NokoPods - SoundSage

2:00 - Presenting Jason Parks!

2:34 - Book 2 of the Red Notebooks: The Unfinished City!

3:40 - What happens to parts that get cut from a book?

4:30 - StoMo: Story Month! 500 words/day, 30-Day Challenge

7:00 - How does Jason structure books/projects?
“If I don’t pursue it in the moment, I need to go for it. I can’t let it sit for too long. Grab onto that excitement in the moment!"

8:00 - Something you don’t expect to see every day: a door laying in the grass!
“I wonder where that door leads…”

9:50 - Forming a story from weeks of notes: A junk collector’s son

11:50 - The Importance of Setting: “How can the story play out here? I like to build from setting.”

15:00 - “Leo and Notch” - a story about a boy who discovers wizards and dragons

15:50 - Internal vs. External Conflict in Middle Grade

17:40 - How to pace yourself: Scene by Scene. Finishing a scene a day!

20:00 - Writing Equipment: What software does Jason use?
Idea generation on MacBook → Writing on desktop!

22:00 - Writing Environment: The power of quiet, open space!

25:00 - Writing Music: How Jason gets into focus with instrumental music

28:00 - Plotting a Long Series: One book at a time!

32:00 - Word Counts: 55000 → 70000 for MG fantasy

34:00 - “I’m trying to learn new things as I’m writing. I’m learning with each book that I write, how to be a writer.”

36:00 - Reading aloud other people’s stories to kids. See how they respond!

39:00 - How do you find beta reader kids to give you feedback?

42:00 - Pulling in someone who doesn’t typically read in the genre

42:15 - “When drafting, don’t let feedback interfere with the process.”

42:50 - How to avoid quitting halfway through: “You have to get to the end. You gotta finish a project.”

47:20 - Using Twitter to Teach Novel-Writing

48:00 - Thoughts on self publishing: “Shepherding my whole project.”

48:40 - “I looked at the amount of time that it takes to get from your story to people’s hands, and it just seems like such a long process. That would slow me down as a creative. I want to keep creating things, and keep learning. If I was sitting on a book for two or three years… No way!”

51:00 - Twitter for Marketing, connecting with other writers & creators, cross-promotion

53:00 - Diversified Advertising: Facebook ads, Amazon ads

54:00 - Collaborating with local libraries, universities

56:00 - Just put it out there! Unexpected opportunities arise.

60:00 - Jason’s advice to young creators: “Just keep playing!”

65:00 - “Get to the end, whatever you got to do!”

68:00 - The Future of Storytelling: Coauthoring with people from across the world. Collaborative creating with various viewpoints.

72:00 - What would you create if you had unlimited resources? “Include everyone. Invite everyone. No barriers to entry.” Whatever it takes to make sure that it is in every accessible language, visual, audio, whatever your abilities or strengths. Make sure everyone can experience it.

74:00 - “Pages matter!” Hold books in your hand, turn the pages

74:40 - The World’s Largest Popup Book, ten stories high!

79:00 - Visualizing characters. Do you try to put a real-world face on fictional characters?

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3:30 - Inspirations for Spriting
4:30 - Classwork in Frigidia: Teaching oneself the craft of spriting
6:00 - Which Honmon animation are you most proud of having created?
7:30 - Strategies to sync parts of a complicated Honmon animation
8:30 - Starting from the longest animation
10:00 - Visual effect animations: Turning a real-life effect into pixel art
13:00 - Starting from Similarity: Looking at cartoons, games, real life
15:00 - Experimentation in drafting
19:00 - School research: Using MATLAB to calculate more than trajectories of balls
22:00 - "We wouldn't be here without our tools." Important to know what you can do!
23:00 - Tools: rotating images, copying layers
24:00 - Favorite animations: Boiluga & Boileen water & fire interplay
25:30 - 2D vs. 3D in the modern world. Advantages of 2D
28:00 - Helpful classes for game design
29:40 - Good online tutorials for pixel art effects, creating GIFs, fire effects
31:00 - Finding good online tutorials through online communities
32:00 - Prioritizing animations: Detail vs. Ease of Animation
35:00 - Showing personality through pixel art
36:00 - Planning a long-term project and pacing yourself
40:00 - Finding a community to grow in

Online Tutorials & Related Links

https://saint11.org/blog/pixel-art-tutorials/
https://www.aseprite.org
https://codemanu.itch.io
https://www.honmon.co/

