Summer Camp 2024
Week 1
Homework
Articles
Assignment 1: Change
Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
- Migration of People e.g. the settlement of new colonies.
- Extinction Events e.g. war, sickness, natural disaster.
- Discovery of New Sytems, Planets, and Astrological Bodies.
- Discovery of New Species e.g. other sentient life, or life where there was previously thought to be none.
- Technological Advances
Assignment 2: Set your goal
Based on this, decide how many prompts you'll go for during Summer Camp. Then, download the pledge document and fill it accordingly!I would love to throw myself at the prompts this month but I have lots of other comitments this summer so I think it's sensible to pace myself and aim low, especially since it's my first World Anvil challenge.
Assignment 3: Categories & Tags
Get your categories and tags organized!Categories
I recently re-jigged all my categories when I realised the categories I started with weren't really working for me. I'm pretty comfortable with what I've got now but that being said, I'm definitely someone who works this stuff out as they go and I'm still fairly new to World Anvil so we'll see what the summer brings. Tags
I will be using:
- "SC24" for all of my summer camp content.
- Abbreviations of the titles of associated novels e.g. "ABC". I've been struggling to find everything related to specific projects so I'm hoping this will help me if no one else.
Assignment 4: Update the Meta
Take a look at your meta, primer, and any other high-level document and update it according to the current state of your world.I have updated my meta with as much information as was relevant to a universe rather than a single world. Currently debating if a quick overview document would be useful (and if it's something I could achieve before summer camp begins).
Week 2
Homework
Articles
Assignment 1: Refuge
Consider what kinds of refuge would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
- Gardens/pockets of nature on space stations and space ships.
- Small, quiet nooks in structures where all the bustle fades away and the only noise is the gentle background hum of a space ship/space station.
- Religious/spiritual places.
Assignment 2: Accountability
Find a community—whether that’s our Discord server, Facebook Group, your RPG or friend group, or something else.The wonderful oaster2000 plus one non-world anvil friend who also has a project they want to work on over the summer.
Assignment 3: Styling
Find ways to improve styling and layout in your world!I'm using a pre-made theme that I'm fairly happy with however, before summer camp (under the advice of Workflow for styling your world without CSS) I would like to:
- (complete) Create and upload a world cover
- (complete) Create and upload a world cover
- (complete) Decide a definition of done for different article types for the purposes of summer camp.
1 & 2: I made a fun universe splatter art painting as an experiment for something else and I thought it would make a good (if temporary) background for a world cover and global cover for a not-too serious world.
3: Considering my time commitments, I've come up with the following aims for each article. Articles need to meet the minimum summer camp length of 300 words, but don't need to be longer. Places should have a galaxy, alliance, demographic, in addition to article text (i.e. I need to stop creating random/floating/disconnected places and start connecting everything together into a proper world). Species should have lifespan, diet, size, key characteristics, and a home place (again, no disconnected bits). Events should have a setting, time, and affected people/places. I don't anticipate creating any other article types in summer camp, but we'll see!
Assignment 4: CSS Upgrades
If you’re a CSS wizard, maybe take the time now to give it a polish!I'm not a CSS wizard and I would prefer to keep it that way. The stress of formatting/aesthetics is one of the main reasons I haven't shared anything publicly before Summer Camp. I think I'm only going to survive Summer Camp is by trying not to think about styling.
Week 3
Assignment 1: Belief
Consider what kind of beliefs would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
- Religions are still a big part of my far future world and have also evolved with a space-faring age.
- Myths about what's "out there" in the rest of the universe are alive and well. Think ancient alien ruins, giant space creatures, hidden treasure.
- Urban legends: monsters living in between space station walls, space ships going missing.
Assignment 2: Text and Music Inspiration
Create a bank of inspirations! Quotes, music, description of experiences and shower thoughts, etc.While it's helpful for fiction writing, I don't find quotes/written inspiration really help me with worldbuilding. For worldbuilding, I'm very sound and visual based. Visual inspiration is covered below, but for sound inspiration I love:
- Weather soundscapes on youtube e.g. snowstorms
- Game ambience sounds on youtube e.g. mass effect ambience
- Occasionally sound effects in movie or games spark something, so clips on youtube are also sometimes played and replayed to death
Assignment 3: Visual Inspiration
Find art and pictures that inspire you, and grab a map if you don't have one (and need one).I was ready for this homework assignment before I even knew what World Anvil was! As mentioned above, images are my main source of inspiration for worldbuilding. I have many pintrest boards for different aspects of different settings as well as piles of moodboards. But maybe I'll make some more... as a little treat for doing my homework.
Assignment 4: Seena's Inspirations
Check your inspirations again. Are they still relevant? Can you find any that better represent the current state of your project?Everything is up to date because I only properly did my meta in week 1's homework.
Week 4
Assignment 1: Decay
Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
- Stars coming to their natural end.
- Planets becoming uninhabitable either by natural causes (like Mars losing its magnetic field) or unnatural causes (destruction by people in war or climate change).
- Space stations and space ships coming to the end of their lifecycles
- Power changing hands in societies (fall of governments, colonies becoming independent from the governments who created them).
- Decay of traditions and cultures over time/as the interstellar community becomes more and more combined/mingled
Assignment 2: Writing Space and Time
If you like special tea when you write, stock up for a month. Tidy your office, make a “do not disturb” sign, and think about any other last-minute strategies to optimize your writing space and time!After years and years of writing as a hobby, my writing space works really well for me. My writing routine/time does too however, that's where the challenge is going to lie for summer camp. As mentioned way back in week 1 I have a lot of other commitments this summer and one of those is a writing commitment for a project that I need to prioritise for various reasons. In my normal writing routine, it's the thing I'll be focusing on. Summer camp will need to come second to that. I've blocked out some bonus writing sessions in my calendar that I will use to focus on summer camp. I'm lucky that July is currently looking fairly quiet, so I can commit to a little bit extra hobby time. I'm also counting on summer camp being a fun side quest to everything else going on this summer and hoping it will provide a bit of a break and a bit of fun.
Assignment 3: Homepage
Review your world homepage to hook potential readers!I think I'm happy with how it looks. Again, I updated this in the previous week's homework and nothing is out-of-date because I'm still fairly new to world anvil. Open to feedback, though!
Assignment 4: Author Profile
Take a look at your author profile and pillar articles on your world and polish them!Again, this was updated fairly recently. I'll admit it doesn't have very much information but it's all I'm willing to share right now. I've yet to launch proper writing/author social media profiles but this will be coming in the next year or so as I prepare to publish my debut novel.
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