Worldember 2024

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Welcome and thank you for reading! I'm a busy man these days with school & volunteering so let's cut to the chase, shall we?
The central theme for this year's WorldEmber will be prose. Thanks to the support and encouragement of this wonderful community, I'm proud to say Waking Materia is now over 350 articles of what I hope to be rich and entertaining worldbuilding, more than enough "crunch" to satiate even the hungriest worldbuilding enthusiast. Though dense with flavour text, imagery and stories, most articles are still very much a "top-down", encyclopedic look at the world.
What I would now like to focus more on is bringing to life a few select characters and their stories. In doing so I intend to have new surprises both for my veteran fans and new readers. I have a novel I'm writing on the side and am as confident in my prose as I am in my worldbuilding.
If you would like a sneak peek, you can follow along with a short story I'm writing for Tyrdal's Longest Journey Challenge, beginning with the first chapter A Faraway Inn in a Faraway City on a Faraway Plane.

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Journey with Me!

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If you're not already following Waking Materia and would like to, just click here!

The Pledge

Though I have achieved 25,000 words in previous years, school and volunteering weigh heavily this year. I take promises seriously and will therefore only pledge 10,000 words this year, though my hope is still to achieve 25k if possible as I know it's within my ability. I hope you enjoy every word of it and I look forward to taking this journey together with you!
Warmest regards and happy writing,

Alan

Week 2

Week 2 has some good advice, but nothing too actionable for me at the moment.

Home Page

Barring any substantial changes to my world's CSS, I feel content with where my homepage is at at the moment. The only major addition will be a map for my 4th and final quadrant of Waking Materia, which I'll be completing for Tillerz's upcoming map event. That said, if you have any suggestions, I welcome them!

Primer

Same deal with my primer. It definitely bears some cleaning up in the future, but that's low on the priority list for me at the moment while November keeps me busy with school. As it's laid out now, you should get a good idea of the setting and its major workings in no time flat, with plenty of extra stuff to chew on as well. And as always, suggestions are welcome.

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Community Tools

I'll have to think about this one. I already put invites to join my world on hub articles like this, and am hesitant to go any further. Nor do I feel I have enough followers to begin subdividing them. Perhaps once I approach the hundred followers mark I'll start thinking about this in more depth. For the time being it doesn't hold any interest for me.

CSS Wizardry

I'm proud of how much CSS I've learned over the last few months, and will continue to grow in this regard. One major project I'm working on at the moment (when I find time anyhow) is to link alternative CSS themes via tags to different aspects of my universe. For the Duskscape and everything therein, I am currently experimenting with a "night" theme. Click the link to check it out! I might also do a separate theme for the Eridún Crux and the wider universe outside Waking Materia.

Week 3

Week 3 seems made for me! I don't have to be told to do any of this stuff, but I'm happy to share it with you.

Reading

I'm a constant bookreader and proud to say that I haven't fallen off that horse as many of my friends & family have. I read on the train to & from school and usually about an hour in bed. I really recommend getting back into books if you've fallen away, it's such an important way to keep in touch with the medium, maintain a deep vocabulary and appreciate just how diverse the genres are (and therefore how valid your own work is).
At this moment I'm rereading my favourite series, Malazan Book of the Fallen. I'm currently on the third book, Memories of Ice. Once that's done, only seven more books to go! I'm clocking about one book a month so I should be done midyear 2025, then I'm not sure where I'll go from there. I really enjoy The Expanse television series and would like to read the books, so maybe that.

Moodboards

I can't stress enough how useful a tool moodboards are for writing. They've been such a font of inspiration for me over the years, second only to, y'know, reading books.
Fans of Waking Materia will already know I have Pinterest links for my major characters and regions. Setting up these moodboards was my first major online project for Waking Materia: before that it was all notes in books. A picture truly does tell a thousand words and you can rapidly get a good idea for a character or region simply by clicking these links in the Description section of a given article.
For the root folder to all my moodboards, as well as a few useful boards for DMs/storytellers like map & generic character repositories, CLICK HERE.

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Writing Playlists

Perhaps my first love -- yes, even above writing -- is music, so you bet I have writing playlists. I listen to a lot of different things -- mainly folk, world roots, early & classical, jazz and smatterings of other genres -- but I'm too ADD to have "active listening" music on when I'm writing. Perhaps my favourite background music is a genre of lo-fi synth called Dungeon Synth. My "greatest hits" playlist for the genre can be found HERE.
Other "passive listening" playlists I'll use are my Jazz list, Early to Classical, Solo Piano, Solo Guitar and Chill.

Closing out Week 3

I hope my musings have provided some food for thought, and I stand by any advice I've given fervently. I'm also more than willing to give further advice and input for those who are struggling with their WorldEmber projects, so please don't hesitate to reach out!
Anyway, that's enough blogging for one day, I had better get back to studying. Best wishes to all my readers!

Week 4

How can it be almost December already?! I feel like it was Day 1 of the school semester last week. Hell, sometimes I'll be drinking my morning coffee and think to myself: "Didn't I just do this?!" Anyway, what do we have for Week 4?

Find a Community

Ironically, I have a writing group out in meatspace that I attend, but alas it hasn't melded well with my school schedule so my friends there haven't seen me much these last three months. That said if you can manage it I highly recommend writing groups. While I love WorldAnvil and this community to death, there truly is no replacement for in-person interaction. The contacts I've made over the years and the things I've learned from them are absolutely invaluable. Plus it's fun to just hang out over beers and discuss favourite inspirations and the like!

Plan your Writing Schedule

This one is invaluable as someone with ADHD: a common symptom of this spectrum is what I call "immunity to time", where days can pass either incredibly quickly or incredibly slowly depending on what sort of hyperactivity is affecting my brain at a given moment. This can mean specific dates/deadlines can come at you in seemingly unpredictable ways. The solution here is to solidify them through scheduling as best you can. At minimum what I'll do is divide the latter half of December by the number of words I intend to write, and make sure I keep pace with each increment.

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Get some Fresh Air!

I tell ya, Janet & Dimi know what they're talking about. I can't tell you where my mental health -- and therefore ability to write -- would be without my morning run. Somewhere entirely different, for sure. I won't preach about all the medical science that has gone into confirming the connection between mental and physical wellness -- y'all can use a search engine -- but I'll confirm I'm a true believer in fresh air and cardiovascular exercise as medicine. Breaking up your day with even a brief walk will help you sleep better and break the chains of dopamine dependence.

Closing Out Week 4

I might be a bit quiet from hereon in as final projects/exams are now closing in. Nonetheless I'm going to try and at least fit something in for Tillerz's Unnoficial Mapvember and CoolG and Imagica's Grand Celebration Event. I invite you to join!
As always I'm so thankful to my fans and the wider community for their support. Let's have the best WorldEmber ever!
Happy writing,

Alan