Welcome to Penguin Island 2024

This years summer camp will be different from the others I have done so far. With energy levels at an all time low, I'll have to be more picky and choose where to invest what little energy I have. However, that won't deter me from having fun with everyone during one of WorldAnvil's biggest events and squeeze out some much needed creativity!  

I pledge to have loads of fun this years summer camp and simply enjoy myself while also holding a fundraiser for my beloved African Penguins

— ShadowPhoenix

  Over the next couple of weeks, the themes from summer camp will be released with a nice piece of homework to get the brain in gear for the big happening. Below, you'll find my answers to the different bits and bops of homework as the weeks progress!   ChangeRefugeBelief???   As a nice change of pace (see what I did there? :P), I'm going to do the assignments backwards! So, the order for me is now:

• Update the Meta/Create a Primer
• Getting organised
• Upload the Pledge
• What Kind of Changes would fit Hesli?

  But why would I do it exactly the other way around? Now, let's set aside my very stubborn nature, which definitely has a part to play in this. The primary reason is actually very simple — in order to figure out which changes would fit best in my world, I need to know the core principles and basis of my world. Surely, with this world being 3 years old, you'd think I'd have a clue on the things happening in there. That is the furthest from the truth, because I went into this head over heels with no plan at all. So there's this jumbled mess of article, somewhat connected by a few threads an incoherest trains of thought.   Therefore, I think it would be wise for me to start figuring out this thing called the Meta and, while I'm at it, make a primer along that too. By the looks of it, I've had this brilliant idea before, I just never executed it. So, here's the articleblock to the primer. Check in every now and then to see what progress I have (not) made!  

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  A couple days ago, I had a little sitdown with me, myself, and I to brainstorm about Hesli and figure out this primer and core principles thing. However, I didn't get too far in that department because I noticed a lack of monitvation. Why didn't I want to figure this out, why am I not having the fun that I imagined? So, I asked myself two other questions instead: what do I and do I not like about Hesli?     Show me the Answers Anyway!   My brain, being the ever mulling thing that it is, processed my answers to these questions for a few days after jotting them down in my notebook. I realised that the things I dislike, are mostly the things that I cooked up during my first summer camp back in 2021. I had subscribed to WorldAnvil a month prior, but really got into it two days before summer camp started with a blank slate for a world. Of course, I had no idea what I was doing; I was just diving in head first, answering the prompts and making them fit somehow on the loose foundation that I had quickly whipped up just before the start of the event.   The things that I do like, are the ones where I put way more thought into the concepts and made them more cohesive as a whole. That, or I had one drink too many while/when writing and it resulted in an article that stuck in The Tipsy Chronicles.  

But Shadow, what will you do with the articles you don't like?

— You, maybe?

  Of course, there are things among my early work that I still love — whole articles or certain concepts that I cooked up but don't fit the article itself too well; they will need a rework to make them fit better within my world. However, that's not a task to do during summer camp and I don't have nearly enough energy to get through it beforehand. Let's not worry about that just yet, but rest assured, I won't throw anything away.  

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  So, I'm changing (oops, I did it again) my plans for this summer camp. I'm giving myself one objective.     Over this summer camp, I'll allow myself to write as a please by using the prompts to come up with fun ideas and inspiration for Hesli. It'll be totally okay if they don't fit perfectly in the core principles right now, because I don't have any solid core principles just yet. With that narrative freedom, I hope to just enjoy writing for the fun of writing. It's essentially the "throwing spaghetti at the wall" tactic to see what will stick and what won't. Which also means I probably won't work on my primer until the event is over.