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I repeated the Storytelling prompt from yesterday, because it gives me the most freedom to just ramble about worldbuilding.

First, I told the story of how the world of Shadowstruck came to treat shades as non-persons.

Then, for Movie Night, I wrote down some worldbuilding ideas for heartlight and shade culture while listening to the soundtrack for The Wild Robot.

Camp Tolkien: Free Day

Welcome back to Camp Tolkien!

Our two-week summer camp is a chance for you to work on the project of your choice in the company of other writers. No matter which stage of the process you’re in–brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising–Camp Tolkien’s activities are here to help you make progress. Bring along your projects, and have fun!

At Camp Tolkien, Saturday is Free Day! Today, we bring back all the activities from the past week, and you can join in whichever one you wish. This is your opportunity to try an activity that you didn't have a chance to try earlier in the week, try an activity from a day you missed, or to repeat a favorite activity. Try one or try them all--it's your free day, so do what you like.

The activities will be listed under the cut. They will be listed in the same order they were provided during the week.

When you’re finished, reblog or reply to this post, telling us how it went, and/or sharing what you wrote for the day.

Have fun, go forth, and create!

Monday

Icebreakers: Tell the other campers about the project you’ve brought to camp by writing a one-paragraph summary.

Photography: Find or create at least five reference pictures that visualize settings and/or characters in your project.

Archery: Set a timer for two minutes. Write as many words as you can in that time. Repeat this four more times, for a total of five mini writing sessions. Keep track of your word count for each, and let us know your high score.

Nature Walk: Work on your project while you’re outdoors.

Tuesday

Orienteering: Draw a map of a location in your project–a building, a neighborhood, a town, a world, whatever you wish. Note that does not have to be an accurate map–it could be a certain character’s perception of their surroundings, it could be biased, it could be more about artistry than facts, it could just be a napkin scribble if you want.

Painting: Write a detailed description of at least one character in your project.

Scavenger hunt: Incorporate the following five words in whatever you write for your project: friend, tree, march, red, finish. Alternately, find as many of those words as you can in what you already have written for your project, and share each sentence.

Rock climbing: Set a timer for thirty minutes and try to finish as much of a draft of a scene as you can in that time.

Wednesday

Alphabet Game: Make a list of twenty-six things that could happen in your story–each one starting with a different letter of the alphabet.

Dioramas: Write a detailed description of one room in one setting in your project.

Hiking: Go on a walk outside and use something about the experience (a sensory detail, something you saw) as inspiration for your project.

Zipline: Write as fast as you can for ten minutes. You are not allowed to backspace, cross out, or delete anything during that time.

Thursday

Friendship Bracelets: Tell us about two characters who are currently friends, or talk about a childhood/former friend of one of your characters.

Skits: Write a short dialogue scene in script format.

Relay Race: Start a stopwatch. Write 100 words. See how long it took you. Set a timer for the same amount of time, then see how many words you can write in that time.

Tumbling: Switch up the format of how you work on your project. If you usually type, write by hand (or vice versa). If you must type, type in a different program, or use a different-colored font.

Friday

Woodcarving: Take a previously-written portion of your project and try to reduce its wordcount by 25%.

S'mores: Set a timer for five minutes and write as many words as you can. Then do a ten-minute writing session. Then a fifteen-minute one. Then treat yourself to a snack.

Storytelling: Tell us about a story from within the world of your project. It could be a folktale, a bit of history, family lore, something from a character's backstory, whatever you like.

Movie Night: Listen to a favorite movie soundtrack while you work on your project.

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Worldbuilding possibilities about heartlight and shade culture

Being segregated from normal society means that shades develop their own subculture. Somewhat like Deaf culture, using their unique way of experiencing the world to build their own traditions.

Shades make some really cool lanterns. (Handheld lights aren't necessary for people with heartlights, obviously). They've also got a robust storytelling culture that makes use of elaborate shadow puppets. (Heartlight people find this creepy, since shadows are seen as dark, inhuman things.)

In the shade-respecting cultures, one of them is going to be responsible for inventing lightbulbs and flashlights. (And the anti-shade cultures are suddenly going to find themselves technologically left in the dust).

Heartlights respond very easily to emotion, meaning that most people are walking mood rings. Since heartlights are such obvious emotional indicators, most people are much less aware of other non-verbal signs of emotions, so to them, shades seem all but unreadable. Uncannily emotion-free. Stoic people are often called "inscrutable as a shade."

Conversely, shades can very easily read people with heartlights. Even when people think they're tightly controlling their emotional expression, shades can somehow always read them. This adds to the perception that they're uncanny inhuman monsters.

