NovelEmber-ish and Kinda-Sorta WorldEmber Prep: The Sequel

Last year I attempted NovelEmber with a rebel goal of writing the next two chapters of my perpetually-in-progress novel. I made some headway, but got derailed and didn't come close to finishing either one. This year...well, I intended to keep working on those chapters, but real life made it unlikely from the get-go. October was exhausting, both physically and emotionally, and I spent November resting as much as I could get away with. My total wordcount? Just under 500. Yeahhhh...I won't be claiming that participation badge.
  But WorldEmber is about to start, and I won't miss this for anything. My goal is nothing more ambitious than to meet the baseline 10,000 words. I've done so consistently for the past four years and refuse to not do it again. I have a few articles already planned, and it sure feels good to start with something in my progress table!

• The Deeps-Dweller will be an extension of an article series I wrote for Summer Camp. That set covers the species it's made of, the food it eats, the general area it lives in, but nothing about what the Deeps-Dweller is like as a character.
• The fish transport fleet hit me as a random idea answering the question "How did the atolls' fish farmers evacuate their livestock?" (But I'm still not sure whether to write it up as a vehicle or a military formation.)
• Huliye is one of my obstacles to making progress in the chapter, since she's a new character turning out to be more significant than I intended and I know almost nothing about her.
• And there will be another interview, of course, since that's a reliable way of burning up a few thousand words, but I haven't decided yet who my narrator should talk to.

Nturally I will add to the list as writing these articles spawns others.

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Homework 1: ...Wait, what?

Well, what's this? A Bingo card?

Now, that's neat! *delighted gasp* And I've done one of the squares already! Okay, I'll pick that column.
 

1. Refresh your author profile to prepare for an influx of new readers

Hm. I did flesh out my author profile for Summer Camp a couple years ago and I was happy with it then, but looking at it now it's lost that "recently edited" shine. I listed a lot of minutiae about myself, but nothing about why I'm on World Anvil or what I'm trying to accomplish. That's more important than "how many video games do you play in a week", right? There's not a lot of time left, but I'll see what I can do about trading the excess for substance.
 

2. Define the scope of your worldbuilding for WorldEmber

As always, I need to build up the time and area of the chapters I'm struggling with. That doesn't mean everything I write during WorldEmber will be from that specific place and time, but I hope that I'll be able to identify and develop the missing parts of the world that are making it hard to write.
 

3. Read a book

Umm...is it cheating if it's non-fiction? Because the book I'm reading right now is research for my Neolithic setting. It's not directly related to my planned writing--it's about the role that the spiritual world may have played in developing ancient cultures. I'm hoping to use the insights I gain from it to get a better feel for the beliefs of my historical world, which will form the underpinning of my main setting's cultures and help me better separate them from my 21st century American assumptions.
 

4. Make a list of articles you want to write.

Sweet! Done!
 

5. Join the Community!

*urk*
  I'm in fact already on the WA Discord. I lurk in several channels. What I can't do is spontaneously post there--like literally can't. I'm pretty sure it's an undiagnosed anxiety. I feel panicky about jumping into an established community. From the sidelines I've watched people pop in and out all the time, so I know it can be done. Just not by me. Which means this last piece of the homework will have to remain uncomfortably incomplete.

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Aaanyway... On to the main event! I've hopped on the community spreadsheet again, but I also like to keep track in the homework article.

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My progress table! During WorldEmber I'll update daily with real wordcounts--no BBCode.

template	article	wordcount	real words	status
character	The Deeps-Dweller	1115	961	done
military formation	Fish Transport Fleet	337	310	messy
character	Huliye	409	317	stub
prose	The Seeker Heroes: An Interview	2331	1923	getting somewhere
spell / ability	Water Seeking	595	525	close
document	The Seekers' Oath	939	820	done
tradition	Titling	772	677	done
generic	Heart of Truth	295	248	started
rank	Water Seeker	658	570

  Back for a third year, my words per day chart. Any day I write 300 words or more (or almost) I get to put a badge in it!

	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Week 1	401	435	349	317	310	347	349
Week 2	333	487	345	302	308	298 (close enough!)	359
Week 3	331	359	297 (close enough!)	303	570	332
Week 4
Week 5

  And that's my prep! WorldEmber goes live tomorrow and I am psyched!

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At the last minute I decided to keep a daily progress log on top of everything else. (Spoilered because boring.)
week 1
week 2
week 3