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1.) Doing Content Right - Tools for Creation

2:30 - Self-Intro
3:30 - Motivation for Doing Content Right - fill gap of good information on online content creation & marketing
6:00 - Her First Book - "Let me just disseminate this information, and it just happened to be in book form."
7:00 - "Just following my curiosity and doing things that excite me."
8:00 - "I'm always looking for new tools that give me some extra layer of data." How she finds tools. Product Hunt, Twitter, and Indie Maker communities. Thriving as a data geek.
9:00 - "Having the right access to the right tools is almost a superpower... Knowing what tools you have access to and using them effectively is a total game-changer."
11:00 - Making experimentation part of your habit. "Keep track of what tools you want to try. If it doesn't fit your workflow at that particular instant, you should take stock of what you want to try. Make a habit of trying those new things, so you can stay ahead of the curve."
12:30 - Steph's list of "Interesting Things." Teasing out the noise of what is interesting. Taking stock, creating a backlog, thinking about why something was interesting in the first place. Train your brain to recognize what makes people curious.

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2.) Creating a Visual Online Identity - Images are worth a thousand words!

Tool stack: Craftwork, Undraw, DrawKit, Noun Project, Unsplash, among others. Where does each one fit into her flow?

16:00 - Creating her own illustrations in Adobe Illustrator. There's a way that I want to convey a very specific concept.
16:30 - "It's very hard to find something out there that does [the message] justice."
"If you find the right image to convey the right thought, it's worth so much more than a stock image."
17:00 - Comparison to corporate brands. Being thoughtful about stock imagery. "Does it match all the other things I'm creating?"
18:00 - Fast-tracking. Unsplash for stock images, the Noun Project for certain illustrations.
"When you see illustrations, you see the final product. You don't see the mathematical backend of it."
Infographics: "They're surprisingly easy to create it if you know how to use Illustrator."
Like coding: "If you don't know how to do it, it looks like this big task that is like a black box. But once you know Illustrator, it's like a superpower enabling you to communicate in that same form."
20:00 - Color palettes! Pastel colors with fun colors match the type of person she is.
21:30 - Choosing the right image for each article -- why she likes non-prescriptive, abstract imagery!
23:00 - "If I can't meet in-person every person that happens to engage with me online, they can get some sort of taste of who I am as a person, my own personality, and what I find interesting. The visual part of that is something not enough creators do."
How to stand out as a creator, visually.

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3.) Travel: Remote Work Environments -- 4+ years of remote work!

What places do you find yourself revisiting, to capture some spark of inspiration?

25:00 - Exploring and Exploiting. Explore more at the beginning, then exploit more later.
26:00 - "Where do I work the best? Where do I live my best life? For me, it was a couple of places."
Canggu in Bali: Community, scooters, share offices, nature, gym
Kyoto in Japan: Food, culture, accessibility, biking along the river
28:00 - "Where do I have the best community?"
30:00 - Reaching a new place → "A complete learning process. You just have to put yourself out there."
"No matter where you go, it's going to be a process. The easiest way to do so is through common shared interests."
32:30 - "If we're bonding over soccer, they don't need to know I just wrote a book!" 😆
33:00 - Hackaggu: 10 to 25 people working & talking about their projects!
"It depends a lot on who you're surrounded by."
36:00 - Finding human connection when everyone is remote. Forming strong friendships outside work.
39:00 - How interactions are changing: "We engage when we need to engage."

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4.) Writing for Kids -- How to reach kids

Marketing advice: Meet people where they are. But what if the communities are gatekept, and mostly offline?

43:00 - Creating content through TikTok, YouTube, and playful media
43:30 - Offline media. Writing a children's book? Engaging kids with games.
44:30 - If parents are the gateway, write/create for the parent, leveraging parents' motivations.
47:00 - Fostering enjoyment of creation: Start earlier!
48:00 - "As a kid, you have the stability to do what you want, and it's totally fine if you don't succeed!"
Nudging kids, creating together, just for fun. How to create positive feedback loops for kids, to instill the sentiment: "If you work hard and try things, then there are exciting things behind these doors."
As kids we're graded on yes or no, A or B or C, but it's important to nudge kids towards these curious projects.
50:00 - Etsy for Kids. Instead of making money, it's about recognition: creating something useful for the world. Parents pay for kids to be on the platform, kids sell their own products or trade with other kids. Adding value to the world!
51:00 - Embracing failure in real life. Fall in love with learning, testing, experimenting with creation! They'll do better next time.
52:00 - Internal motivation drivers for kids to create! Marketplaces as reward structures.
"Kids are just tiny humans!" 👶🏽

