Summer Camp 2021 Imaginaerium: Day 1

Hello everyone!

The time has finally come for that most glorious time of the year: SUMMER CAMP!
And with Summer Camp, I'm bringing back the Imaginaerium, here to give you a daily dose of inspiration to help keep you going and figure things out for all those prompts.
We'll be starting with a piece of ancient history and how perceptions and history changes based on shifting politics.
Hyksos weren't foreign invaders of Egypt; they were already living there before rising to power
How would something like this appear in your setting? What part of history have been retold into a new form to make room for something new?
It is something to consider for your prompts, too. Perception of what something is can be very different from what it is or was. People, and cultures, change things to better suit them as time goes on. History, as with everything, is pretty malleable.
Me, I'll be writing for my dark occult setting of Shedim, so be prepared for a July full of spooks!
To help us all out, the always-awesome Esongbird has put together the community document for Unpacking the Prompts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1czn5I92654nTFBM2-SsCyiTKCarQ4dZed-wA1l3gm6g/edit
It is a communal document to keep track of all that is being said on streams regarding unpacking the prompts and so on. It is a great community resource to help get you going.
Happy Summer Camp!

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Additionally, we are going to peer into the brilliant minds of the Anvilites who are taking part of Summer Camp and see what advice they have for us. One of WA's greatest assets is its amazing community, so lets get better together.
Today, we're talking to ever-sunny SolarCat!

Tell us about yourself

I always have a difficult time talking about myself... I am a mother of two, and picked up writing again while I was on maternity leave for my youngest two years ago. I am an Engineer by trade, and have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, which has led to some interesting focuses on magic as technology within my writings. I love to bake, and am addicted to (store-bought) pizzelles.

What world/s are you working on for Summer Camp?

I will be switching between my bright fantasy world, Fillimet (https://www.worldanvil.com/w/fillimet-solarcat02), and Fillimet's science fantasy future, Vazdimet (https://www.worldanvil.com/w/vazdimet), depending upon the prompts and how they fit my visions for each world.

Check them out here:

What is your past experience with Summer Camp?

I have participated in Summer Camp for both 2019 and 2020, and completed all prompts for both.

What did you learn from the past Summer Camps?

WorldAnvil has an awesome community, for starters. Everyone is so supportive and fun. I also learned that the prompts are great for exploring different aspects of my world that I hadn't thought about before, but it's also important not to force myself to answer something if I really don't feel it fits. (Trying is good! Forcing is bad.)

How do you go about generating ideas for the prompts?

First I start with my stub articles, to see if I already have an idea that will fit. These are the prompts I write first. After that, sometimes writing one prompt will lead to ideas for others. (They certainly lead to more stubs either way!) I don't know if I really have a process I could describe for ideas otherwise. I will say that sometimes when I get stuck on something the most productive way, for me, to work through it is to put it down for a while and come back later with fresh eyes. Sometimes things become obvious once you take a break away from them to reset your thinking.

What's your approach to this Summer Camp?

I am not aiming to finish all the prompts this year. The last two summer camps were great for helping me flesh out my world but I have a really solid foundation now and so will only write what makes sense to me to add.

What's your tricks for staying on track & How do you handle those bad days when we get stuck or can't seem to get writing done

Being kind to myself. If today doesn't feel like a good day to write then I take a break. Tomorrow is a new day. I forgive myself if I feel like I'm falling short of my present goals, and hit the reset switch.
Mentally, it's easier for me to take a break when needed and then approach things again tomorrow as a fresh start than to drag around the guilt of what I couldn't finish. Berating myself for my failings is time I could better use to write, after all.

What were your inspirations for Fillimet and Vazdimet?

Fillimet began simply as a way to re-enter writing. My intention was to do something easy to get back into the swing of things, with a world I could use for both TTRPG play with the kids and also writing stories and eventually full novels. So I picked bright fantasy as my genre and just... started writing with no specific framework or intended message. Over time it has grown into a high fantasy world which dives deep into the lives of ordinary people and how they fit into a world where readily available magic is technology, using well-defined magic classifications (which I just finished defining this year) as a framework.
Vazdimet was originally my high school science fiction world in a war between good versus evil. It felt rather dated to me, but I loved the characters, so I transplanted them and the core concepts into Fillimet's future and ended up with this fun multi-faction exploration of how people would abuse Fillimet's magic system as they began to press the boundaries of the rules I set. So now magic is also classified by whether or not it works in space, large ships that hyperjump through the Afterlife to reach their destination, and complex technomagical devices and systems relying upon the dearly departed as their AI. It's ridiculously fun to write.

What is your favorite part about writing and worldbuilding?

My favorite part of writing is exploring characters, their interactions with each other and their environment, and how their motivations change over time as a result.
With worldbuilding I love playing with how things work, twisting what we know of our world to fit the new rules I've set for my own, and seeing what impact it has on the world and the people in it. When things start clicking into place and I end up with a nicely cohesive reasoning for history or culture or technological advances... it's the greatest feeling in the world to watch things snap into place like that.

Many thanks to SolarCat for joining us today!

And here's some music to keep you company while you write:

So okay― there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You've blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want.

— Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft