Worldbuilding

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NaNoWriMo 2009 "Won"

November 29, 2009 in Arnaron, Worldbuilding, Writing | 1 comment

It’s done, one day ahead of schedule – I “won” NaNoWriMo 2009.

NaNoWriMo 2009 Winner

This year, it was particularly hard. Not only do I have a new job which kept me quite occupied, I also did not have any furniture at home, having just moved into a new apartment. Like last year, I encountered mental resistance to the project after some time, and just like last year I asked myself, “why the hell am I doing this?”

I am doing this, of course, to teach myself to be “creative” to a schedule. I did a better job of this than last year. I wrote on fewer days of the month than last year, and got much more done on those days. And while I did not complete the story yet, I am quite close.

What made all the difference is that I followed one of the lessons learned from last year: This time I created an outline ahead of time. Some adjustments were necessary, as I moved the story form one of my worlds to another, but these were relatively minor. I did not complete the story yet, but I am very close; another 2-3 days will get me there so unlike last year, I will get to “The End”. It’s still a crappy story, so unless I edit it into something fairly nice I won’t be posting it. ;)

I am not sure whether I will do NaNoWriMo 2010, but unless some other big project interferes, I probably will. I’ll try to take some days off of work next year, though: If I have an outline and write every day, I should be able to easily complete a story in the 30 days.

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NaNoWriMo 2009

September 14, 2009 in Worldbuilding, Writing | No comments

I will take part in this year’s NaNoWriMo. I have my outline 90% done. What about you?

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Life after People

July 6, 2009 in Inspirations, Video, Worldbuilding | No comments

By random chance I came across Life after People on local TV tonight – the 2h original version, not the series. While it is hardly perfect – Wikipedia lists some criticisms or omissions, and I can come up with several more – it is still an inspirational film and a good idea to watch if you’re into post-apocalyptic fiction / gaming.

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River Challenge Map

March 26, 2009 in Worldbuilding | No comments

This is my entry for the Cartographers’ Guild’s “just for fun” competition for March, the River Challenge:

Cartographer's Guild River Challenge Entry

The basic template of the landmass and some pre-defined lakes and rivers was provided by the guild’s community leaders, and there are various rules on the number of rivers the map needs to include.

I honestly did not enter this one to win – the guild counts far better artists than I am amongst its members – but rather I took the opportunity to try out a “fancy mountain” style. As you can see… it still needs some work. ;-)

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Thraeton and Enderra Map WIPs

February 10, 2009 in Enderra, Thraeton, Worldbuilding | 6 comments

I spent a lot of my spare time working on maps. Here’s what I have to show for my effort.

First off, Thraeton now has mountain ranges. I experimented a little and came up with the following abstract style, which I like a lot.

Thraeton

Detail view:

Thraeton Detail

I am currently working on climate – wind, ocean currents, climate zones.

In between, I revisited that world which started it all, and which gave the name to this website: Enderra. I began by recreating what geography has already been established over the past 17 years. As you can see, this is not the entire planet just yet – the entire “new world” in the west was never mapped out, so it’ll be added later.

Enderra

I also experimented with drawing pretty national borders. These are very rough, and I’ll have to redraw them as the map evolved, but as a stylistic experiment I think it was quite a success:

Enderra National Borders

As always, I work in Inkscape.

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Worldbuilding Links for January, 2009

January 31, 2009 in Ideas, Inspirations, Links, Worldbuilding, Writing | No comments

Here’s an assortment of links you might find useful.

How-To’s

* Map-making tutorial using The Gimp.

Inspiration, Locations

* Photos from Paris Exhibition, 1900. In color.
* Abandoned subway stations in New York City
* The Uros people of the Titicaca lake live on floating islands, which is a cool style of living for a conpeople.

Science Fiction Stuff

* Tests have shown that it is possible to protect long-duration missions from solar wind using a magnetic shield.
* Scientists figured out that Mars’ loss of atmosphere to the pressure from solar wind isn’t a slow, gentle process; instead it is quite violent: Solar Wind Rips Up Martian Atmosphere.

