2024 Resolutions - Jan 2024

Looking Ahead in 2024

I'll admit it, I'm terrible at achieving my goals. I get sidetracked. I also get sidetracked in my writing and end up focusing on things that don't really pertain to the plot or my overall vision. That, or I get stuck in analysis paralysis. In short, I struggle with writing what matters. I get too excited about the big picture and my attention darts around like a squirrel on caffeine, but I need to FOCUS. My writing concerns the Sekhavi people, at the moment, so I need to zoom in on them. To every other nation in Istra, I apologize, but your time will come.
Part of the reason I'm so filled with inspiration is because I'm excited about how I recovered from the writer's block that plagued me for...a lot of years. I think the last time I wrote this much was in 2018. Writing is a true love of mine and storycrafting has always been what fills my heart with happiness and my belly with fire. It's as if I've regained control of a limb that has been numb from sitting on it for too long. I think the cause of my writer's block was burnout, and I am determined to take breaks, no matter how excited I am. In fact, I'm taking January very slow as I recover from NaNoWriMo and Worldember.
My main focus will always be on my prose writing rather than worldbuilding, but crafting the world in which my prose takes place is by no means an insignificant project. In fact, I'm a bit behind in my worldbuilding endeavors, which leaves me in unfortunate positions while I write where I don't know what my characters would eat at dinner or what to call the tavern they're stopping at. I intend to make a to-do list to keep me on track and to set hard and soft goals. Hard goals will have measurable results, such as a word count, whereas soft goals will be general things I want to keep in mind as I achieve my hard goals.

2024 Writing Goals

Hard Goals

• World Anvil: Write and finish one major article per month. "Major" constitutes anything more than 1,000 words. It's an easy goal but I want to keep it achievable. Also participate in challenges/events.
• Writing: Win all three NaNo challenges in 2024. (Camp in April and July, and NaNoWriMo in November)
• Finish my first draft of Gravemaiden!!!
• Reading: Read 24 books

Soft Goals

• Don't shy away from short articles! I tend to make one giant article that's 5k words. It's okay to break it up.
• Learn more CSS and make articles prettier! But not at the cost of actual content.
• Participate in more events and challenges. Within reason. Again, trying to avoid burnout, here.
• Leave more comments on articles. Engage with the community and learn from the writers within it.
• Take breaks and go easy on myself if I don't reach my goals. This year is going to be...a lot...when it comes to my personal life. Keep that in mind.

2024 at a Glance

• January: Keeping it slow this month. November and December is a busy time for writing.
• February
Challenge!
• March: Prep a bit for Camp NaNo. Figure out what I need to worldbuild before Camp.
• April: Camp NaNo! Write 25k words. Break from worldbuilding.
• May
• June: Prep for Camp NaNo and Summer Camp. Idk how I'm going to do both or if I will. I'll have to assess when the time comes.
• July: Camp NaNo AND/OR Summer Camp. May only do 10k words for Camo NaNo?
• August
• September
• October: NaNoWriMo prep!
• November: NANOWRIMO!!! Break from worldbuilding, definitely. Write 50k words. Probably will skip WorldEmber prep but if I get to it, I do.
• December: WorldEmber! Only 10k words...after NaNoWriMo, I will need a break.

Articles

My plan is to select four articles from the WorldEmber 2023 categories that are in my comfort zone, and four that are in areas I struggle in. The last two will be miscellaneous ones I really liked. I tried to focus specifically on articles that had fewer views/likes.

Comfort Zone Categories

Writing about characters is my favorite thing to do, and I've been loving all the inspiration I've gleaned from others, but Chrispy_0 has my favorite character article I've seen so far. Their other characters are just as interesting. I'm in love with the formatting, quantity of pictures, level of detail, and the use of quotes. They also included things I'd never think to add to a character page, like pictures of friends and family or artifacts, but now I want to. I have to write a bunch of character pages this next year, so this was helpful to look at for inspiration.

My jaw literally dropped when I first saw Blue Fairy 74's world for the first time. The pictures, the aesthetic...it's all gorgeous. I love all of their continents in the Introduction article but I especially love the Earth element, so I'm featuring this one. I need to incorporate something like the "at a glance" section with short facts about my nations. It's so hard to get a sense of scale in fictional worlds, so I'm glad for all the measurements listed. It's far shorter than the location articles I've written in the past, and a lot more direct, which is definitely an advantage.

I'm a little sad I couldn't comment on this one, but regardless, Gary Kimzey did an excellent job on the Ditinci. I browsed the ethnicities they branched off into and just decided to feature the parent ethnicity because oh my goodness, I love extinct people groups. It makes my history-loving heart sing. Speaking of history, I feel like I'm reading a history textbook, and I mean that in the most admiring way possible. The different terms for clothing, temples, etc. anchor the world and make it feel real, which is what I'm trying to achieve myself.

For the sake of my category system, I'm considering this one to be a religion/plot article. Religion is such an enjoyable topic to write about, but religious conflict is even better. I love how Obannon has a whole article dedicated to the religious struggle within the Northern Reaches, and it all feels very rough and medieval. Honorable mention for the prose. "It is a land of secret groves and grand cathedrals, of druidic circles and paladin orders." And just like that...the mood is set and we have the main conflict! Also, this is a world that actually is being used for TTRPG, so I have a lot of respect for that. I'd make a character in this world, definitely.

Unfamilar Categories

Not exaggerating, this was one of my favorite articles this year. Maybe it's the alliteration, or the images, or the descriptions of everything offered, or the fact that it inspired me to write about the apothecary shop in my own world, or the fact that I have a soft spot for anything Tillerz puts out. They know how to set the mood and make things delightfully fantastical. I had no idea how to write about a shop or what to include, and I still need to give the Davatviia Apothecary Shop some more love, but the key for setting the mood is in those little details.

Who would have thought to write about subcultures? Not me, that's for sure, but Rin Garrett has made me want to start thinking about some subcultures in Istra. I especially like the simple, to-the-point "ideology" box on the side...really makes me want that Grandmaster subscription, but alas...sidebars will have to do. Also the "did you know?" section on the side...I love it and I need to do that more.

I'm going to be writing a Rank article soon, so I wanted to scope out a few. I really like what Stardustscrapper portrayed here: a group of people who are tortured and ordered to become the Emperor's lackeys. These people are both powerful and yet if they make a single mistake, they can be killed. It made me want to think of what some downsides there would be if a person was born as a Child of Vala in my own world.

Another article I'll have to write soon is a language article, and I enjoyed reading all of The Big G's information on the languages of their world. Bonus feature: some are nonverbal! Also...there are dialects! The Sekhavi language in Istra has three major dialects and many minor ones, so I'll have to cover those as well. The amount of creativity in the languages is astounding. There's even a sign language performed with the feet. Side note, I liked the usage of tooltips to add little comments/author's notes into the article.

Miscellaneous

I love a good song, and PrippyMontyPoppyCock has several, with chords! These are the things I love, these little glimpses into culture like songs, menus, documents, and so on. This is a somber, chilling, and beautiful song that had me sitting at my desk trying to hum a country song in A minor that might fit the words. I'm reminded of the tavern songs in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Time to compose some songs on the violin for Istra.

Food=culture. Culture=food. Long live culinary worldbuilding. For someone who admires it so much, I really don't do it enough. Or at all, for that matter. I especially like how there are indications of why the food is prepared this way, such as how the Hurani have a light dinner to promote good sleep, or a quick breakfast so they can get on with their day. Haleo really did a good job with this one and I hope my Istra cookbook looks half as nice as theirs does. Also, now I want some Hurani soup.