IT’S 100 DAYS UNTIL WORLDEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!
A blog post clearly written by TJ.
With one hundred days to go until my favourite writing challenge of all time, it’s time to ignite my creative passion and light up the forge ready for some worldbuilding!
NGL this post is literally so I can vent my excitement somewhere so that Dimitris has some peace and quiet. I’ll be covering three rambling topics:
- A TL;DR of what WorldEmber is
- Why it’s the coolest (hottest?) thing ever
- Why on earth I’m prepping so early
Ready? Me neither, let’s do this.
What’s this whole WorldEmber thing anyway?
WorldEmber is a worldbuilding challenge that starts on the 1st December every year and ends on December 31st (get it? Worldbuilding December) on World Anvil.
The aim of the game is to expand your world by at least 10,000 words! There are lots of bonus challenges that vary each year, but anyone who completes 10k gets a shiny badge on their World Anvil profile AND gets in on the most ridiculous prize draw you’ve ever seen.
Unlike Summer Camp (which runs in July), WorldEmber has no prompts to complete, so it’s an open brief! You’ve got free reign to write as much as you can!
Why it’s the hottest event of the year
It’s a really fun event and you can go at your own pace. Some folks like to get competitive and do sprints with each other, some like to aim for the highest wordcount possible, and others prefer to take their time and really polish every article they create!
It’s super inspiring to be a part of as the entire community is aflame with creativity and worldbuilding passion!
More about those prizes though yeah? Just for completing 10k words you get in on the chance of winning World Anvil guild memberships, shiny dice sets, books, TTRPGs, modules, candles, dice trays, writing tools, notebooks, merch, vouchers and SO MUCH STUFF – last year the prize pool valued a total of over $1000 and this year its expected to be even higher.
If that doesn’t inspire you to make a free account and get worldbuilding then I don’t know what will tbh.
Prep Goals
- tidy up old articles
- put them in tidy categories
- fill out existing stub articles
- add pins to interactive map
- shove things in a timeline as well
- add ideas to my notebook & to do list on World Anvil
TJ Why.
Why do you prep so early?
I just can’t help it okay?
I do this every year. I take part in Summer Camp, I enter all of the smaller monthly challenges run by World Anvil, I get a bunch of ideas, and then my world becomes a tangled mess.
The reason I love to prep early is because much like cleaning IRL, digital cleaning is really theraputic for me. In these 100 days leading up to WorldEmber I like to sit down, assess my world and be a bit ruthless in pruning out what doesn’t really need to be there.
Articles get tidied into their correct categories, I can find every instance of a word that needs renaming using the new Explorer feature, and my metaphorical toolbox is sorted and ready to take on the challenge.
More details coming soon!
As we get closer to December we will polish up the official competition page where you’ll be able to find all the latest info for this year’s challenge!
Meanwhile – why not check out my guide on How to start a new world so you can get ready and have fun!
OMG! Another challenge! Thanks for the heads up and for these clear and concise explanations, TJ!
Buddy, I’m going to be cooling down from the 50,000-word NaNoWriMo event. Your challenge of 10,000 words is a pittance. BRING IT.
oh … but the 10,000 is the lowest possible to get the badge .. last year we had people with 400,000 words 😀
400,000? That’s 4 novels! Incredible feat really.
I am SO looking forward to this—as I believe this is more of my kind of challenge.
Just open up and let me write for my own world, as I need to?
…wooHOO.
Not sure what word count milestone I’ll hit, but 10,000? Bah.
I’m pretty sure I hit one of the top 10 highest word counts for Summer Camp this year, and that was being stressed and focused on prompts!
Gonna be so much funnnnnn!!!
Technically it makes me want to hold on to my ideas until December.
If I didn’t have school…