New Years Resolutions 2025

Goal Setting, and a bit of a chat

It's the end of January, and I am finally squeezing in some time to finish my New Years Resolutions. I suppose I should add "obtain a better work life balance" into them! My real-life work is seasonal, and I'm sort of still in the 2024 season currently, which has been my most chaotic and stressful year ever, even more so than during the pandemic, somehow. I anticipate that I'll still be chaotically busy until at least the end of February. I've got a lovely big holiday coming up in March, and I'd love to get everything finished up by then. All that to say, real life work has taken over everything for the last few months. Even WorldEmber, though I just about managed to scrape out 10000 words (admittedly using a lot of BBCode), I feel like I could have done so much more if I wasn't so under pressure with work. Being self employed, it's so easy to fall into a trap of just constantly working.
2025 needs to be a year of better balance, less time on work, more time for play, for hobbies, for creativity. I feel like I need to make this an achievable, measurable goal, but I also don't want to put pressure on myself if life gets in the way. I think I'll settle for this - Better balance should enable me to spend more time being creative, and hopefully leave me feeling less frazzled so that my brain will be able to function well enough for the actual writing.

The To Do List

End the year not in a state of burnout
Write 12500 words for WorldEmber
Add 10 pieces of original art
Finish the World Primer
Make a World Map
Engage more with the WA Community
Show my IRL friends the website

1. End the year not in a state of burnout.

Tired, but in a satisfied way, not in a "I need to sleep for a month" way

I know personally that this can only be achieved if I really focus on improving my work life balance, something that is my main goal in life anyway. This is the main goal, from here all other goals should hopefully be achievable. So let's work on some actual tangible items.

3. Add 10 pieces of original art

And perhaps relearn to draw along the way

I'd love some day if my site could be made of entirely original art. That seems like a huge commitment though, especially when I'm mostly out of practice with drawing. I feel like 10 is a good start to help me get into the way of things again. Currently I just have one in my Cloak of the Daywalker article. I'll admit this article has gotten more traffic than I thought it would have - perhaps original art, even simple ones like that cloak might help the world stand out a bit more.

5. Create a World Map

Or rather, finally settle on one after about 253 drafts

I really just need to get this done because until it's done I'll keep changing things. I need some canon! Creating a proper map will not only help me visualize the space better but will give my readers a stronger sense of place. Plus, it'll help me ensure my geography makes sense and distances between locations are consistent.

7. Share with IRL Friends

Time to stop being shy about my creative endeavors

I've kept my worldbuilding relatively private from my real-life friends, but it's time to change that. I remember years ago, before I even got into worldbuilding as a hobby, one said to me "you're just really into lore aren't you?". I was surprised then, but in hindsight he had summed me up perfectly. Sharing my work with friends could provide fresh perspectives and maybe even inspire some of them to join in the worldbuilding journey and get them excited for any future games.

2. Write 12500 words of worldbuilding during WorldEmber

To help me feel like I haven't cheated the system

As I said earlier, I barely scraped by 10k words for WorldEmber this year. How about we make sure that I write over 10k without including BBCode? Let's go gentle for now and aim for 12500 words. It's still a 25% increase but should be achievable. I also want to aim more for smaller, less important articles - just fun stuff.

4. Complete the World Primer

AKA the biggest lore dump ever

The World Primer is essential for giving both myself and my readers a solid foundation of my world. It's the perfect place to establish the basic rules, history, and context that everything else builds upon. Completing this will make future writing easier and more consistent, while also helping new readers find their footing. I won't feel comfortable sharing the world until this is completed, even basically.

6. Engage More with the WA Community

Teamwork makes the dream work

I've been more of a lurker in the World Anvil community than an active participant. This year, I want to change that by commenting more on others' articles and participating in more challenges. I'm so new to this hobby as a concept and I feel like I have a lot to learn from those who have been doing it a lot longer than I have.

8. Create a Comprehensive Style Guide

Because apparently I'm obsessed with making my site look pretty

I've noticed a few other users making style guides and I think it's a great idea. I never like to publish articles without a bit of styling, and as my world grows, I need to ensure everything stays consistent and professional-looking. Creating a style guide will help me maintain standard formatting across articles, establish naming conventions, and keep my writing voice consistent. Plus, it'll make it easier when I'm tired and can't remember how I usually format things!

A Little Bit of Reading

I could have picked any article from Loup's world of Bellyem, this just happened to be the first one I stumbled upon and I instantly loved it. Loup's use of pre-existing art and their CSS makes a beautiful combination, but I also just really enjoyed the article. I felt like I could easily glean a lot of the world just from reading this sole article on a title, which was impressive, and something I'll aspire to myself.


What a fantastic idea for an article! I know myself that my world certainly takes inspiration from particular parts of history, but I never thought of sitting down and actively listing the similarities and differences. This sort of thing is so helpful for people wanting to get to know your world better, especially for RPGs and their players.


As someone who's running a vampire campaign right now, I jumped at the chance to read this, and didn't regret it. I loved all the details about vampire society, the original primordials and the blood magic Sanguinis, plus the artwork and the CSS is stunning! 10/10 article, loved it.

This one just delighted me. I think I can get so caught up in writing the big important articles that I forget to leave space to write something small, like fudge. Even still, the detail here is lovely, with how it affects and differs for various species in the world.


Okay, I work as a wedding videographer in real life, I can't help but be drawn to articles about weddings. I love the little details like the wedding crowns being family heirlooms. Also a week's vacation before getting married sounds ideal, let's be honest.


Imagine 450kg slugs. Mad. I loved the article, it has a lot of great detail. I particularly enjoyed the addition of the anatomical drawing.


I think this is a beautiful little piece of writing, a little self contained story within the world. I like the thinking outside the box of what "prose" as a category could be - a captain's log is a great idea.

I love this article about tounge flicking as a form of communication. It's amazing to see how creative people can be, coming up with something wonderful and unique for their world. I love all the little details here, not just of the language itself, but in particular the "cultural significance" section. Those are the types of details that really bring a world to life.


This is a great idea for a material. I love the details on how the Rusalje use it for their weapons. It is interesting that it never changes its mass, that makes it particularly intriguing. There's certainly a lot to play with here, I imagine there could be a lot of fun uses for a material like this.


It would be easy to write an article about a tradition, give the details and be done with it. But this article was a good reminder that worlds are more complicated than a one size fits all approach. This is why I like that Chi has included variations on the funeral rite depending on the people who are doing it. This is the sort of detail that makes a world really come to life.