Creative Roundup: Emperor of Ashes and Breakfast Veggies

Two very different topics...

Video:

My newest video, Breakfast Vegetables, is now here! Watch in fibrous, vitamin-packed awe as I try to make vegetables for breakfast a thing. Which of the seven dishes is the best? Well, it certainly isn't the green beans.

Writing:

The latest exposition is now available. Enter the broken, mysterious, and dangerous world of The Emperor of Ashes.

Bonus: Raw text of 10 attempts at crafting the first few lines

The air was ash.
The air was dry, blasted lands be damned, the hint of ashes of a world burned away that a stretch of time could not pass over as of yet.
The blasted lands beckoned, dry with decades old ash still not dwindled away.
[Protagonist] pulled at the air, testing its limits. Ash, like always.
He felt the air. Too much residue of ash; not enough sand for a living.
The world around [Protagonist] was blasted; like him it fled from humanity.
Dying, crying, deadly still and dry as ash; the Blasted Lands welcomed [Protagonist] like a lost son.
The mad sun beat down on [Protagonist]. The cracks in the ground belayed the history of ash.
The Blasted Lands whispered, ‘Ash, ash and hidden rewards for the ruthless and desperate, and some combination of both.”
Protagonist strode across the Blasted Lands, letting the dust of his feet swirl like the ashes they once were

Comments

Creative Tool: Idea Mutation

It's mutating out of control! Here is another wild method of improving the creativity of ideas through the process of introducing random 'mutations'. I call it Idea Mutation. Method: Start with an idea. Add it to a circle on the far left side of a piece of paper. That is round 1. Make two branches off the first idea. Each branch has a new circle. That is round 2. For each branch, roll a 10-sided dice and select the 'mutation' from the table below. For each branch, create a 'mutated' idea incorporating that branch's mutation. Continue branching and mutation ideas for subsequent rounds (3, 4, etc.). Modifications: Include different mutations (ex. Add Thrill, More Collaborative, Clearer, etc.) Add null mutation (no changes for certain branches) Change probability of mutations (same mutation for more than one number) Examples:

Creative Tool: Idea Bracket

Let the Best Idea Win. How to generate great ideas? Why not create an Idea Bracket ? It is analogous to a sports league play-off. Ideas are pitted against each other, with the winning idea moving on to the next round. The last idea standing is the winner. I do have a few additional rules. The Three M's : Modify, Merge, and Markup. These rules allow for both idea modification and saving sub-winner ideas. Simple enough, right? Let's try it out on some examples. Story Beginning Location Floating City and Haunted Graveyard merged into Floating Graveyard Screaming Wastelands modified into Blasted Wastelands Winner was Floating Graveyard and Sundered Titan merged into Floating Graveyard of Titans Artistic Inspiration Shack Brainstorming and Review Idea/Notes merged to Shack Review Ideas TCG View modified to TCG Mashup Shack Review Ideas marked for later Monster App and Walk and Song merged to Walk and Song with Monster App Priming Winner was T...

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