WorldEmber 2024

WorldEmber is upon us!
I have three worlds. I work on all three worlds.

Week 1: Goal

Meta

The primers cover meta topics that I want my audiences to know about. Since I'm writing books, some of it is still secret.

Focus

For Wellspring:
• I finished my current WIP draft, and plan to publish Book 4 next year (yay yay!).
  I'll be working on:
  • the map and article to Rakan (the country in which the book takes place)
  • aki n'di ori cultural article
  • Flame martial art article
  • e ada sindo martial art article

For Lapis of Nicodem

• khentauree-related articles
• character articles, with updated character art
• more info on the Jils

For Evenacht
• more character articles, with character art
• articles on who the Condemned are and the Fields of the UnRedeemed
• more on Badeçasyon, its leader, and the Gabridarço

Week 2

Homepages

I'm proud of my Wellspring and Evenacht homepages. I've worked hard to get them to match the feel of the books.
The hardest has been Lapis of Nicodem; it's a dark science fantasy, where the Dentherion Empire has advanced tech but most people living under their rule do not (unless it's illegally obtained), and where robots, not humans, have magic. It has a kind of cyberpunky-feel, but there isn't enough tech to go all in on that (though it's grown in importance throughout the series). I've wrestled with how to present that.

Primers

For Wellspring:
• I haven't written an official primer yet. The homepage has a brief "what's going on", but I will get a short history up before the end of Nov.

For Lapis of Nicodem
• The primer is on the homepage. It is short and sweet and says everything it needs to say

For Evenacht
• I need to draw one more pic, but otherwise, the primer's ready
  
  

CSS

I am still working on getting all articles switched over to new looks. OMG it takes forever!

Week 3

Story Inspiration

Currently, most of my inspiration comes from video games (I ditched movies after Star Wars III's Vader going "NOOOO" and shaking fists. So dumb). It's a comforting, rage-calming exercise where I control the character and can destroy things (yes, taking aggression out on boxes is funner than it seems). I've read some worldbuilding articles, though most of my writing/reading time is going into editing my Wellspring WIP.
So, I'm playing Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Mario and Luigi: Brothership, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, ESO and I (mostly) watch my honey play Fallout 76 (I despise the game, but I will lob some shots at the Scorchbeast Queen). I need to get back to Dragon Dogma 2, too, but It's been a while and I've forgotten the controls :/
It's alluring to think I can change the world, even if it's in a video game. Battling forces where you lose but come back stronger, eventually winning...I need that right now.
I listed Fallout 76 because I view it as an extraordinary example of how NOT to write a story. IMO, the writers (in reality, probably some exec) got everything wrong (and while there was a major update that added human NPCs, it should have been sooner and better).
Presenting a post-apocalytic landscape with only robots to talk to and no people to help did as intended, making it seem desolate--but you know what's boring? That. Why bother with the scorch plague cure? There's no one to give it to. Why do a quest for a robot? It's not like they care if you succeed or fail. It's ludicrous to think all your buddies from the Vault ran into the countryside to repopulate and find survivors--and immediately died. Except for you, as the main character.
Why not have the Overseer's honey survive and be bitter and resentful to her? At least that would add tension and not be as boring as ho hum, he's now a scorched.

Playlists

My honey got me the Tears of the Kingdom soundtrack during his last visit to Japan. I often play that in the background, no matter what I'm doing (same with the Skyrim sountrack and atmosphere songs, my go-to background music).
I do have some specific songs that go with specific stories.

For Wellspring:

• Visions of Atlantis
• Master the Hurricane
• Clocks

For Lapis of Nicodem

• VNV Nation
• Honour 2012
• Darkangel
• Solitary
• Kingdom (I have the ending to Broken Dulcet mapped to this song)

For Evenacht
• Garmarna
• Herr Mannelig
• Varulven
• Ramunder (one of Greenglimmer's themes)


• Faun
• Egil Saga
• Gwydion
• Galdra (another theme song)


• Faith and the Muse
• Silver Circle (another theme song)
• Cantus
• Scars Flown Proud

Moodboards

Wellspring (Wellspring Moodboard credits)

Lapis of Nicodem (Lapis Moodboard credits)

Evenacht (Evenacht Moodboard credits)

I find moodboards very difficult. It's hard to find the right images, especially if your write dark fantasy that doesn't take place in modern times, and you're not paying tons of money for a stock photo sub.
Evenacht turned out best; it's moody and ghosty. I wanted to get icy foreshadowing for Wellspring; maybe? Lapis might need more of a punch of color. This will have to do, for the time being.

Week 4

Community

I always vow to log onto the challenge discussion and actually talk instead of just lurking. We'll see if I improve on that. I'm also wanting to post more to Bluesky, since worldbuilders are there.
I don't have many in-person friends. The pandemic interfered with a lot of my socializing, and it hasn't returned to what it was before. On-line's where it's at for me.

Writing Schedule

I work on my serial chapters at night, Monday-Wednesday, then spend all Thursday and Friday morning getting them in shape. Weekend nights are Wellspring Dragons WIP editing.
I'll be writing and illustrating things for World Ember during early morning. This has been my schedule for past WorldEmber and Summer Camps, and it works for me :)