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Related Links:

Steph's Online Home: https://stephsmith.io

Doing Content Right: https://gumroad.com/l/doing-content-right

Kids Can Create: https://www.noko.news/post/kids

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Turner's Blog: http://www.onceatraveler.com

2:00: Self-Intro to Turner. Returning from Japan during the pandemic.
4:00: Traveling during childhood. UK - London
7:00: First Travel as Adult → Japan
8:00: Weekend Trips in Japan to Explore. "I'd take the train to some random corner of Japan."
9:00: Stories about Japan: Mysticism and Movies.
11:00: Ferry from Osaka → Shanghai → Beijing → Hong Kong → Thailand. "It all blossomed from there."
12:00: Obsessive Planning: Always knew his end date, scheduled his time around it.
14:00: Language Learning: "I have to eat today!"
15:00: Tools for Assimilation. "Nights alone in my room, studying out of a book."
17:00: Getting Comfortable: Diet, Exercise, Meeting People
18:00: The Key to Survival: "How to read people."
20:00: Common Body Language: "Often you can tell what's going on."
22:00: "Nobody is fluent in any language."
26:00: Finding Running Trails: "Look for a body of water."
28:00: Running is the perfect activity for travelers... Even if your wrist is broken!
31:00: The Explorer Mindset: "I'm just out there exploring." No miles/day, pace, or training involved!
35:00: Thailand -- A new approach: "Pick a direction and go."
36:00: Thinking while Running: "If it's important, I'll remember it." The Marathon Monks in Kyoto.
42:00: Once a Traveler blog: more than a decade of travel, from 2008.
43:00: Blog Motivation -- "I could say this better than these other people." His own perspective.
His most viral and evergreen content: "People still email me about some of my original blogs, about teaching English in Japan at a certain private company."
44:00: Writing as an Outlet
44:30: Pitching the Japanese Medical System to Travel Publications. Getting paid for a few articles, feedback from editors.
48:00: His biggest demographic: People interested in teaching English in Asia.
49:00: Most frequently asked question = "How do you pay for it?" Working in these countries, doing regular jobs!
51:00: Choosing a Job: Not all about money! Teaching English vs. Engineering in Korea & Japan & Taiwan
53:00: College Studies: Their Lack of Applicability to Jobs Abroad. "You'll never predict."
58:00: Getting Exposed Early as a Student: "Just getting a little spark." Create your own motivation.
59:00: Classroom Japanese vs. Real-World Japanese. "Nothing I learned in the classroom was useful!"
65:00: Future Travels: "Once a traveler, always a traveler." How will we travel in the future?
Climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Do a Safari in Kenya, and Relax on Beaches in Zanzibar

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3:00 - What June’s Reading Now - Star Wars and Information Theory

4:30 - How Disney has expanded the Star Wars universe into book

6:00 - The Benefits of Kindle Books

8:00 - Reading iPad in Bed: Frontlit Kindle versus Backlit Tablet

13:00 - Will physical books go away?

14:00 - Textbook trends in university: the Price of PDF and Publishers

16:00 - Why June prefers physical books

17:30 - What format will you give your children first?

20:00 - The process of publishing a research note or study in a journal

22:00 - The research paper review process: Single-blind vs. Double-blind

25:00 - Publishing in a research journal vs. on the web vs. in a book

26:00 - Finding the right medium for publishing an idea

27:00 - Writing a book from research findings: What are the downsides?

32:00 - How to find journals outside one’s own immediate field? The Archive!

33:00 - Google Scholar, Bing, Paper Search Engines

37:00 - The History of Color: How did people make paint pigments through history?

