Summer Camp Prep 2025

Okay, I know this isn't necessarily about food, but I love figuring out details about what people eat and when. The Dekani people believe food is the greatest gift their gods have given them and cooking is both an artform and an act of worship. The Pelan are also known for their Commuity Meals . In one of my other worlds, I have a magic manual that's disguised as a cookbook. So even though it's not necessarily about food, I hope I get to create some food related articles.

I'm probably going to be completing most of my Summer Camp articles for my main world, Nideon, though I won't completely discount my other worlds, Milon and The Overlap, especially if there's a prompt that fits particularly well. I often have trouble making time for World Anvil outside of the summer holiday, so last year, I focused on filling in stub articles I didn't know what to do with. It worked out really well, so I'm going to take the same tack this year--essentially fleshing out areas of my world that exist only in the links, with a special focus on anything that's applicable to my Faraday Five series and the current book, Unfinished Letters to Gods.

That being said, when I think about people who don't have what they need, I think about the military conflicts happening in Ethion, Alaj, and Antarand and how they both effect and are born from the needs of the people living in those countries. I also think about my character Reed, who comes from poverty, and how that's affected his outlook on the world. And I think about Faraday itself, and how it was designed to help students in need (and also serves really good food lol)

The other two worlds also have a lot of needs in them. Milon has some pretty serious class stratification, much of which is centered on people not having what they need. And in regards to The Overlap, I think particularly of the Scavengers, who again, are on the bottom rung of society because they're not allowed to participate in magic.

I've over-committed myself a lot in the last 12 months, so in the spirit of trying to take a step back (and because I'm helping my mom move and have two weeks of new job training in July) I'm pledging copper this year. It's hard to fight my completionist nature, but hopefully, the more I pledge low, the better I'll get used to taking it easy and taking time for myself.

Honestly? I really want to go real literal with this one too and write a bunch of articles about plants! (Hopefully there will be some.) But this is a really interesting theme because my worlds are all connected and therefore tend to be each others' roots. Milon is the roots of Nideon, which is the roots of The Overlap, so it looks like I'll be digging into the transition periods where people moved from one world to another and how their reasons for leaving shaped their new worlds.

As far as the roots of my worldbuilding, Nideon is one of my earliest worldbuilding project, which has undergone various revisions over time, including the addition of past and future worlds, so I'm not really sure what to say about past mistakes I want to avoid. I think for the most part, when I find mistakes that are too deeply embedded in my world, I see how I can build on to them to make them better. Though, more often than not, I find ideas I had long forgotten about that I should incorporate more. For example, I have a journal with notes from 8th grade detailing things about the underwater socieities of the Mermish, which I have barely touched as of late. So if anything, I think I should look at what I need to be drawing on more of.

Well, at last something I can't make completely literal (unless I wrote about werewolves, I suppose...) But metamorphosis feels like a good theme for me, as my series takes place during a time of change and upheavel. Ethion, Antarand, and Alaj are all going through major political changes. By the time we reach The Overlap, the entire magic system and the way people think about it has changed. In Milon, my main country has undergone changes that have led to a very rigid class hierarchy--one which people are currently trying to break.

As far as looking for new media to engage in, I feel like this is what I've been doing all year! On January 1, 2025, I started a project to watch nothing but animation for a year. And even though I already watch a lot of animation, it's led to me shows I barely new about, like Craig of the Creek and movies I'd never heard of, like My Life as a Zucchini. New favorite director? Makoto Shinkai. New favorite band? The Seatbelts. And while some of this is visual aesthetics, (the concept of say, lighting, is different in film and novels), but animation has a lot to say about worldbuilding in general.

In animation, you have to create everything from scratch, but you still need it to feel real. You want the world to feel like a real place, full of real people, but going too big can be a lot of extra work. Animators use a lot of tricks for this, like giving the audience a glimpse of a populated place, but focusing in on the main character while background conversations play over them. I think a lot of what I work on during Summer Camp seeds those glimpses in my actual writing. What impresses me about Craig of the Cree specifically is how every character has a unique quirk that makes them stand out from everyone else. I don't think I've gotten to this level yet, but I aspire to it. I've seen other movies and shows do it, and when it's done wall, it always creates an additional layer of authenticity. And part of the reason I love Shinkai and the Seatbelts is variety and versatility. Every song The Seatbelts play feels different. And movies like Your Name have blown me away in how they combine different genres or tropes that aren't commonly seen together to create something new. (The turn in that movie, specifically kind of blew my mind.) And to be fair, part of the reason I created The Ovelap and Milon was to get out of my comfort zone and play with other genres. So I should try to spend more time in those worlds, whether for Summer Camp or other reasons.

As for the WA community, like I said, I'm not on much outside of Summer Camp (I still have to remember how to change my signature, so it refers to Summer Camp '25, and not '24!) But I am working my way through a backlog of saved articles and notifications, and I try to comment on everything I read, so keep an eye out!

Again, no real way to take this one literally. But "tomorrow" is full of hope and horror in all my worlds. In Nideon, each day brings the world closer to a global war. In Milon, global war has long since ended, but the days plog on under an oppressive government and rigid social structure. Most people are too afraid of falling out of the heirarchy to do anything about it. And in The Overlap, magic continues to live in secret, with fear of the war returning. But in all three worlds, people are at work building communities to fight the threats around them. Because even if the war is never won, the battle is still worth the fighting.

I have a friend who I have bounced Summer Camp and general worldbuilding ideas off of for years. She brings her expertise to the table to give me ideas and sometimes just make suggestions that worm their way into my brain. I'm really excited because she's thinking about doing the prompts herself this year!

That's about it for the homework. I need to seriously clear my writing space...