NaNoWriMo 2008 Research

* Wikipedia on radioactive fallout
* Wikipedia on fallout shelters and blast shelters
* Mount Weather government bunker
* Gas masks vs bad smells: Gas masks do not filter out odors, unless they are designed for the job, but vick vapor rub is a work-around used by law enforcement and emergency workers.
* Geiger counters
* Compound bows – bow hunting is done in the US

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CD Cover Game #7: Eryx Elegans

January 9, 2009 in Art, Terra, Worldbuilding | No comments

Here’s another attempt at the CD cover game:

Eryx Elegans, 'Run Away From Life'

I actually edited the photo in question this time; if you look at the original you will see a woman in the photo which really distracted from the composition:

Original Photo

Original Photo

Yes – it is quite easy to see the photo was edited, but after all this is not an exercise in forging photographic evidence :-)

To critique my own work, the speech bubble is probably a little too dominant and the “band name” logo colors might not mesh perfectly with the rest of the image.

Original photo: Feliz 2009, by murilocardoso. Licensed cc-by-nc-sa.

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My next project…

December 1, 2008 in Arnaron, Worldbuilding | 3 comments

NaNoWriMo is over, I won, and I am in the process of completing my novel. I decided on a project to tackle next. I could just start something completely new, but I do not want to start yet another project that never gets done. So I looked at my large collection of worlds and picked one that is dear to my heart.

Arnâron.

As you may remember, Arnâron is my version of Barsoom. I began to work on Arnâron in its current form as my project for World Building Month, back in August. (Has it only been three months? Amazing how time flies.)

When I last visited Arnâron, I was writing random articles and working on a con language. I still have a to do list with many open items. Let me re-list it here, with current status:

* Language. I made some progress, but a lot of work remains to be done.
* Religion. I have not worked on this aspect.
* Nations: Still in the same state as in August.
* Money and trade: I have posted one article on natural resources, more needs to be written.
* Cities of Arnâron. No update.
* Ruins and relics: I wrote about the ruins and the past, I think this is a solid basis to work from.
* Astrology and zodiacs: I haven’t created these at all.
* Heroes and villains: Still needs to be written.
* Prizes and princesses: Ditto.
* The hordes: Ditto, again.

Now, a lot of this is fundamental work that could simply keep me busy for years. I’d like to define some sort of goal, something that is reachable. (NaNoWriMo taught me the importance of that.)

There is one event, or story-arc, that I planned for the world, somewhat related to the basic John Carter story A Princess of Mars. I will use this event to write a series of stories, and will create all the supporting material I need for this story. I will try to write one “chapter” every month in 2009 (and into 2010 if the series does not get done in 12 months).

I have a month for outlining and for completing my NaNoWriMo novel. Let’s see how this goes.

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Arnâron Language Sample

November 30, 2008 in Arnaron, Worldbuilding | No comments

The vocabulary of my language now consists of 107 words. I have begun to create a sample translation of the story of babel.

“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.”

X-Sampa:
dov\a Ruj wo RondoR ad mes ki yJana ut kuv\a Ruj wo peguR.

Roman: Dowa ruy wo rondor ad mes ki ûnyana ut kuwa ruy wo pegur.

Literal translation:
now everything abstract-ideas-measure-word world past-have one speech and same everything abstract-ideas-measure-word word.

Script:

Script Sample

(The line break in the script sample is after the word “ki”.)

If you think writing fifty thousand words in thirty days is hard, I dare you to create a language.

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CD Cover Game #6: Kryoneri

November 10, 2008 in Art, Worldbuilding | No comments

I needed another music group to refer to in my NaNoWriMo novel. It had to be something beachy, and hence, Kryoneri was born.

Kryoneri, 'Pleased with Themselves'

I cheated on the CD Cover game, and used one of my own photos. Searching flickr for a cc-licensed photo simply seemed like a waste of my time when I had a couple of appropriate photos sitting around. The one I used was taken on Bali.

Here’s the – admittedly fairly random – track list for the album:

  1. Legends of Bora Bora
  2. California Beach Queen
  3. Sand and Sun
  4. Memories of Coral Reef
  5. Sailing through Paradise
  6. Spanish Main
  7. Land of a Million Islands
  8. Surfing the Waves
  9. Torchlight Tranquility
  10. Bali Sunset
  11. Moon over Waikiki

Update: Version 2 of the cover.

Kryoneri, 'Pleased with Themselves' - Version 2

I like this 2nd one better, I think.

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