WorldEmber 2023 Homework

Week 1: The Pledge

This is my first WorldEmber event, and I'm pretty excited to get started. I'm aiming to write 50,000 words spread out over several articles. Each article will represent a scroll, as referred to in the Summer Camp article Master of the Scroll . This will lead to the creation of several new characters, as well as standardise the articles created in the Bestiary and Summer Camp Challenges earlier this year. The scrolls will be categorised into the three compendiums, which will be created as categories.
I want to work on this as the number of articles in Belerion is increasing exponentially as is the risk of continuity errors, so this challenge poses the perfect opportunity to shore everything up before the end of the year.

Week 2: Prepare your Area of Focus

Mini-Meta

The scrolls will be organised into categories that represent the compendiums. This will create a more methodical approach to my worldbuilding, particularly with regard to world-systems such as the flora and fauna, geopolitics and diplomacy, religion and cultures, and magic. This will require the formulation of an agreed language, similar to latin in our world, that is used universally among scholars to describe the world. The ancient language of the High Elves is preserved for this, as it is a 'true' language (descending from a forgotten tongue said to be incorruptable, one cannot lie).
Scrolls are written by their respective Master of the Scroll, as journal entries, so will be written in the tone and voice of that character, some will be excitable and energetic like Steve Irwin, some calm and intellectual like David Attenborough, and some utterly aloof (with a scroll deemed 'lesser' because of their apparent absence of mind).

Categories

I've created categories ready for WorldEmber2023. It was easiest to arrange them all within the WorldEmber2023 parent folder, then subfolders for each Compendium, then categories within each Compendium folder will form the book. This then allows the individual articles to be the "entries" within each book.

Week 3: Welcome Your Readers!

I wrote my homepage when I first registered on World Anvil, and have only made minor tweaks to it since then. It's very basic and quite vanilla in it's design. I know how I want the homepage to feel, but I haven't quite captured it visually in my minds eye - it's like every time I try to see, it disappears. A hospital admission in the family has meant that this week and last week are crammed into week 4, so my plan is to set aside some time to research other worlds' homepages for inspiration and to see just how far the homepage can be edited to capture the essence of a world. This will hopefully also serve as an inspiration for me throughout this challenge on days where I'd really rather just watch TV or go to bed.

Week 4: Last Minute Prep!

Tying Up

As mentioned above, the past 2 weeks have been somewhat on hold while I support my boyfriend with his 'mam' (they're welsh) who was admitted to hospital. She's now home and we're settling back into our normal routines. This weekend, I'll be putting up our christmas tree (held off as long as I could!), cleaning the house and decluttering the web browser on both my tablet (which I write with) and my phone (which has far too many tabs open) - I'm terrible for "I'll read that later" tabs, so want to clear them all and distil the information into quick reference guides.

Preparing My Space

Following that, I'll be prepping my work area by clearing and cleaning my desk (and the rest of the study!) and printing out the reference materials to put on the wall near my desk so that it is immediately available. Some of the bestiary articles have images created by a close friend (who is incredibly talented!). I often share my progress and thoughts with him, and he does the same with his artwork. He often uses my descriptions to create an image, and we see how close he gets to what I imagined as a test of my descriptive writing skills and his drawing skills.

Enjoying the Challenge

There will undoubtedly be moments where I will lose focus, passion or time (or a combination of them!). I'm hoping to join the British Army Reserves so have been getting into the habit of planning my week ahead to allow time for swimming and working out regularly, this has had the (Very welcome!) side effect of improving my general mood and mental wellbeing (several a-ha! moments have happened mid-lap in the pool or on the treadmill!). I will incorporate dedicated writing time into my week, taking advantage of any moments where my boyfriend is working later than me so I have an odd few hours alone.



Personal Note: I've seen several notifications from fellow Anvilites who have liked or commented on this article; I'm sorry I haven't been able to acknowledge them before now. I'm incredibly flattered and humbled by this attention and grateful for the wisdom that has been shared and the encouragement. My first task will be to see out your worlds and return the love without doubt! Happy WorldEmber, and good luck :)
January Update: Due to some serious illness in the family through December, I wasn't able to fulfil my WorldEmber2023 pledge. I did start one of the planned articles, and will continue with the others in the new year now that things are settled.