Summer Camp Pledge

Creative Goal and Motivation

Something I always wanted to do when I was younger was to create a huge, detailed fantasy world of my own. Not tailored to a novel or any other particular project, and certainly not the sort of ad hoc worldbuilding I've too often done as a writer that tends to be hardly more than an afterthought, but a fleshed-out, detailed world, built for worldbuilding's sake.
Conlanging (constructing languages) has been a long-time interest of mine as well, and something I've been wanting to do in recent years is to create not just a language, but a whole family of them. (How languages evolve and relate to one another is a major interest of mine.) I recently decided to finally embark on that project, and I've already started building the proto-language that all the others will ultimately derive from.
Then I was reminded that Summer Camp is coming up soon, so I thought, why not take part in that alongside it? I was already planning on building a world to go with these languages—after all, language is influenced by the culture and customs of its speakers—so why not use Summer Camp to make sure I'm actually worldbuilding alongside my conlanging, and to give me some prompts to get started on it?
So, in short, my goal for Summer Camp is to begin creating a new world to act as a backdrop for, and inspiration to, a large-scale conlanging project.
I have no idea what this world or its languages will end up like, by the way. I'm just starting with a seed and seeing what it grows into. Though I do know I want the first language branch I work on to develop an alphabet with a Norse rune-like aesthetic, so maybe I'll draw on Viking culture a bit for its speakers?
We'll see.

Challenge Goal

Just Copper. The main focus of my project is the languages themselves, and between working two jobs and preparing for an overseas move and graduate school, I'm not sure I even have the time for Silver.
By the way, is it any surprise I'll be studying linguistics?

2022 Themes

Expanse: If the word "expanse" fits any one language family, it's Indo-European. Did you know English, Lithuanian, Iranian, and Hindi all share a common ancestor? It's one of the world's largest language families, and the one I'm working on right now is probably going to end up being my world's largest language family, too. I need to do some research into how early Indo-European speakers managed to spread their language from Europe to India, but I know two things that helped them: horses, and the large expanse of land that is Eurasia. So my starting point for building this world is going to be the largest continent on it. (No, I don't have a map yet.)
Leadership: The linguistic landscape of an area is influenced by its leaders. English is a West Germanic language, but the majority of its vocabulary is of Romance origin. Why? It's because, once upon a time, Britain was ruled by the Normans, who came from modern-day France. In those days, Britain was basically trilingual. The nobility spoke French. The clergy spoke Latin. The common folk spoke English, but many spoke French (and maybe Latin) and adopted French words into their speech because that was how the important people spoke.
This is something I doubt I'll get to this summer (since I want to focus on my "No, it isn't Old Norse, it just has a similar alphabet" branch first), but I want one branch of my language family to become tonal, like Chinese (the proto-language isn't). My idea for it is to create a similar socio-political/socio-lingustic situation to that of Norman Britain, except the prestige language (the one the leaders speak) is a tonal one and the influence on the vernacular language results in native vocabulary in the vernacular language being re-analyzed as tonal. (I gotta research that as well, to make sure that's actually a feasible way for a language to undergo tonogenesis (that's a fancy way of saying it becomes tonal), but I definitely want language contact to be the reason for it.)
I think I got kind of off track with that prompt. Whoops.
Discovery: Who's gonna discover things? I'm gonna discover things! I'm not starting with a setting I want to use and building a history for it, nor am I creating any languages and building a history for them. No, I'm starting with the history, letting it evolve "naturally" (i.e., not trying to get from Point A to Point B, just starting at You Are Here and going wherever the wind takes me) and seeing how it unfolds. Because I'm a nerd (and a weird one at that), I'm actually really excited to analyze the phonology of my languages to discover what rules and constraints fall into place as a result of individual sound changes chosen for little more reason than "this'll sound good."
How does this relate to the actual worldbuilding? Well... I think building up my world's timeline will end up being similar, in a way, even if history and culture are more open-ended and ill-defined than phonological rules. I mean, I'm definitely going to make discoveries about my world and its people when I stop and consider the consequences and domino effects even seemingly minor creative decisions will have on it.
Monstrous: Humans are (probably) going to be the main intelligent species in the world I'm building, but they certainly won't be the only one. I have an idea for one species inspired by sirens—beautiful bird-women (or mermaids, depending who you ask) who lured sailors to their deaths with their charming songs. In other words, monsters. My sirens aren't going to lure anyone to their deaths, but they'll have a reputation for being just as irresistible, charming humans into abandoning human society and becoming their lovers. So, maybe they're more like succubi than sirens. Except they aren't demons.
Regardless, the idea that they're monsters is a load of nonsense anyway, born from fear and prejudice. Because a human and a non-human would never cohabitate unless the human was magically seduced, right? In modern times, such relationships are far more accepted, and non-humans are no longer painted as monsters.

Mini-Meta/Inspiration

I'm gonna be honest, I have NO idea how to properly do this part (if there even is a "proper" way). So I guess I'm gonna go ahead and make a Pinterest board for each of the themes. That works, right?
For Expanse, as I said, I want to focus on the main continent. Though I also want to sketch out a world map before Summer Camp begins... well, anyway, my focus for Expanse is going to be geography, in particular that of the yet-to-be-named largest continent. I'm probably going to focus in on the western coast, too, since that's where the first language branch I'm going to be working on will mainly be spoken.
Leadership is a harder one. I don't have a world and cultures yet, let alone any idea of who leads them. Although, part of building cultures involves figuring out how those cultures are led—power structures, governments, etc. I'm gonna do some research on various forms of leadership and social organization in ancient cultures and throw that into an anthropology board for now.
I said I was thrilled about evolving my languages when I talked about Discovery, and that's what I'll do. I've created a "(Constructed) Langauges & Linguistics" board for collecting stuff relevant to my conlangs, which also has a diachronics section—a fancy way of saying how languages change over time.
I'm branching out a bit on Monstrous, but I've made a species inspiration board, along with a section for the aforementioned avian species.
A final note: Music! I find instrumental music to be great for focus, especially lo-fi (which I LOVE!). I have a Spotify playlist of lo-fi songs I like, as well as a YouTube playlist of 24/7 lofi streams. I'll probably also listen to a lot of Touhou music because I'm utterly obsessed with Touhou and barely listen to anything else at the moment.

Planning For Success

I'm dedicating Wednesday and Saturday as my "Summer Camp Days", since they're the days I'm most free. (I'm saying this now to hold myself accountable: That includes July 13. I'm perfectly capable of writing from the backseat of a car.) My goal for each "Summer Camp Day" is to write at least one article, or two if I'm playing catch-up.
I'm also going to get some work done on Mondays and Sundays, whether on the prompts or other aspects of the world/languages. No specific goal for these days, since don't have as much free time, as long as I get something done.
One of the Discord servers I'm in has a joint Summer Camp/Camp NaNoWriMo group where we chat about our projects and keep each other motivated and do sprints and stuff, so that's my chosen community. (I'm sure the official WA Discord is great, too, but I get too easily overwhelmed by busy servers.) I didn't know there was a WA Reddit until I read this week's assignment, but I've gone ahead and joined that, too.
And... that's that! I'm ready!
(Am I? I should make a map. I still haven't done that.)