Hello everyone, Qurilion gave me the excellent idea of making a journal for summer camp, so here it is. This way I can organize and document my thoughts of the creative process while I'm expanding out Rom. I hope that you enjoy!
Summer Camp Prompts
1. Describe a lush and fertile location in your world.
3. Describe a settlement that is famous (or infamous) for its industrial activities.
5. Describe an inhospitable area in your world and what its environment is like.
7. Describe an isolated or frontier settlement and how it survives in your world.
9. Describe a country in your world, including its political structure and history.
11. Describe a culture in your world which has particularly warlike traditions.
13. Describe the tenets or precepts of an organised religion in your world.
15. Describe some common idioms and sayings from a culture in your world.
17. Describe the tales in your world designed to make naughty children behave.
19. Describe a physical condition associated with old age in your world.
21. Describe the culinary traditions that are unique to an ethnicity in your world.
23. Describe the functions and uses of a commonplace item in your world.
25. Describe a major technological breakthrough and the impact it had in your world.
27. Describe the functions of a vehicle used for military practices or conflicts.
29. Describe a commonly used vehicle in your world and who its used by.
2. Write about an important plant in your world and what it is used for.
4. Write about a ceremonial building in your world and what takes place there.
6. Write about a constructed or natural landmark in your world.
8. Write about a creature that is used as a beast of burden or transport animal.
10. Write about a typical house or dwelling in one of your cultures or countries.
12. Write about a tale surrounding a mythological creature in your world.
14. Write about an influential woman in your world and what they achieved.
16. Write about a conflict that shaped the political climate of your world.
18. Write about a great thinker in your world and the impact they had on society.
20. Write about a mental illness in your world and how people respond to this.
22. Write about a material which is extracted, mined or quarried from the ground.
24. Write about the history surrounding a unique artefact or work of art in your world.
26. Write about a popular card, dice or board game in your world and how it is played.
28. Write about the properties of a material which is used for clothing in your world.
30. Write about a collection of culinary recipes from a particular culture in your world.
Journal
July 25
9:45am
I haven't updated the journal in a while, but a lot of things have been going on. I've edited and polished all of my articles except four at this point. I got a deep-dive critique by Q on one of my articles and did a thorough editing job. I've made a significant amount of progress outlining the novel that I intend to set in this world as well as a couple of character interviews for the protagonist and antagonist. I'm working on a scene outline at the moment. Things are going really well in terms of writing. It has been a very productive July. :)
July 13
9:48am
Well, I haven't updated this in a while, but I finished all thirty prompts a few days ago. Now I'm going back through the prompts in order to try to make them pretty, edit, expand, and link them together. It's a lot of fun and makes me feel even better about sharing my work. So far the one that needed the most work was Quring, but I'm also the most proud of it at the moment. I learned how to use columns in my bbcode, which was pretty exciting. I wonder if I'll be able to play with CSS before too long, but I'm probably getting ahead of myself. It was pretty eye opening to look back at one of my early articles and realize how far I've come since that time. I've already learned a ton during summer camp, and I'm excited to see what else I can get up to.
July 7
7:27pm
So, it's been a busy day of world building. I joined the stream that Ethnis was putting on from the beginning and have been sprinting with them intermittently when I have enough ideas for a prompt. I took way more breaks than I did, but I managed to keep world building for a good chunk of the stream. I got about 4 articles done and some ideas for my next one, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. The words are slowing down though, so I think it's time to unplug soon and head to bed.
July 6
1:37pm
I've gotten two articles done today, and one of them was pretty tough for me. I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm keeping up a good pace and coming up with lots of ideas that I think I will be able to use in the story in the future. I'm also managing to stay ahead of my perfectionism and keep hitting publish, so that's pretty impressive. I rolled for prompt #10 about the dwelling or house, so I think I may work on getting that done today as well because I have a pretty good idea for it. Tomorrow is the stream from Ethnis, so I think I will have quite the productive little weekend of wold building.
7:19pm
I've been on a roll today. Many articles have been written. I'm up to 13 completed. Woo hoo! None of them are amazing, but they are also slowly weaving together a much clearer idea of what life is like in the Idran empire. I've also not created this much new content since NaNoWriMo last November. It feels good to be working through some new ideas again. I'm excited for the 12 hour stream tomorrow. I wonder how much further I can get. It will be awesome to reach the halfway point!
July 4
12:56pm
Well, I've gotten two articles done so far today. I'm not in love with either of them, but they were two of the prompts that I didn't have great ideas for initially. I think that I can spruce them up some in the future. I'm grateful for the inspiration that I've been getting from the community so far. I wonder if I will try for another article today or if it would be better to do some editing now.
July 3
10:52am
Just finished working on my technology, which gave me lots of new ideas for a bunch of the other prompts. Yay! I've got to go get some adulting tasks done today, which is less exciting, but I got a lot of sleep and caffeine, so hopefully I won't run out of energy and can still get two prompts sorted out.
5:29pm
So, I got my two prompts done earlier today and have been wrestling with the next one that I rolled. I'm not sure if I should skip it and come back or continue to wrestle with it. It's the prompt about the conflict that shaped the politics of my world. I haven't really gotten into wars or politics yet, and it feels kind of heavy to sort out. I've been doing a lot of free writing, and some ideas are coming up, but not tons of them yet. I suppose that I will just keep chipping away at it. After all, it only needs to be a rough draft of 300 words. I can surely get through that.
July 2
6:44am
I got another random number online and came up with 3 this time. That's the industrial city prompt, so I decided to try to play with the idea of how things would be produced in a world where music is magic. I'm still having a hard time getting down to real mechanics of it, but I suppose that's ok if it's magic on some level. Anyway, I had fun describing the process of making a book. I think I might come back and tweak this article a little bit more though. It's not quite at the level that I want. Still, first draft ftw.
3:06pm
Ok, I got another article sorted out. Woo hoo! I was trying to get feedback from my friend on my stuff, and she just kept coming up with other ideas. I thought that meant that she didn't like what I had written, but I clarified with her. I think it's a good sign that my stuff is interesting at least conceptually because it's sparking her imagination too. Anyway, I feel pretty good about the ideas that are coming out of summer camp even if they're not perfect. They will definitely help me write more!
July 1
6:37am
So far, I have managed to spend a bunch of time looking at the prompts and copying them into both my physical and now WA journal. I think that I'm going to take some time soon to work on actually writing. I used a random number generator, which gave me number 9, so I think I will start there. I don't want to procrastinate for too long or my perfectionism may come out!
7:39am
Got my first article for prompt #9 up. Woo! I want to make it prettier, but I think it's more important to get more drafts and articles done. My goal for today is to get at least one more article up. I think two a day will be a manageable pace and give me some time to edit and polish at the end.
4:31pm
Just posted up my second article of the challenge. It was a bit harder to come up with details for this one as I've never thought of it before, but it will be a great boon for the story that I will one day write in this world. In any case, the article is a draft and I can always shine it up later. Sharing so much is going to be a good stretch for me. Maybe I will try to do some critiques of other articles or find some artwork for my newly minted ones.
