Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society. . . WelcomeToWriteblr calls this event the Summerween Sleepaway Camp Crawl!
Over the course of 19 DAYS, participants will be tasked with completing 19 CHALLENGES, by the end of which they'll have added a minimum of 5K WORDS to their chosen WIP!
THE SERVER
You MUST be a member of the server to participate. You must also give yourself roles from the role menu when you join. We only require AGE and PRONOUNS. If you need any help, feel free to ping the mods!
Please try and join before JULY 13TH. Anyone who joins a week late (JULY 20TH) will not be accepted into the event.
HOW IT WORKS
The leaderboard will be based upon the PERCENTAGE of how close you get to your word goal. Anyone who reaches their goal before the end of the month will be asked to increase it to make the crawl more fair for slower writers.
The TOP 3 participants with the highest completed word goal, and who have completed the 19 BONUS CHALLNGES, will receive a prize of their choosing—whether it be a playlist, moodboard, banner, or graphics!
Additional information is contained within the spreadsheet accessible within the server’s designated event channels.
Discussions the other day got me thinking about how to throw together a kind of productivity tracker/word tracker that was themed after Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons.
Seeds, seedlings and harvested crops
I'm still working out how this could be achieved properly. Thinking about how different crops are good for different things in-games; Turnips and Parsnips for example are good starter crops in early phases because they only take 4 days to grow. Pineapples on the other hand, were notoriously expensive to buy, tedious to grow [20 days!] but did yield some reasonable profit rewards. And then you have Sweet Potato, Coffee Bean and several flavours of Berry crops. The monster profit makers that regrow crops every few days.
PARSNIP MODE - good for short projects, or breaking bigger projects down into easier tasks? (example would be Parsnip "tasks" get 4 days, or have to be done 4 times to 'harvest' the Parsnip)
PINEAPPLE MODE - good for longer projects and habits (example would be requiring 20 days of doing the task to get to harvest)
MUTLI-HARVEST MODE - good for repeat projects or prompt-lists possibly? Something where you finish things frequently, especially if there's a lot of setup work done before the first 'harvest' (example would be like Coffee Beans taking 10 days to get to harvest - 10 days to lay out the ground work - and then harvest every 2 days until the end of Summer.)
I'm still tossing up with how to determine things like "difficulty" or "what constitutes as watering". It could really be something as simple as "touch the project" and then be a honor system. Or look at something like the crop ranking system, and have different difficulties like "regular", "silver", "gold" and "iridium". Like taking Stardew Valley Corn as an example, you could run with regular "50g" as a time unit [50 minutes a day = watering] or another metric [e.g. 50 words, or 50x10 would make it 500 words]. Pumping that up to gold would make it 75g, or 75 minutes or 75/750/7500 words depending on your multiplier of choice. Obviously some of those difficulties might be OTT, so adjust accordingly?
Community Garden - Multiplayer Mode
You could easily have a multiplayer mode like a "Community Garden", where everyone has their own patch and can grow whatever plants they want correlating with their own goals, and depending on the community event like if it's for writing you could have fun with "Harvest Festival" inspired pot luck where everyone brings something to put in a story, or everyone brings a snippet of their work to share (esp since those usually are held towards the end of the season in-game anyway)
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Anyway yeah so just. Trying to get some thoughts out onto paper about this 'cause it's been percolating around in my noggin' all week.
Posting again the word crawl I made. It’s long, so it’s best to break it up into bits.
Howl’s Moving Castle word crawl! Follows the plot of the book by Diana Wynne Jones.
In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it absolutely sucks to be the eldest of three. Based on your writing speed, pick where in the birth order you line up.
Youngest: Slower
Middle: Medium
Eldest: Faster
Your stepmother decides that the only way to keep the family millinery open is to send you and your sisters off to apprentice somewhere profitable. You get stuck in the hat shop. Even though they’re not satisfied with their assignments, your sisters, at least, get to leave the house. Sprint for ten minutes, because your life surely isn’t going anywhere.
If you reached the word count below, you overhear about the mysterious Wizard Howl and how he kidnaps beautiful girls to eat their hearts, and that will never hold significance for you. If you don’t reach it, sprint for seven minutes while your stepmother teaches you how to sell a hat to a customer.
Youngest: 375 words
Middle: 685 words
Eldest: 950 words
Making hats is boring. You talk to them as if they were people, because yeah, like you’re going to step outside.
• If you chose the hat that was all veiling with hidden twinkles, you have a mysterious allure. Write 550 words.
• If you chose the creamy hat with roses under the brim, you have to marry into money. Write 700 words.
• If you chose the mushroom pleated bonnet, you have a heart of gold, and someone in a high position will fall in love with you. Write 1000 words.
You’re a little depressed that none of them look nice on you. On May Day, you decide to go see your sister Lettie, who was sent to apprentice at a local bakery. You’re scared stiff. You run into a pretentious blond, and you dash into the crowded bakery. Write to the next multiple of 300 while you push your way to the front counter.
Lettie pulls you aside to tell you that she’s not Lettie. Using magic to disguise themselves, she and your sister Martha swopped places of apprenticeship. Sprint for 15 minutes while you jump to conclusions.
If you reach the word count, you take Martha’s advice to stand up for yourself when you get home. If you fail, you stumble around your words in a pathetic way. Type for five minutes with your eyes closed.
Youngest: 580
Middle: 880
Eldest: 1250
A glamourous woman walks into your shop. Her tastes are too highfalutin for your shop. You’re tacky, and she hates you.
• If you are the youngest or middle child, you try to sell her the mushroom hat. Allow your writing to suck for a solid 25 minutes.
• If you are the eldest child, you sass her despite her henchman’s nervous gesturing behind her back. You done screwed up, son. Write 2500 in 30 minutes.
Oh, mother—that was the Witch of the Waste, the most diabolical mind this side of paradise, and she’s cursed you with old age. You now have the body of a 90-year-old, and you can’t let your family know about this. Your joints may ache, but you’ve got to go out into the world to make your fortune. Man, these hills are unforgiving. Write for a leisurely 35 minutes as you slowly head out into the waste.
If you reach the word count, you happen upon Howl’s castle. If you don’t you write 300 words while you wander about in the mist.
Youngest: 750
Middle: 999
Eldest: 1300
You barge into the moving castle, which is a bit of a dump, and Howl is out. Instead, you meet his apprentice, Michael. You also meet a fire demon, Calcifer, who can tell that you’re under a spell. He convinces you to break his contract with Howl in exchange for breaking your curse. For some reason, Calcifer tells you that Howl is quite heartless. You didn’t need to be told; have you seen the inside of this castle? It’s filthy. Clearly someone who treats a castle like this would be heartless. Anyway. Do a three digit challenge while Michael tries to get you to leave.
In the morning, you bully Calcifer into bending down his head for you so that you can cook breakfast. No one but Howl is supposed to be able to do that. You’re distracted by the bacon, so you don’t notice Howl come in until it’s too late—and oh no he’s hot. You say Calcifer hired you as the cleaning lady. Write for 10 minutes while Howl moans about how much he loves the filth.
You’re determined to be the very best cleaning lady, like no one ever was, but you get distracted by his magical door.
• Porthaven Door: The king sends his thanks for the seven league boots. Write seven times the last two digits of your word count.
• Kingbury Door: A girl shows up for the safety spell for her dad’s boat. Write for 15 minutes using precise phrasing, because you’re going to spread rumours about being a witch if you don’t stop saying the wrong things.
• Market Chipping Door: Your stepmother can’t know you’re here. Write 849 words, which is how many times in the past month she’s ignored your opinion.
• What the Frick Frackle’s Behind That Door, Howl?: Death. Death and destruction. Death, destruction, and Secret Wales. Write to the next multiple of 3000.
Howl doesn’t want you to clean anything. The filth is his friend. He loves the spiders. You think he’s a sick jerk. Sprint to 350.
The girl who bought the mushroom hat has run off with a count—like you with your word count. Write for 20 minutes without using be verbs. If you chose the mushroom hat earlier, you may skip this step.
Calcifer and Michael tell you about Howl’s romantic exploits. He’ll start courting a girl, and then he’ll get bored with her as soon as she returns his affections. Calcifer then goes into Howl’s beauty routine, and he uses more products on his face than you do. Howl rushes downstairs from the bathroom and yells at you for organising his bathroom supplies, because now his hair is ginger. He calls upon the spirits of darkness. Sprint for 15 minutes while you try to fix this.
When Howl is in his right mind, he tells you that he’s in love with Lettie, who is, as you found out earlier, actually Martha. Not your sister, dang it! Plus, there’s this mad scarecrow following the castle. What luck. Take a leisurely twenty minutes as you make a plan.
But Howl isn’t in love with Martha, it turns out. Michael shows up with a cake from the bakery and says that he’s in love with Lettie. Lettie from the cake shop. You’re so confused. Huh. Howl tells you that he’s weaselled out of finding the lost prince over a piece of cake. You decide to go visit the real Lettie at her magic apprenticeship, and you steal some seven league boots. Write 475 words.
