Resolutions for 2024 and reading challenge

The WorldEmber has ended and with it, the year 2023. For me, this year brought a new challenge to experience, trying to take part in both big challenges, WE and SummerCamp, while also having my free time considerably reduced by my job. And I can easily say, that during this December, my productivity got its butt properly kicked. I still managed to reach 10k words but the number of articles I wanted to write was very far from what I wanted to create. Still, it was a challenge and it was fun! So while the previous year is here no more, it's time to create some plans for the new one.
But before making those plans, let's review some of the cool articles other authors wrote during this WE. This year, I didn't forget to make a list for them, so I can actually make this list. If you can, give the articles included here a read and I wish you as much fun with them as I had.

Great articles of WE 2023

Space warfare by Skairunner

What's great about this article is how the author manages to create pretty distinct cultures with pretty short descriptions. It is an important ability to be able to share a lot of information without oversharing while still keeping it all fun for the reader. It also seems that when one wants to easily show the differences between a few things, the easiest way to do so is to put them close together, instead of creating separate articles for each one.

Space Station One by elspeth87

I feel like the more factual tone can suit the sci-fi-related articles a lot more than the ones describing the more fantastic worlds. As such, knowing when to play around with the descriptions and when to make them something rarer can depend on the world, its genre, and its style.

Knights by Jontaro

Jontaro's whole world is amazing and inspiring in many different ways. Both the writing and the imagery are so full of style and character that it makes me want to read more about the world. It makes me want to try to create more universal styles for my worlds (especially for my artwork) so that said worlds will feel more consistent instead of changing the style between each of the articles. Also, looking at this article, it might be a good idea to use the image gallery once in a while instead of trying to force images to suit the formatting of the article.

The World-Traveller's Cookbook: Recipes of Etharai by notahumanhand

Sometimes, it is easy to forget that it's not always the big unusual things that give character to one's world. Sometimes, it is something as simple as food or what the characters of said world consider to be common items as they can show the culture and sometimes the history of its inhabitants.

Naseem Samawi by Hanhula

This article reminds me how much I like the characters who keep a positive outlook on life even if they went through a lot of bad things in the past. Cause all worlds need a little light even the darkest ones, otherwise, I feel like they could become too overwhelming.

Goldbrook Annual Guild Fair by tjtrevin

I like how this article is written in such a way that its readers are the participants of the fair. It does so through the text being addressed to us and through all the little interactions done through CSS. It makes me want to create something similar where readers would be able to interact with the article, especially for the worlds that have some more game-like aspects in them.

Nomads of Mercury by nnie

As always, nnie's artwork has its own style and character that just draws me in to read her articles. It's what reminds me to think more about interesting headers I could create for my articles.

Aerynn Vernador by Chrispy_0

This one uses both the images and containers to create formatting that makes reading the text way more enjoyable than if it has been a simple wall. Even when giving it a quick look, there are no two sections that are completely identical.
Another thing I liked here is the use of character portraits in the section that wrote about them. It immediately made me want to read about some of them, especially about Xana, whose appearance stood out among others. And though I planned something only a little similar for one of my worlds, I never got to it in the end. Maybe it's high time to finally do so.

Swathia by jandis

The article that is written as if it is a collection of parts of someone's journal gives it a way more interesting style than just a simple Wikipedia-style one, at least to me. It creates that feeling some of the books about explorers I've read in the past had, making it seem like following a guide across the new area.
Another thing is, that this article uses both CSS and the tooltips in a very interesting way in one of its sections. And while I used tooltips a lot in the past, sometimes to add some character to the article, too, lately I've noticed I've been doing it less. So maybe I should try it once in a while again.

Deadlight Survival Guide by basiliskeye

This article shows how important it is to set up the mood pretty quickly instead of meandering. Just the first words show how dangerous the Deadlights are, making the reader want to know more about how to "survive them". Learning from that, I should pay more attention to how I sometimes tend to create something I would call a setup for the setup of the article instead of just going straight to the point.

The Living Beings of the Evenacht by Kwyn Marie

This article made me notice how easy it is for me to just stick to humanoid creatures or simply humans instead of trying to go a little crazy and create more unique and weirder sapient species. And so, it is something I should try in the near future.

Starfading by Catoblepon

Every time I see Cato's Shattered, the first thing I think is that it is such a pretty-looking world and how Cato often accentuates its beauty with CSS. Even something as simple as creating a glow that shifts hues around the images makes it all look better. It makes me want to work more on the CSS for my worlds so they are closer to what I would want for them.

Resolutions and goals 2024

While there is a big chance I won't finish even half of those goals, I feel it is still good to pick what I want to achieve.

Simple ones

• Making a map for one of my worlds
• Finishing the bestiary I started working on during the WE. Once finished, it will have 3 entries for each category, each with images.
• Writing more often
• Taking part in the smaller challenges

Complex/long-term/hard ones

• Creating more worlds - there are still some ideas tumbling around that head of mine that want to be let out and read about.
• Fleshing out the worlds I've abandoned - there are some of my worlds I haven't visited in quite some time and that still need a lot of work.
• Upgrading the aesthetic of all worlds with css so they are closer to what I want for them.
• More images and maps, suiting the styles of each world.
• Writing a longer story happening in one of my worlds (at least NaNo length, 50k words)