Summer Camp Prep 2025

Summer Camp again already! I swear it comes about sooner each year...
  Last year, I absolutely smashed my target of Gold (just - some of the articles were a bit shorter than I'd planned). So this year - my third Summer Camp(!) - I'm going for Diamond. Belerion has taken a back seat the past few months, so deserves some real focused attention, and what better way to do that than by smashing Summer Camp! Sadly, that does mean I am writing this article the night before submission (in true AuDHD fashion!).
  As tradition dictates, this is my pledge article, complete with weekly assignments:
 

Week1: Nourishment

When I think of nourishment, I think of many things: food obviously, but also refilling our cup - nourishment for the soul; in both of these, is the element, or passing, of time: from growing the crops to baking the loaf, to making it to the next sunrise when all feels lost. That is what my focus will be on for this summer camp: Time. How is marked by sentient beings, how it is dictated by nature (or the gods?) even how I as the author will be bound by it, through the creation of timelines and chronology. Feeding (lol) into this, is also the ebb and flow of resources; as moons cycles dictate the tides, and therefore the abundance or scarcity of sea food, so too do seafaring nations experience golden ages and austerity.
 

Week2: Roots

Setting the time in Belerion will allow me to wind back the clock on my cultures and explore where (and when) they came from. Were they always where they are now? Are they descended from nomads forced to flee a long-since forgotten foreign land? Were they even who they are now, or has their civilisation developed beyond all recognition? This also gives me pause to reflect on my own origins as an author. Even use of the word author in place of writer is a new development I hadn't noticed until now. The days of 'Belerion the Bard' blindly stumbling around World Anvil just writing articles for competitions feel so long ago; now I've adopted my drag persona as my nom de plume, am developing a main story arc to take place in the world of Belerion and plan to publish my story once it is completed.
 

Week 3: Metamorphosis

My sci-fi friends will either appreciate or mock my attempt at understanding time (I share Janeway's love of understanding it..!) but I do understand that the present is shaped by the past, just as it shapes the future, but it can also rewrite the past. How often have great monuments or large volumes of knowledge been lost to the annals of time due to humankinds' obsession with power and dominance? Why does the concept of "being on the right side of history" exist - why not just tell both sides of the story with candour? Belerion is teeming with life, and therefore stories. Stories have narratives, or arcs, and therefore an intrinsic relationship with time.
 

Week4: Tomorrow

Forward, the Light Brigade! Ordinarily, if you draw a line between two points, and continue straight on, you can predict any points along that line; Time however, is not linear, and life is not predictable. Whilst nature has her cycles, they are not precise. As for sentient beings; well they are only predictable in their unpredictability - each acting according to their own unique combination of dream, desire, destiny and determination. Will their vision for the future include others', or impede them? accommodate or obliterate? For my own future (short term at least), I'll need to ensure that my vision for Summer Camp includes and accommodates my vision for studying my degree, running my business, and potential job searching and applying. I've finally gotten my workspace to where I want it to be, so I can enjoy sitting down to write; my study time is 'measured' by my university in that modules are released weekly, so I can tether my writing time to my study time (an hour of one earns an hour of the other) which should help me to keep balance and commit to both. My partner helps me run the business, and we are close enough to July that there should be little need for my involvement (we plan our events months in advance) so save the odd job application, I should have a nice balanced approach to achieving the Diamond Badge this year! I say this every year, so we'll see if it happens this year: but I want to make more noise about what I'm writing. I think perhaps the most sensible approach to this would be to share a weekly update right here on Belerion, and also on my socials to breathe some life back into them (I'm surprised my BlueSky account hasn't been deactivated its been that long!)
  This is very much a transitional (turbulent?) year for me, so exploring the passage of time and the interconnectivity of past, present and future (points if you read that in voice(s) of The Fates from Disney's Hercules) will really help me understand everything going on in my life currently, how my past has influenced it (and how my developing understanding shifts my hindsight and in turn understanding of my present), so that I can build a future to look forward to.
  So all the remains to be said is "Live long and go world build!"
  Happy Summer Camp Damnlings, Evilyn x
 
  PS - Dimitris and DevTeam: There have been so many changes since I last logged in, and omg they are amazing!!