New Year's Resolution 2024
2023 was a wild year. There was a lot going on, both good and bad, for the entire year. It certainly left me with my days too full to do much for fun in the early half of the year, and I let the continue for far longer than I should have. I have been working on the concepts and initial world building for Oabos for a few years now and rarely made any consistent progress on it. I had originally picked up and World Anvil subscription back in that early building period when I was collecting all manner of writing tools to figure out what would work for me. I didn't know it at the time, but that was probably the smartest decision I made that year!
I hadn't spent too much time really exploring WA when I first joined. I had done some world building but nothing big. In effect, 2023 was my first year really using WA. I happened to notice Summer Camp about half way through the event and decided to give it a try. Turns out that was exactly the kick I needed to get things going with my writing. Since SC I have been working steadily in Oabos and am currently approaching the 40k words mark! All of the events have been exactly what I need to stay motivated to keep working on developing Oabos even when I am not focused on where the story of the world is going to go. That is not to say it has been a smooth process. Roughly 60% of my WE words were written the night before the event ended, despite the first 10% being written on the first day. The next step is learning moderation and pacing!
Some of the biggest takeaways from reading through these articles were gaining a sense of what information readers may want on any profession, different ways of structuring the profession article to help with readability, and aspects of professions I might not have considered in my own world. For example, many of the profession articles discuss compensation for the role. I am sure there is a prompt for this within the article prompts, but I tend not to use those and would not have thought to include the information in my own articles. The was also one profession very similar to an ability I am planning to have in Oabos, but it is used in a completely different way in that world. This was a great new perspective, showing a possible positive twist on what was going to be a very feared ability. It even led to a new character idea I may flesh out later!
A secondary goal of the year is to actually start in on the manuscript for the story set in Oabos. I have not yet decided how long this story will be, but it does set the foundation for the tales in a few other worlds. For a long time the goal of getting this story actually written has been a distant thought. I had never made enough progress on the story or the world to truly consider taking it further. Developing Oabos has really helped to settle aspects of the story and open new possibilities. This has also helped to finalize the main character perspective and primary location of the conflict. I would like to have a first draft completed this year, but know myself well enough to not call that a resolution and have it go nowhere.
I hadn't spent too much time really exploring WA when I first joined. I had done some world building but nothing big. In effect, 2023 was my first year really using WA. I happened to notice Summer Camp about half way through the event and decided to give it a try. Turns out that was exactly the kick I needed to get things going with my writing. Since SC I have been working steadily in Oabos and am currently approaching the 40k words mark! All of the events have been exactly what I need to stay motivated to keep working on developing Oabos even when I am not focused on where the story of the world is going to go. That is not to say it has been a smooth process. Roughly 60% of my WE words were written the night before the event ended, despite the first 10% being written on the first day. The next step is learning moderation and pacing!
Reading Focus
For the challenge part of this month, I decided to focus my reading on the are I am intending to work on next in my own world. I selected articles in the profession special category from World Ember to see how others are designing and describing their world's professions. it was a lot of fun to read through some of the different articles around unique professions in everyone's worlds.Some of the biggest takeaways from reading through these articles were gaining a sense of what information readers may want on any profession, different ways of structuring the profession article to help with readability, and aspects of professions I might not have considered in my own world. For example, many of the profession articles discuss compensation for the role. I am sure there is a prompt for this within the article prompts, but I tend not to use those and would not have thought to include the information in my own articles. The was also one profession very similar to an ability I am planning to have in Oabos, but it is used in a completely different way in that world. This was a great new perspective, showing a possible positive twist on what was going to be a very feared ability. It even led to a new character idea I may flesh out later!
Creative Resolutions
2024 will be the year of goals. I rarely make new years resolutions because they never seem to go anywhere. They also have that tricky side effect of releasing dopamine and tricking your brain into thinking the goal has already been acheived. It never hurts to be careful of accidently tricking your own brain into working against you. My one goal for this year is to get in the habit of setting writing goals. I have been very happy with the progress I have made in Oabos this year. I would like to develop better writing habits and goals setting this year to continue making progress in this way.A secondary goal of the year is to actually start in on the manuscript for the story set in Oabos. I have not yet decided how long this story will be, but it does set the foundation for the tales in a few other worlds. For a long time the goal of getting this story actually written has been a distant thought. I had never made enough progress on the story or the world to truly consider taking it further. Developing Oabos has really helped to settle aspects of the story and open new possibilities. This has also helped to finalize the main character perspective and primary location of the conflict. I would like to have a first draft completed this year, but know myself well enough to not call that a resolution and have it go nowhere.
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