38:30 - Beetle espionage

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How is Disney World like in the reopening post-pandemic? Different but no less magical! How he managed to get into Epcot twice, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios.
Surviving without Meet-and-Greets! Stores & shops & restaurants still closed! Eaties Ice Cream Shop and Casey’s Corner both closed. Went through 100 Dasanis! Where to find the next Mickey bar?
10:00 - World Showcase: How are they dealing with the college program? Not fully staffed. Not a complete international experience. Pandemic and border closure influence felt.
The Future is Under Construction: at EPCOT, in real life.
12:50 - The Worldwide Wisdom of Walt! Updates on his next book. How he’s doing his research during the pandemic, with world travel on the backburner. Will it still happen?
Park-centric books. That’s what readers love about them. “I want to continue that tradition.” Yes, it’s about the ambience and the atmosphere. We all have our favorite ride. We all have our favorite attraction. I want to inspire people based on the story that come from those attractions.
17:00 - “If you show up, then the muse of inspiration will show up with you.” (“If you wait for inspiration or the muse to show up, then good luck, it will never happen.”)
The Book Blueprint: How did he develop the model for writing a book? Even when the material and the stories changed, he already had the blueprint.
21:00 - His interview strategy for unearthing information about the international parks. When most primary sources are in the native language. How he finds hidden gems, lesser-told stories.
23:00 - The marketplace doesn’t need another Disney business book. Or another Disney history book. I wanted to do something that was completely different. Get in touch with the way the park makes us feel when we step into it, when we experience it, when we engage with it, and most importantly, the way we feel when we leave it, and maybe the next day, that sense of, man, why can’t every day feel like a day at Disneyland.
30:40 - Not Walt's EPCOT: “I love EPCOT in its current state. It’s my second favorite Disney park outside of Disneyland. People may not even know that the entire purpose of Walt going to Florida was for EPCOT. The center of everything that we’re doing in Florida is about the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Magic Kingdom or Disneyland 2.0 was only there to appease the state legislature and generate the revenue necessary for building what was going to be the City of Tomorrow. Roy had been to Imagineering ONE time. That’s it. ONE time. And now he’s gotta run the entire company and he’s gotta get Walt Disney World built. It’s a yeoman’s project. “
35:00 - Sam Gennawey: Urban Planner and Disney Historian: If Walt had lived, he absolutely would have pulled it off. Could we do it today? I don’t know. It would take someone like an Elon Musk to do it. Walt wasn’t around to pull it off. What would it look like in the 21st century? I don’t know.
37:00 - Because if you think about Walt’s career. He starts off as an ambulance driver. Then he becomes an animator and does cartoons, but he gets bored with that, and gets into full-length feature films. Then he becomes a theme park operator. And now he wants to become an urban planner. But he wasn’t an urban planner long enough to really set the example of exactly how to do it. And so the folks who were left behind, they knew how to operate a theme park, and they knew how to keep that going, but Walt hadn’t really set an example on how to build, let alone run a city, because it hadn’t been done yet.They knew how to do the cartoons, and they knew how to make the movies, and they knew how to build another theme park, because Walt had done that. But he hadn’t done the city yet.
38:30 - The real issue where they really got stuck, was the question of governance. "You’re gonna have people live here, and Walt’s got this vision that it’s going be this way and it’s gonna be that way. What about the people living here? What kind of say do they get? Walt hadn’t really worked out those details. In our system of government, the people have a voice. The landowners have a stake. And Walt didn’t hang around long enough to get his hands dirty enough to iron out those details."
40:00 - What will it take? "He would have been the networker who would have inspired and motivated corporate America to come together and work together to be partners in seeing it to fruition. Because he sort of envisioned this being a giant corporate laboratory. Walt could have gotten General Motors to work side by side with, say Ford and Chrysler, to come and be apart of this domed city and figure out what the future was in say automobile production."
40:30 - Walt’s Gift: "Walt was very unique in his ability to reach into people’s hearts and get them to do whatever it was that Walt wanted them to do. There really wasn’t anyone else in the company — really, in the world — who had that gift and that ability."
44:00 - Walt wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable. On more than one occasion, he would look at folks and with a tear in his eye say, “I’ve wanted this my entire life, and it’s not going to happen if you don’t help me. Will you please help me.” That’s how he got the first drawing of Disneyland that Herb Ryman drew, that Walt used to go to New York to pitch it to the networks to get the television program from ABC. That’s what he used to get the Disneyland Hotel built when he was getting 800 calls a day asking about overnight accommodations. You think about successful people as being powerful people, and being folks who are alpha dogs and at the top? But at the same time, Walt had that childlike quality and he wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable and say to folks, I need your help. And this is my dream. I’ve wanted this my entire life.
46:00 - If you could build a city of the future, what do you think it would be like?
Clean energy: “We can’t continue to pollute our planet and use up limited resources.”
Effective & efficient transportation: Skyliner. “Getting people out of their cars, and back together.”
No buses! “I hate that bus system with a fiery passion.”
Effective, accessible healthcare for all
51:00 - It’s a whole new world! How Dr. Disneyland has been teaching classes from Walt Disney World. (The American Pavilion)

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Aaron Cybertron Zheng and I discuss his journey from a Pokémon player during the Game Boy days to a popular content creator on YouTube.

