Nanowrimo & Worldember Prep Shenanigans

As seen in

Edwige's Epic Escapades

So, for this year's Nanowrimo Project I didn't want to jump in without at least some preperation. Primarily, because I want to use Nanowrimo as a stepping stone to catapult myself into WorldEmber! Therefore, I'm going slightly rebellious with my project, and I'm super excited about it.

Edwige's Epic Escapades!

A day in the life of the youngest cartographer is always full of adventures. Follow Edwige as she discovers the world in the form of short stories to put children in a world full of adventure before they set off to the land of dreams.

Big Picture

I'm very very happy with the title of this book, so just imagine the internal screaming of a small child here. So, for nanowrimo, I want to write a series of short stories that accumulate to 50k (or more ^^) words. These short stories should portray what Edwige can encounter during one day. It could be anything, from exploring a location, to the animals and plants she comes across, or villages that she visits who have their specific shops, myths, or traditions. By setting it up in this way, I hope to keep the writing for nanowrimo managable, by having less focus on the bigger plot and arcs. Instead, I can use the short stories to explore my world.
See, I've taken a step back from worldbuilding since summercamp, partially I didn't have any inspiration and partially personal circumstances that have been throwing proper curveboulders at me. Dodging them was quite the challenge, but here I am still alive and kicking. However, I haven't stopped thinking about my world. My world feels slightly empty. Sure, it has a lot of epic worldbuilding in it, but it lacks the filling that makes it immersive. It took a while, but I figured that I don't have many animals that occupy the world, or plants that I have talked about. I only have one big town that I've properly written, but that is it.
With the nanowrimo project, I'm hoping to put more emphesis on the immersive details of the world, so that I can provide my future players with a world filled to the brim with things to explore to give them a proper chance to escape reality for a moment. With a lot of short stories finished by the end of November, or so I hope, I can use them to flesh out all the animals, plants, organisations, myths, traditions, villages, people, and more into articles for WorldEmber. Of course, this is all hopes and dreams, but I'm fighting for them not to be crushed by reality. ^^

Ambitious Goals

There are many short stories to tell that will expand the region for me. Still, I like to have some direction in what I'd like to see from these stories and the relation WorldEmber articles I could possibly create from them. So, here are a couple stats that I'll aim for during nanowrimo and WorldEmber!

Animals

Pets: 10 - 20
Wild: 20 - 50
Monsters: 10 - 30

Plants

Trees: 10 - 20
Plants: 15 - 25
Moss: 5 - 10

Ethnicities

Tribes: 2 - 6
Myths: 10 - 25
Traditions: 10 - 25

Descriptors

While I don't want to prep too much, as I want to let the subjects come to me naturally, there are a few things that I think would be useful for me to do in advance. Describing things, whether thats animals, buildings, plants, or organisations, have always been difficult for me. Especially a diverse and unique descriptions and not something like "and it was nice, and looked pretty, and had a nice colour". This is partly due to a lack of English vocabulary as I'm not a native speaker.
Since my stories for nanowrimo will be short, or at least that is the intention, I will be in need of punchy descriptiors to captivate the looks and feel of whatever it is I'll be describing. Therefore, I want to create a list of common words with a variety of alternative descriptions. Yes, I am well aware that the thesaurus will be a big help here. However, I feel, having researched this in advance will help me during my writing to think of these new and more elegant words before having to consult this article or the thesaurus.

ShadowPhoenix' Awesome Descriptors

Animals

Generic Descriptor

Alternative Descriptor

Fur

Feather

'Dons'

Skin

Scales

Beak

Eyes

Teeth

Tail

Build

Plants

Generic Descriptor

Alternative Descriptor

Stem

Leaves

Bark

Flowers

Pedals

Nectar

Root

Colours

Generic Descriptor

Alternative Descriptor

Red

Blue

Black

Green

Yellow

Orange

Purple

Brown

Pink

White

Grey

Silver

Gold

Landscapes

Generic Description

Alternative Descriptor

Forest

Swamp

Mountains

Caves

Farmland

Grassland

Hills

Edwige's Epic Escapades

READ

Motivation

Of course, writing a bunch of short stories all on my own is a big task. And, let's face it, I wouldn't be able to do that just by myself. Therefore, I fully intend to surround myself with some good habits (and hope they'll stick all the way throughout WorldEmber) and awesome people. To be specific, I will be hanging out in the nanowrimo channel of the WA Discord a lot. Doing word sprints, paying cat tax, and having loads of fun. Riding along on the hype train while getting myself and others energised to get some writing done is one of the best ways to motivate myself.