2026 - Seas the Day

Table of Contents

Preparation

Setting

Hopscotch

Goals Article Overview

Stats

Superlatives

Article List Comments

It's June! Which not only means time for my annual Pride Month Challenge, but also time for Summer Camp Prep! If you're not familiar with Summer Camp, it's World Anvil's annual prompt-based worldbuilding event that happens in July every year. This article details my plans for the event, and will get periodic updates until the event officially closes in August.

If you're not familiar with me, I'm the creator of the 2026 Best World wow that's a lot of stars . You can check out my author page for more info on what I'm up to.

(Side note: The embedded map seem to make scrollspy less reliable than usual. The TOC links all work, but may not highlight the correct heading.)

Preparation

I'm going to do something weird.

— Surprising no one

Setting

It took me two Summer Camps to decide I don't like applying prompts to existing projects, and one to decide I love using them with a new setting designed for that purpose. Where last year I did acoustic worldbuilding (h/t to Keon Croucher for that phrase), this year I'm doing epistolary worldbuilding.

In The World is Dead, a cynical protagonist explains the world through journal entries as they travel and slowly begin to appreciate the life they have. There will be three ways for readers to explore:

1. Topically. Same as normal: pick an article, read from start to finish, and maybe read another after.
2. Chronologically. Follow links to read journal entries based on time, sometimes skipping topics or returning later.
3. Geographically. Browse a Chronicle to see where the protagonist was when they wrote different entries.

The World is still private while I work out a few final items, but will be public sometime before July!

Inspired by things like Bram Stoker's Dracula and the game Strange Horticulture, epistolary worldbuilding has been a back-burner idea of mine for a couple years. It will be a huge experiment, requiring a lot of writing through discovery. As someone who always plots everything, this will be a big challenge.

Hopscotch

As always, I'm taking a slightly different approach with the prep. Not only have I stitched together one giant hopscotch, but I'm also not bothering with dice rolls. There's a lot of prep I know I need to do before July, so I'm marking off any squares that suit my needs. The map below has the frankenscotch, just click the circles to read more. It will get more embellishments as the month goes on.

2026 Summer Camp Hopscotch

Open full size

Goals

Discover

Learn to discover the story through writing, rather than my usual of planning and plotting ahead of time.

Explore

This is a great opportunity to explore a variety of little ideas that don't fit into other projects.

Have Fun

With no badge goals or expectations, I just want to have fun trying something new and seeing what happens.

Article Overview

This will have some stats and other facts about my SC articles once the event is over.

Stats

Here will be numbers!

Theme	Words (WA/Real)	Articles	Average (WA/Real)
Love	0 / 0	0	0 / 0
TBD	0 / 0	0	0 / 0
TBD	0 / 0	0	0 / 0
TBD	0 / 0	0	0 / 0
Wildcard	0 / 0	0	0 / 0
Totals	0 / 0	0	0 / 0

Superlatives

Longest

TBD

Shortest

TBD

Fan Favorite

TBD

Rin Favorite

TBD

Prep Checklist

There are a few things I know I need to do before Summer Camp. If they line up with the official prep, I'll call that a bonus!

• Make an Azgaar map
• Make a cover image or two
• Sort out a background
• Compile a bank of names I can use in July
• Final tidying!

Progress

0 prompts

Want to make your own progress bar?

Camp Chill

Summer Camp Camp Chill Badge

Camp Chill (ID 4574878) by Rin Garnett

Nnie's Camp Chill Guidelines

• Remember the prompts are suggestions, not requirements.
• Write what you're passionate about, leave what you aren't.
• Relax when you feel tired.
• Fight off any pesky brain-squitos trying to make you doubt your work.
• Don't abandon your non-summercamp goals! Write that article you're itching to write, even if it doesn't fit any prompts.

Shared with permission from Annie Stein. Read her thoughts on 'Camp Chill' on her Author Page.

If you'd like to repost this badge, use [imgblock:4574878] to include the guidelines or [img:4574878] for only the badge. Amy Winters-Voss made a block version you can use by adding [block:1050823] to your article.

Discovery

I'm a compulsive planner. When it comes to storytelling, I always figure out the main shape of the story before I get to writing. What's the start, the end, how do we get between them, etc. This applies to novels, short stories, scenes, and even worldbuilding articles.

The World is Dead will be an exercise in letting go of all that and writing mostly through discovery. Instead of planning ahead, I'll figure it out as I write.

I expect I'll need to do more after-publication editing than usual, as I figure out later what should have happened earlier. But I'm hoping it will be a fun break from needing everything planned, especially for an event like Summer Camp.

Article List

Once SC is over, I'll have a table below listing all articles I wrote, with a roll button to select a random one to read.