Summer Camp 2024 Prep Complete!

Week 1

Here we go. I'm handing in my homework late because it's been a TIME the last month and a bit.
Now, my situation is a strange one. The first time I did WA Summer Camp in 2022, I overstretched. But I was correcting my PhD thesis and learning a new job and doing all manner of other things on top. At the moment, I'm working on Amnar material an awful lot. I've challenged myself to write 1000 words a day of The City of Fire and Water and I'm going to keep going throughout June.

Assignment 1

Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
I thought about this for a while. Not so much the technical problem of "change" because everything changes (except war, as we know). My focus is going to be the Ashcanesh (of which more below), about the biggest period of transformation and change: when the "Era of the Five Empires" became the "Amnari Age". I've been doing some of that on the Chronicle, so I'm going to carry on working on that.

Assignment 2

Based on this, decide how many prompts you'll go for during Summer Camp. Then, download the pledge document and fill it accordingly!
Technically, I'm supposed to look over my schedule for July and see what I can manage. Right now, given that my schedule is a little bit up in the air and largely composed of air, I'm going to pour a lot of energy into building out and developing the Amnar World Anvil as much as I can. Gold. Let's see if I can do it. My pledge commitment is here:

Assignment 3

Get your categories and tags organized!
I'm going to work on this over June. I think I'm comfortable with the way the current site is designed, but producing a full re-categorisation is going to be a hell of a lot of work. For the moment, I'm putting almost everything in the Amnapedia categories.

Assignment 4

Take a look at your meta, primer, and any other high-level document and update it according to the current state of your world.
I have this really weird thing in my head that I don't really get the whole "meta" thing. Amnar is the world. I'll keep updating as and when I think of something useful to put in there.

Week 2

OK, I think I'm getting my act together at last, despite only managing to do the homework for week 1 yesterday.
This week's theme: Refuge.
Fascinating that this should be the next theme, since finding refuge from war was the primary objective for the Hundred Thousand when they journeyed to the Central Tir of Keshwar (which would later become Amin Duum Exclusion Zone).
This my prep homework for Week 2.

Assignment 1

Consider what kinds of refuge would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
I have suspicion that, as long as I'm focused on the Ashcanesh, I'll be responding to prompts with different aspects of that part of Five Empires/Amnar history. As part of my homework prep, I'll also set up a timeline so that you can see events in order. It can be tricky to work out where they are on the Chronicle because it's so huge.

Assignment 2

Find a community—whether that’s our Discord server, Facebook Group, your RPG or friend group, or something else.
Is it too grand to say that I feel like I'm in the process of making a community? I've decided that, since body-doubling makes tasks so much easier, I'm going to do a lot of streaming on Twitch while I work through the prompts.
Also to be found yelling on Threads, I expect.

Assignment 3

Find ways to improve styling and layout in your world!
There isn't time for me to actually learn CSS, or revise the CSS I thought I'd learnt back in 2022. Instead, I am going to check that all my articles have consistent use of icons. I love the icons here, and I've been trying to figure out the best way to deploy icons in titles and throughout.
I'll spend a bit of time this week making sure that articles without icons get them added, and figure out a consistent system for assigning them.

Assignment 4

If you’re a CSS wizard, maybe take the time now to give it a polish!
(Exasperated sigh). I will be changing the headers for each article back to Cinzel or Cinzel Decorative. You know it's annoying that it's the font used for literally every romantasy book in existence.
Amnar isn't romantasy.
Can I learn CSS in three weeks? Do I have time? Probably not and no, definitely not.
Anyway, this is giving me some good ideas for prompt responses for the Ashcanesh.

Week 3

Assignment 1

Consider what kind of beliefs would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
Wow. This is going in an unexpected direction this year. If we're moving on to religion, I'm very tempted to start nailing down various aspects of religious culture for each of the The Five Nations, the Five Empires, and possibly jump forward in time (depending on the specific prompts), to look at how those religions evolve beyond the Ashcanesh to the Stomic era.
Something to note. There's a difference between beliefs and religious practices. We're always bringing this up when teaching undergrads, and I'm going to have to make the distinction between "religious beliefs" as they appear in twenty-first century life on Earth, and the way "religious practices" were enacted in the ancient world. That would be an interesting theme to explore in Amnar.

Assignment 2

Create a bank of inspirations! Quotes, music, description of experiences and shower thoughts, etc.
I'm in the middle of writing The City of Fire and Water, a revision of the series I wrote back in 2003–5. This week, I've got to hunt for a lot of inspirational images and "vision boards", I suppose, to keep me going. Also reading a lot of books on history and politics and listening to podcasts and the Dune 2 soundtrack.

Assignment 3

Find art and pictures that inspire you, and grab a map if you don't have one (and need one).
I now have one world map and a map-in-progress of Amin Duum specifically. I've also scheduled some artwork to be done in July, although not much because finances are tight as long as I'm out of a survival job for the summer.

Assignment 4

Check your inspirations again. Are they still relevant? Can you find any that better represent the current state of your project?
There is a lot to update and deepen for Amnar as it is compared to how it was originally designed. This is partly why I've been listening to a lot of investigative podcasts, reading books, and developing new ideas.
I have also found a lot of new music. The old music, though, is still setting off all the same images so I'm happy with that. I'm now watching the Dune movies as well, making sure that everything I do feels consistent for the themes and ideas I have going on in Amnar now.

Week 4

Assignment 1

Consider what kind of decay would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
I had a discussion about this on livestream last night. Decay feels like a long, slow process, whereas what I'm going to be dealing with in the Ashcanesh is collapse.
However, there is the potential for thinking about the decaying relationships between the Five Empires that led to the Rending War and the Rending of the World itself. This might be heavily swayed toward diplomatic decay of some kind.

Assignment 2

If you like special tea when you write, stock up for a month. Tidy your office, make a “do not disturb” sign, and think about any other last-minute strategies to optimize your writing space and time!
Coffee is in the house. Coffee and (curse me) energy drinks.
The only other issue is going to be ensuring that I'm not interrupted. Things are going to be complicated by having editing work for part of July, so my initial plan to just livestream all day every day will have to be adapted.
I'm going to have to stick a "Do Not Disturb" sign to my head, I think, as I tend to wander around the house having all kinds of ideas even when I'm not actually sitting at the desk.

Assignment 3

Review your world homepage to hook potential readers!
This definitely needs more work. It's okay, right now, but the description of the world isn't that engaging and I could do better. I'm going to work on that as I start Summer Camp.

Assignment 4

Take a look at your author profile and pillar articles on your world and polish them!
I shall crawl away in shame at the current state of my author profile. I'm going to work on it a bit this week to improve it. But hey, I've already got Moonlight Bard's gorgeous "Streamer" badge sitting there. What, you want to know more? I don't even know who I am right now.

Camp on Stream

Camp On Stream #WASC24 by Haly, the Moonlight Bard

For the streamers and the podcasters who are doing special Summer Camp-themed content. For the fans who are the difference between "mental illness and a microphone" on one side, and "entertaining internet personality" on the other.

#CampOnStream #WASC2024

Display this badge on your Summer Camp stream setup, put it in your profile, stick it in your pledge article, or just stare in sunny neon awe at the beauty of the digital doo-dad.

Click here to grab this image code!

[img:5689588] or [imgblock:5689588]