The real Lettie knows that Howl is courting her, and she’s knows exactly what she’s doing. Oops. You go home to help Michael with a spell that is suspiciously like John Donne’s “Song”. Howl is pissed at you for trying to catch a fallen star, just as the poem says. Sprint to 500.
Howl takes you to through the fourth door to Secret Wales. His family is rotten, but he loves them. You track down Miss Angorian, who tells you another part of “Song”. She makes you feel uneasy, especially when she talks about her missing fiancé, Ben Sullivan. 10 minute word war!
Howl wants to avoid responsibility, so he sends you to blacken his name. You go to an old teacher and the King of Ingary. Write for an hour.
If you hit the word count, you successfully make Howl seem like a terribly lazy and irresponsible person, which he is. If you don’t, you run into the Witch of the Waste and have to double back. Write until you’ve doubled what you wrote in the hour.
Youngest: 1000
Middle: 3000
Eldest: 5000
After a brawl in town. The Witch of the Waste has caught up with Howl. He hurriedly forces Calcifer to move the castle, and the red setter that you’ve picked up does not like the magic. Calcifer is rooted in this rock-like object when Howl moves him, and moving the castle means more doors!
• Market Chipping Door: You’re back in your childhood home. Write a scene that is inspired by something in your childhood, because write what you know, you know?
• The Mansion: Weed killer time! Delete that fluff you wrote out of desperation.
• Meadow on the Edge of the Waste: Look at all these flowers, man. So pretty. Put a bouquet of flowers into your next scene.
• Secret Wales Door: Howl plays rugby? Oh, er. Okay. Write for six minutes about something about which you know nothing.
Howl starts courting Miss Angorian to avoid looking for the lost prince, and you figure out that Calcifer was once a falling star that Howl caught. The scarecrow won’t leave you alone, and it creeps you out. Do a three digit challenge.
The red setter you picked up is actually a human under a curse. You call him Percival. Percival says the Witch of the Waste had his head on a shelf for a long time. By all accounts, it makes no sense. And then Howl goes to say that he knew you were cursed all along! What the heck? That jerk. Sprint for 20 minutes while you insult him with everything you’ve got.
Howl goes out drinking with his Rugby team and comes home, as he so eloquently phrases it, “cone sold stober”. The scarecrow catches up with Percival, for whom he has been looking, and says something about missing parts. In his inebriated state, Howl has been tricked by the Witch of the Waste, and she now has Miss Angorian as captive in the Waste. Write 3 percent of your word count.
You go to the Witch’s lair to save Miss Angorian. You dodge some vicious, orange blobs, and the Witch shows you a headless body. She tells you it’s a perfect conglomeration of the bodies of the missing prince and missing Wizard Sullivan. All she needs now is the head of Howl to make the perfect King of Ingary, and the Witch shall be his queen. Do a Fifty Headed Hydra to effectively inform her that she’s mad, which you do by fighting her with a stick.
Holy crap it worked thank God. Howl shows up, and the two of you figure out not only that Percival is made of body parts of the prince and Sullivan (lol I know) but also that Miss Angorian is a demon working for the Witch. You rush back to the castle to find her squeezing Calcifer—attached to Howl’s heart—in her hand. All of the “Song” spell has come true. You have to break the spell to save Howl and Calcifer. Write until you hit the next checkpoint below.
Youngest: the next 2,000 word checkpoint
Middle: the next 5,000 word checkpoint
Eldest: the next 10,000 word checkpoint
You break the spell and put Howl’s heart back in his chest. Calcifer lives. Howl thinks he has a hangover, and by breaking Howl’s spell, you broke your own. You are your proper age. You should have noticed that the prince and the Wizard Sullivan are their normal selves again, but you’re too focused on how in love with Howl you are—that jerk. Write for 5 minutes using only polysyllabic words.
For anyone who uses word crawls for NaNoWriMo (or in general) I decided we needed some Taylor Swift themed ones. I've put them on Notion so that I can make them cute and aesthetic.
Taylor Swift Word Crawl Directory — bookmark this to stay updated for future additions!
Era's Tour Word Crawl — A 2hr 47min pomodoro-style word crawl that takes you through the whole set list to catch up on words. (Note: This one isn’t formatted well for mobile)
1989 (Taylor's Version) Word Crawl — Shuffle the 1989 album and complete a challenge for each song it lands on with optional story prompts.
SO this is kind of like a little interest survey, but if i hosted a word crawl within the next few weeks (probably for about 14 days around the end of this month/beginning of the next), would anyone be interested? if you think you'd be able to do it, please like or reblog this post!
