7.6 KiB
Heroes Save the World, ch. 23: Austin Smith
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Author: u/callmebrotherg now posting as /u/callmesalticidae*
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URL: https://heroessavetheworld.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/not-too-small-ch-10-austin-smith/
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Score: 11
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Created: 2016-11-25T06:17:04
Post:
Comments:
u/semiurge [+3] (7 hours later)
I noticed the other day that you're the same guy who made the Cyclopedia of Comparative Mythology and the /tg/ on Stuff pdfs, unless you killed him and stole his name. Have you got any other writings you'd be willing to share?
u/callmebrotherg [+5] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (10 hours later)
Yes indeed!
Strange Nations is a Kickstarter that I ran last year. The book that it produced is going to be released (for free) in January.
I also wrote a revised edition of the Cyclopedia, which I'll be releasing the month after, and as you can see from the Kickstarter page, there's another series of booklets that I've worked on, How-To Cultures, which boils down the common traits between cultures that developed in the same environment but without necessarily influencing each other (e.g. the horse nomads of the Eurasian Steppe and the American Great Plains). The idea is that you can use this to build a culture that makes sense without having to model it after any one culture.
I'm also working on something called Species Shock, a forty or fifty page long look at an alien species that covers everything from the chemical makeup of their blood to popular forms of art. Also, info on their homeworld and native wildlife. Like Strange Nations, it'll be in the Creative Commons, free for anyone to drag and drop or modify for anything, commercial or noncommercial, so long the same privilege is perpetuated forward.
(I actually need to get around to adding the CC license to Heroes Save, too. I put it on everything but my nonfiction these days.)
I'm working on some other projects too, but after my laptop and backup hard drive were stolen early this year and I lost my notes on them, I've been set back to square one (I put everything on the cloud now, and may start sending weekly updates to a couple of people so they have my notes too).
Lastly, I used to maintain a blog called White Marble Block, where I posted stories, articles from the columns that I wrote (one personal, three for RPG.net at different times, and one for Sanitarium Magazine), and other stuff. I'm going to be launching a Patreon campaign in January for HSTW and my resource projects (Strange Nations, the Cyclopedia, etc), and as I get more funds I'll revive a couple of columns, start writing some other short stories (right now, my shorts and novels are being written purely for the market, but I'd prefer to be able to let everything be free on the Internet and get my funding via Patreon), and bonus chapters for HSTW.
The About page has some story recommendations, but as it notes is under renovation and hasn't been fully updated yet. Since I've been using it for some time now, the stories range from "My god, I wrote thaaat?" to stuff that I still like.
Oh, and I'm also heavily rewriting an old contemporary fantasy novel that I wrote a few years, and sketching out a second, unrelated novel. I'm going to be shopping them around rather than posting them like HSTW, but AFAIK (and I'll be double checking for sure!) it isn't technically "publishing" them to allow my Patreon subscribers to access them, in the same way that posting them on a locked forum doesn't count as publishing.
(Written on my mobile, so I apologize if there's a spelling error here somewhere.)
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (11 days later)
Do you have links for that stuff?
u/semiurge [+1] (11 days later)
It's on his blog
u/sourcejedi [+2] (4 days later)
I look forward to more conflict between Hannah, and people worried about her solutions :).
u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (8 days later)
I can't imagine what there is to worry about!
u/space_fountain [+1] (2 days later)
Just got caught up and I've got to say I've really enjoyed your story so far. My biggest complaint is that there doesn't seem to be any easy way to navigate to the next chapter from an old old one and making that issue worse the table of contents appears to be out of date.
Great story so far and great writing though so I hope it gets more attention.
u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (3 days later)
Thank you! I'm glad that you're enjoying the story.
The "previous chapter" and "next chapter" buttons are located under the comments. Annoyingly, this feature wasn't apparent back when I was first deciding what theme to go with.
I'm currently studying for the GRE and have some other things to do on top of that (e.g. grad school apps), but the GRE is on Wednesday so on Thursday I'm going to look at alternate Wordpress themes, and on Friday I'm going to present screenshots of 3-5 of them for the readers to take a look at (makes more sense for the readers to have the last say, since you're the ones that have to look at it).
u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (4 days later)
Here are the four Wordpress themes that I'm considering. Do you like any of them? Should I use none of them and go back to the drawing board?
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (11 days later)
If it matters at all, I personally prefer lighter text on darker background. And since pure white text on pure black background is supposedly bad for your eyes I actually really like your current color scheme. The best would be to find a theme that is as similar to your current one as possible while relocating the previous/next chapter links either to the top or just above the comment section, preferably both at the same time.
With the above in mind I sadly have to tell you that all of the Imgur samples seem like massive downgrades to me. 'Hero' is white on black and has edgy red sidebar text. 'Affinity' and 'Rowling' are nothing special in any way and too bright for my taste, though that last part is subjective. 'Pique' is weird in that the About section seems to be completely different from the main chapter section and on top of that it's missing the sidebar completely.
If those are your only options I recommend staying with what you have right now. Readers will quickly get used to simply scrolling to the bottom. Or you could manually put previous/next chapter links into the text itself.
u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (11 days later)
It totes matters! You have to look at this site more than I do, considering that I generally re-read chapters in "edit post" mode.
I only just now caught your manual buttons idea. That's definitely an option if the current theme I've picked out doesn't catch on.
Also
And since pure white text on pure black background is supposedly bad for your eyes
Everything I like is bad for me... >:[