surprised at the ambition, as he says:

Sometimes you can put your head down, bluster through the rest of a draft, and fix everything next time around. Sometimes you simply can’t, especially if the psychic pressure created by the need to make those changes in the first place becomes a distraction.

My m...

A Writer’s Life: The Big Edit

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

I got to the halfway point on “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet” and realized I had lots of notes, things I wanted to improve and tweak, and so on.  In general I wanted to “tune up” what I had and improve my plot outline.  So I did something kind of ambitious: I decided to review the entire first half of the book scene by scene, both adding and rewriting, as well as fleshing out the plot outline.

Yeah.  Kinda stupidly ambitious? ...

Make It So: Cosplay And Health

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

(Here’s a series I haven’t touched in awhile.)

At Con-Volution I got into a fascinating discussion with a cosplayer on how complicated outfits were.  This led to the usual discussion of “how the hell do you go to the bathroom.”  That, fortunately led to a productive discussion, and one I want to cover.

Conventions should do a panel on Healthy Cosplay.

What do I mean?  Think about all the challenges that cosplay involves – eati...

Steves Update 10/9/2017

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

It’s my weekly Scrum style standup for my audience, so where am I?

So what have I done the last week? “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet”: Whew.  Finished a big edit-run through.  Posted Chapter 8.  I am back to writing but also need to do a bit more plot fleshing out – as now we’re sliding into the crazy. Way With Worlds Minibook #4: Launched Con-Volution: Attended.  More on that perhaps later! What am I going to do this week: ...

A Writer’s Life: Taking Notes And Improving Writing

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

As I write “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet,” I’ve started taking notes on my writing techniques.

Getting back into this was a bit tougher than I thought, so it took me awhile to get going.  Fortunately I kind of got a writing system going again – only, as I used it, I had other insights.

So I figured, why not write them down for later?

This is something I hadn’t thought of before, but as I do so I find the act of reviewing these...

My Agile Life: Review Lets You Get It Right; Review Lets You Let Go Of Perfection

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s LinkedIn, and Steve’s Tumblr)

More on my use of “Agile” and Scrum in my life!

Perfection is the nemesis of success. The Perfect isn’t just the enemy of the good – sometimes the good is the enemy of ever accomplishing anything. Trying to get everything right can kill you, and sometimes even trying to get it really good is a barrier.

Sometimes you just have to complete something, review it, and improve it or do it again. Reviews are what l...

A Writer’s View: Flowing Back And Forth

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

As I write “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet” I keep discovering more about it.  Perhaps I find a theme that I missed or that should be incorporated into the story.  Or I may realize I missed something and that I have rewriting to do. Or something just works better.

For awhile this was irritating, and sometimes I got jammed up around what I called “Big Rocks.” But the more I thought about it, this is normal and in fact, quite heal...