How did he start playing Pokémon? Aaron recaps the social experience from elementary school, playing Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald in 4th grade. "A hobby that calmed me down."
What were his first tournaments like? "Free trips to Disney World!"
How he convinced his parents to let him play: Math and reading!
How he got good at Pokémon, as a hobby he could balance.
eSports: Will Pokémon ever become an eSport? Does it need to?
"No one really does it full time." - A competitive outlet without spending your life training or playing.
How to design a competitive game in which even children and newcomers can rise up quickly.
Competitive Chess and Poker: "How are you ever going to beat the people at the top who have studied and mastered this craft for so long?"
Comparisons to Fortnite: A way to socially interact with friends.
Teaching the game to his younger brother... then to the world!
"If I can help even one person get better at the game, it'd be awesome. After that, let's see how many more people we can get into that!"
Starting out with a very specific niche, and growing that organically.
YouTube as a teaching platform - showcasing how to play the game.
Learning the skillset of teaching, taking feedback from criticism.
Content creator in modern day -- Managing a lot of anonymous comments! ...and trolls!
World Championships: major conventions with a world flair. How to bring the younger demographic into the game.
How to be more inclusive of kids playing casually. Bridging the single-player experience and the competitive scene.
Kids creating for kids: Content tailored to the younger demographic.
How people find online content, and what's still lacking for the younger viewers.
Lessons learned from creating on YouTube

Relevant links:

https://www.youtube.com/user/CybertronProductions
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/02/video_watch_the_adorable_moment_7-year-old_simone_lim_became_a_pokemon_junior_champion
https://www.trainertower.com
https://www.vgcpedia.com
https://victoryroadvgc.com
https://www.esports-spirit.com/pokemon-japan-championships
https://liberty-note.com
https://www.pokemonrng.com
https://github.com/zaksabeast/PokemonRNGGuides/blob/master/guides/Sword%20and%20Shield/Raid%20RNG.md

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What often helps creators is reading tea leaves, reading the audience, and in this case, the audience is developers. If you were a platform creator, that could set the rules, and you had all the resources in the world, how would you design the ideal developer experience? This episode presents some alternatives to the App Store, as well as predictions about the future of the AR glasses developer experience. To help us ground our predictions, we review existing apps like AirBuddy and Chibi Studio, as well as platforms such as foldables and smartwatches.

AirBuddy: What's coming up with version 2 of AirBuddy?
Chibi Studio: How to fit it under 10 MB: https://rambo.codes/posts/2020-08-29-turning-the-chibistudio-canvas-into-an-app-clip
How does Gui decide what to work on next? "Try to find something I want."
History of AirBuddy: "I tweeted out a two-hour prototype, and it blew up on Twitter. A lot of people said, 'I want this.'"
Why isn't AirBuddy on the App Store?
Benefits & Drawbacks of the macOS App Store: Alternatives to Distribution
Hiding Private API Usage: When to Do, When to Avoid! "A last resort" (hint: It's against TOS)
Platforms of the Future: Apple Glasses and its potential uses. Why not VR?
Where has Gui failed in development? Creating 3D models!
Challenges Ahead: 3D Modeling & Asset Creation, Easy-to-Use Tools to Work in Mixed Reality, Making Advanced API Simple, Standalone Apps
When will "cool demo" prototypes become compelling, usable apps?
What will be some cool AR applications once AR glasses become available?
Practical use to wearing AR glasses
Gui's First AR App Ideas: Assembling Chibis in 3D!
"Hacking Away": First steps to developing on a new device.
What will development for AR glasses look like? App extensions? Scanning an NFC tag? QR codes that activate when you "Quick Look" them?
App Clips → AR App Store? Reading Tea Leaves
Xcode Pain Points: Desires for a More Stable Development Environment.
Wireless Magic: U1 for fast development iteration?
Will Foldables become Mainstream? 3D TVs? ...or next iPhone/iPad?

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