(also i'll probably make it danger days-themed! somehow.)
National Novel Writing Month is upon us, so I thought I’d make an Alpha Centauri themed wordcrawl. Probably quite a difficult wordcrawl, but I haven’t actually tested it. Tasks are to be done in order.
Disaster: A reactor malfunction damages the Unity! Do a five minute word sprint trying to get your bearings and reach one of the landing pods.
Factions: Now comes the time to join a faction. Which one should it be?
Cult of Planet: Technically not around yet, but you've had a premonition about Cha Dawn. Guess a number between one and 10, then generate a random number in that range. Write for a number of minutes equal to the absolute value of difference.
Cybernetic Consciousness: Binary is best! Write for 10 minutes.
Data Angels: How many characters does the password you use most have? Write for 16 – that number minutes, and you can skip this task if your password has at least 16 characters.
Free Drones: There’s work to be done. Write to the nearest thousand words.
Gaia's Stepdaughters: A year on Chiron is about 389 Earth days long, so write that many words.
Human Hive: Do as your told and write 300 words.
Lord's Believers: In most Christian traditions, the New Testament consists of 27 books, so write 270 words.
Morgan Industries: Look up the wealth of the richest person in the world. Sum the digits of their net worth until you reach a number you can handle, then write for that many minutes.
Nautilus Pirates: How many taps do you have in your home? Write for that many minutes.
Peacekeeping Forces: Find a partner and both write for 5 minutes.
Spartan Federation: Word war for 5 minutes.
University of Planet: Open a random wikipedia article. How many letters does the title have? Sum the digits until you reach a reasonable number, then write for that many minutes.
Your Own: Don't like the sound of any of these? Well you can start your own faction with whatever agenda you like, but that's harder than joining an existing one: Write 1000 words.
Alien Skies: Go outside and get a look at the sky, then write 100 words.
Research Priority: How do we want to prioritise our research?
Build: Build a solid foundation of 500 words.
Conquer: Do a 5 minute word war. 100 words or more to win, repeat until you succeed.
Explore: Get up and walk around, then write 200 words.
Discover: What are the first three digits of your wordcount? Write that many words.
First Facility: What should our first facility be?
Network Node: Don’t go online until you have written 200 words.
Recreation Commons: What is your favourite type of recreational activity? Count that word’s letters and write for that many minutes.
Recycling Tanks: What is the last digit of your wordcount? Write for that many minutes. (10 minutes if it’s 0.)
Fungus: The fungus is difficult to travel through, but you'll get there eventually. Write to the nearest 500 words.
New Base: Time to expand. Write the next paragraph.
Secret Project: Which secret project should we concentrate on? Write at least one to progress.
Command Nexus: Know thy enemy, but do not forget to know thyself. How many words do you think you can write in 10 minutes? Then write that many words.
Human Genome Project: Humans typically have 46 chromosomes, so write 460 words.
Weather Paradigm: What's the temperature where you are? Write for as many minutes as the absolute value of the local temperature.
Virtual World: No browsing the internet until you have written 300 words.
Indigenous Life Forms: Your scouts encounter a writhing mass of worms. What should they do?
Study: Hang back and carefully study the mind worms and compose an encounter report. Write 300 words.
Attack: Speed is your ally. Write for 5 minutes. If you write more than 200 words the mind worm boil is vanquished. Otherwise, write another 200 words as another expedition tries to piece together what happened.
Befriend: Careful does it. Write for 10 minutes.
Social Engineering: Now it's time to decide on the political system of our new society.
Frontier: A frontier society has no time for complex political structures. Simply write 100 words.
Democratic: If you are in the Data Angels or Peacekeeping Forces, you must choose this. Write to the nearest 1000 words.
Police State: If you are in the Human Hive, you must choose this. Do as you are told and write 500 words.
Fundamentalist: If you are in the Lord's Believers, you must choose this. If you are in the Cybernetic Consciousness or the University of Planet, you may not choose this. Write for ten minutes.
Planet Dreams: The planetary consciousness seems to be contacting you while you are asleep. How many hours did you sleep last night? Write for that many minutes.
Alien Discovery: It’s clear you aren’t the first sentient beings to live on this planet.
Monolith: The monolith provides a boost to morale. Write for 5 minutes.
Alien Artefact: The alien artefact unlocks a new technology. Write the next paragraph.
Vendetta: Find someone to do a 5 minute word war with. If you write fewer words than them, write another 100 words as you lick your wounds.
Brood Trainer: Your most promising young talent has the potential to command mind worms. But that is a terribly dangerous endeavour. What do you do?
