Follow along with my WorldEmber progress!

I promised you a look over my shoulder this month as I bring a vague and disjointed collection of ideas together into a cohesive piece of world-building. These resources will help you keep track of my progress through this month-long marathon challenge:

• Haly’s Official WE Progress Report — each participant gets a page that automatically collects their author information and all WE-eligible articles across all worlds into a single, shareable package.
• Haly’s WorldEmber on Argentii Index — an on-the-fly journal page and handy sidebar displaying only new Argentii WE-eligible articles.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel: Progress and Pacing

A frequent challenge in my own world-building is when the emotions I’m feeling do not match what I want — or need! — to write. Today has been one of those days, on top of one of those weekends, on top of one of those weeks, and it’s been a real struggle to get any words out, either for world-building or for this newsletter.

Yes, I know I make it look easy.

Managing a long-term project means accounting for the days when you’re not going to get as much done. You are not a machine, and no average performance is a straight line. There are peaks and valleys versus the overall trend. So when you have a low day…

…and you will have a low day…

…be gentle on yourself. Especially if you were ahead of schedule to begin with.

Evaluating Progress

Hiccup days like these are a good time to take stock of the progress that you’ve made and make a plan for the future. Those of you who’ve been here for a while will remember back in July when we were talking a lot about refuge in world-building, storytelling, and even life. (You can see what I mean in posts like this one, and this one.)

These hiccup days are when we put those ideas into practice!

Stay Engaged with Your Writing

Today, I have been taking refuge in my own writing, in the writing of my friends and peers, and in the advice of my writing group. I showed them my freewriting meditation from the other day and asked them which unlinked topic they would like to know more about.

Docker’s Dining and Event Space won, and so that’s what I wrote today. It’s not a lot, but it’s forward progress. The important part is that I spent 20 minutes working on the project, that I made at least one word of progress, and that I showed up for myself.

Look Forward to a Better Tomorrow

Moods don’t last forever, including bad ones. It only feels like it in the moment. Soe make sure that you keep looking forward and planning for what you’ll be doing next. Not what happens next, what you will be doing.

Be proactive! You’re a writer, you understand the difference between a main character acting versus reacting. More than that, you are the main character of your own story. Don’t be content to sit back and let life happen to you. Be that character who jumps up off of the page and takes their story into their own hands.

You know it’ll be a better story if you do!

Wrapping the Day

As I write this, I am sitting at 12,827 new words of world-building toward my 50,000 word goal.