Summer Camp 2021 Imaginaerium: Day 3

Hello everyone!

In this day and age, there are certain things we take for granted. Modern medicine, for instance, is a marvel... But that wasn't always the case. Sawbones is a podcast that explores some of the wacky medical practices throughout history, from drilling a hole in your head to expand your cosmic awareness, to bloodletting, to just taking opium for pretty much everything. With the first 3 prompts being all centered around the topic, I thought it especially fitting and hopefully useful.
Here's a few episodes to get you started:


If you are interested in medical history, quackery, and the gruesome details about how it used to be before we really had much of an idea what we were doing, I'd also recommend the Art of Butchering, a guide to the grisly world of victorian surgery.
Another potential source is Quackery: A Brief History of the Wost Ways to Cure Everything, though I've not read this one.

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For today's Imaginaerium, 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 my friend and yours, the CSS wizard Stormbril!

Tell us about yourself!

Professionally, I'm a Mechanical Technologist in Buildings Mechanical Engineering, but I'm back on a school path to become an Architect. Overall though, I like to think of myself sort of just as a creative person at heart. I really like to get hands on and make things -- with everything I do! In the process of creating, there's always so much to learn and I get really excited when doing so. Building furniture, doing art, writing, CSS, 3D modelling and texturing, I love it all :D I just wish there were more time in the day so I could do everything.
Personally, I'm hella nerdy and love gaming, reading, TTRPGs, boardgames, etc etc, stuff I'm sure everyone here loves as well. A lot of what inspires me comes from these sources.

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

I will be working exclusively on Cathedris! I have plans for another fun world, but that didn't end up happening before Summer Camp. Maybe later?

Check it out here:

What is your past experience with Summer Camp?

This'll be my -- wait, really? this will be my THIRD summer camp. Woah. In 2019, I wrote for my Pathfinder TTRPG world, Synthacrosia. I wrote all 30 prompts and hit 40k words, if I remember correctly. And then I promptly burned out xD It was great though, first time in! I focused on a few main areas of the world and really built a lot of depth into my content, even interconnecting a lot of articles.
In 2020, I was already burnt out going in, I think. I chose to aim only for the copper badge, completing 10 prompts. At the time Cathedris was still pretty new, and so I wanted to focus on maintaining the quality that I had set in the world, meaning I wrote 10 really polished articles with art, CSS, bells and whistles. I also helped Qurilion with one of my favourite projects ever, the Metaspiricy article! And, of course, after Summer Camp ended, I promptly burned out.

What did you learn from the past Summer Camps?

There's been a couple big lessons here so far. One thing to remember is that it's a marathon -- you need to pace yourself. That means not only should you not sprint and get it all done asap, but you should also ensure you aren't doing too much for every prompt. For me personally, that means smaller articles (lesson learned from 2019), and simpler articles (lesson learned from 2020).

How do you go about generating ideas for the prompts?

You really need to understand your world going in to Summer Camp. Keep the core ideal strong in your mind, and then you can branch out from that and apply the prompts to it. For me, it means knowing the areas that I plan to work on, and understanding what life in them would be like. If I can relate things to the God-husks or Rendlings of Cathedris, all the better!
And, if all else fails, talk to your friends and other worldbuilders in the WorldAnvil discord. There's something magical about bouncing ideas around, each idea gains a little bit more on every bounce between worldbuilders.
If you're stuck, ask for help <3

What's your approach to this Summer Camp?

I'm going in with the aim to complete all 31 prompts, but I'm not aiming to go insane with word counts, art, and CSS. I want to add a "shallow depth" to Cathedris -- more smaller articles I can link to for people to lose themselves in while exploring the world. Right now I have a few BIG IMPORTANT articles, but not much in between, and I'd like to fill that gap.

What's your tricks for staying on track?

Get a really good, inspirational playlist of tunes to listen to, and block out the world with them. I also am almost always mulling ideas over in my head for my next article, so when it comes time to write, most of it is already there. During a shower, walk, meal, anything -- "The prompt is X... what could I do with that? how can I fit it to my world?" -- then when I can sit at the computer, I have a place to start.
Though sometimes after starting an article, it's easy to get stumped again. I find it's helpful to ask myself questions in the article, and then go back and answer them. Say I'm writing about a monster:
- Where does it live, and does it migrate?
- What does it like to eat? Does its prey put up a fight, and does it need to consume a lot to live?
- Related to that, does anything else hunt this? What about humans?

Then I just go back in and replace the questions with my answers, and stitch it all together. I'm pretty sure I got this method from Qurilion. What would we ever do without him <3

Dawww! :D

How do you handle those bad days when we get stuck or can't seem to get writing done?

Skip the day and don't feel guilty about it!
Well, in an idea world, that's my answer. I think we all know that its harder than it seems :( But I think it's incredibly important that we all work on understanding that there will be days where nothing gets done, and writing seems impossible. Sure, you can force yourself -- and it works often, you just need to get the ball rolling sometimes and the words come flowing out. But if you find yourself forcing it every time you sit down to write, you're fast-tracking yourself to burnout town. I think that's what I did in 2019's Summer Camp, where I experienced the worst burnout yet.
If it's a bad day, take a break -- play games, watch a movie, read a book, get inspired.

What thing that came from any Summer Camp are you most proud of?

I know I just previously said it was a bad idea to do such polished articles in terms of CSS and art, but... I am really happy with how those turned out. My art and CSS skills have really, really improved through doing those, and I couldn't be happier. As someone who had no knowledge of CSS before WorldAnvil, I think that's one of the things I'm most happy about learning.
During 2020's Summer Camp, I made the conspiracy board CSS set-piece for Qurilion's Metaspiracy article -- it's a huge, multi-part, interactive bit of art and it was a blast to do. That same month I made the Synthichor article (article-wrapping art), the Legion and Torn Edges Code articles (first forays into spoiler button hacking, plus art!), and of course the fan favourite Shallow Ocean Stonesharks (sharkies!). While it may have cost me some of my sanity and way too much of my energy, I don't think these gems would've existed without that Summer Camp atmosphere.

You said you had no CSS skills before WorldAnvil -- then, how did you get into doing art and CSS for your worldbuilding?

Sort of organically, I guess? I fiddled with customizing a pre-made theme on Synthacrosia, my first world, but didn't really immerse myself in it until the idea for Cathedris came to me. I honestly don't think my CSS skills would've existed if it weren't for the idea of the God-husks -- the CSS and the Husks go hand in hand, one does not exist without the other. I wanted the world to have these larger than life, titanic beings, and I really wanted the reading experience to show that. Thus the big arms wrapping the article were born!
That was me learning how to float and position elements. That sort of "doing something unexpected with the tools we have" excited me so much that I started looking into how to do that with everything.
It also fits with my worldbuilding process too. I start with an idea of something, and then before I even start writing, I like to fit the whole picture together in my mind. I like to plan the art, the CSS, and the content all in one step, fully formed. Then I write, leaving space where I planned art and CSS to go. Then I make the art, write the CSS, assemble the whole thing, and bug fix it :)

Thanks Stormbril for joining us today, and for always being a generally awesome guy :D

AND DID YOU KNOW: Stormbril has opened his own CSS market places, selling CSS-add-ons! Check it out!

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

Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.