You forbid an attempted contact. She has a long and distinguished career in something totally different, but your faction never gains access to Planet’s indigenous life as weapons of war. Skip this task.
You order the attempted contact. Write for 10 minutes. Her fate depends on the number of words you write.
Less than 200: She dies horribly during the attempted bonding process.
200-500: The contact with the mind worms is successful, but she later falls in battle. Fuelled by desire for revenge, if you lose a vendetta, you have to write 100 words fewer to rebuild.
More than 500: The contact with the mind worm boil is successful and your faction has gained a powerful handler for Planet’s wildlife. During indigenous life forms tasks, you either have to write 250 words or 10 minutes fewer.
Social Engineering: Now it's time to pick our economic system.
Simple: Every complex economic system has its disadvantages. Simply write 100 words.
Free Market: If you are in Morgan Industries, you must choose this option. Look up how many billions the world’s wealthiest company is worth, then write that many words.
Green: If you are in Gaia's Stepdaughters or the Cult of Planet, you must choose this. If you are in the Free Drones, you may not choose this. A year on Chiron is 532 local days long, so write that many words.
Planned: Fulfil your quota and write to the nearest 1000 words.
Indigenous Lifeforms: A wave of mind worms is attacking! To battle them off write
250 words if you picked Green economics.
750 words if you picked Free Market economics.
500 words if you picked Simple or Planned.
Social Engineering: Now it's time to pick our fundamental values.
Survival: You're to busy trying to survive to write treatises. Simply write 100 words.
Knowledge: If you are in the University of Planet, you must choose this. If you are in the Lord's Believers, you may not choose this. How many years of schooling have you done? Write for that many minutes.
Power: If you are in the Spartan Federation or the Nautilus Pirates, you must choose this. If you are in the Data Angels you may not choose this. Choose one type of exercise like sit ups, push ups, or squats. How many can you do in five minutes? Write that many words times 50.
Wealth: If you are in the Cult of Planet, you may not choose this option. Time is money, so write for 10 minutes.
Vendetta: As humanity expands on Planet, the vendettas are getting more vicious. Find someone to word war with for 15 minutes. If you lose, you have to write another 250 words to rebuild.
Planetary Council: Everyone gets to be heard and compromises made. Ask three people for a number and sum their digits up until you have reasonable number. Write for that many minutes.
Secret Project: Complete at least one of these to contine.
Empath Guild: Ask someone to think of a number between one and twenty. Guess that number, and write for as many minutes as the absolute value of the difference between your guess and their choice.
Planetary Datalinks: Do not go online until you have written 450 words.
The Supercollider: God might not play dice, but you do. Throw three six-sided dice, add the results and write for that many minutes.
Air Power: Air Power rests at the apex of the first triad of victory, for it combines Mobility, Flexibility, and Initiative. Get 5 minutes of exercise, then write for another five.
Centauri Preserve: No need to write anything for this one, but if you're here, you've already put quite some effort into this. So make sure that your work is sufficiently backed up, if you haven't already!
Planet Dreams: Planet is growing steadily more aware and sophisticated. It is even composing poetry. Find a poem you like: How many stanzas does it have? Write for that many minutes.
Vendetta: The War to End All Wars! For Real This Time! Find someone to word war with for half an hour. If you lose, you have to write another 500 words to survive the devastation.
Indigenous Life Forms: Compared to what is happening with Planet, the threat from the other factions doesn’t seem so important. Write more words than you did during the last vendetta.
Social Engineering: Now it is time to choose the ultimate direction of our future society:
None: It might be the future now, or soon at any rate, but you don't have time for this. Skip this section.
Cybernetic: If you are in the Cybernetic Consciousness, you must choose this. Round numbers are good, write to the nearest 1024 words.
Eudaimonic: If you are in the Free Drones, you must choose this. An excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. Write for 15 minutes.
Thought Control: Do as you are told and write 800 words.
Secret Project:
Bulk Matter Transmitter: Matter comes in, matter comes out. Write 750 words.
Clinical Immortality: How old are you in years? Write for that many minutes.
The Nano Factory: Nanomachines are small and convert existing matter. Look at your wordcount, what are the last three digits? Write that many words.
Indigenous Life Forms: Swarms of Locus of Chiron darken the skies, demon boils pour forth from the fungus and vast Islands of the Deep erupt from the waves. Write for an hour as you try to survive.
Voice of Planet: Thousands of years of civilization compressed into a single searing burst of revelation, but it will suffice to write 1000 words.
Ascent to Transcendence: Finish the chapter you are working on.