Since you see the world through a cloud of colored heartlight, the world is going to look slightly different to you than it does to people with different-colored heartlights. There are proverbial statements about agreeing to disagree that are phrased like "well, through your heartlight, I'm sure it looks that way."

People's eyes do adjust to their heartlight, though.

Clara doesn't have her own heartlight, which means that having and losing her mother's heartlight will affect her vision. I'm not sure if her mother's heartlight means she has to wear spectacles (since her eyes aren't adapted to see through heartlight), which she no longer needs after her mother's death, or if her eyes adapt to the yellow heartlight, so she suddenly needs spectacles after her mother's death.

I don't know how literally to take the Christ-figure in this world, but if he is just Jesus-but-with-a-heartlight, then he's one of those people whose heartlight can shift color as well as shade and brightness. Different people tended to see his heartlight as different colors, based on their perspective. This also added to the controversy surrounding him. Was he a genius? Was he a madman? Only after the Resurrection would it be clearly seen that he's the only human with a pure white heartlight.

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In the original concept for the Shadowstruck universe, the attitude toward heartlight was simple: It was believed to be an outward sign that something had a soul, and the story would involve scientists trying to show that heartlight has a physical cause unrelated to the soul. But this suggests that there is no religious truth in this world, as if all religion is wrong and science is the only source of truth. It certainly doesn't line up with how similar issues are approached in our world. It's much more realistic for science and faith to both be sources of truth, and for the errors to be caused by the misinterpretation or the twisting of science and religion.

But this requires a much more complicated history. How do we explain a world where shades weren't and aren't always seen as non-persons, but are in some places treated as slaves and non-persons by people who consider themselves enlightened intellectuals?

Since this story is focused on Western society, I'd say the best way is to roughly parallel Western European history.

In an ancient pagan era, shades were largely considered non-persons--usually killed at birth (sometimes sacrificed), sometimes enslaved, sometimes shunned like lepers. (It's possible some cultures attached some sort of mystic importance to them--thinking of them as oracles or somehow touched by the gods).

Christianity comes along (it won't be named as such, but it'll be pretty obvious what it's supposed to be) and says that of course shades are people, we're all made in God's likeness, salvation is for everyone. They could still be considered a burden or hold lesser status in practice, but over time, they became largely accepted as valuable members of the community.

Shades are relatively rare--similar rates of occurrence as certain birth defects. Notable when they show up, most people know at least a few, but they're not a huge population, so it isn't like they're a huge concern.

Then some kind of Black Plague occurs, and shades, for some reason, are much more resistant to it than the rest of the population. Suddenly, shades are a much larger percentage of the population than ever before, and as society rebuilds, this begins to frighten some people.

Some people begin to interpret religious scriptures in ways that conveniently suggest shades are a lesser class or not people at all. Verses talking about things like "God giving his light to mankind" are reinterpreted to be about heartlight--clearly those who don't have light aren't part of mankind.

There are lots of similar twistings. Heartlight is a sign of election. A shadow is a sign of inner darkness. Shades were put on earth to serve people. Their proliferation is God's punishment on mankind. The most extreme interpretations suggest that shades are fiends in human form, come to prey on souls.

You might think that the accompanying rise of skeptical rationalism would counteract these religious lies by holding to objective truth. Well, you'd be wrong!

Philosophy begins to question the notion of "all humans being equal" as absurd and not based on actual fact. Some suggest that society is a war, a survival of the fittest, and that shades, who require extra care and can so easily be dominated, have a naturally lower place in the social order.

When microscopes show obvious differences in the blood cells of shades, anti-shade groups feel vindicated--clearly shades aren't human at all, but something else.

The discovery of genetic inheritance add more layers of anti-shade rhetoric. Shades are naturally lower, a weakness in the gene pool, and they should be weeded out or eliminated.

Obsession with noble/royal bloodlines dovetails nicely with these new genetic considerations. Bloodlines without shades are clearly stronger and purer than those with shades. The birth of a shade can taint an entire family line, so such births are hidden as quickly as possible, whether by killing the child or sending it away.

Over the centuries, shades become second-class citizens, then non-citizens. Early on, they were the subject of witch-hunts, until some places subdued them into a labor force. Intermarriage with a shade is seen as basically bestiality.

Shades become a vital underlayer to this modern society. They're a convenient labor force. They're great subjects for medical testing. If you object to their treatment, you're clearly delusional--how could society go on any other way? Do you want us to go back to the Dark Ages?

Some cultures still hold onto the traditional ideals of shades as people, but these nations have their own problems, which their opponents use to paint them as backward and barbaric, clearly out of step with modern times.

I find it darkly amusing that the social upheaval that led to people with heartlight elevating themselves above shades could be called the Enlightenment.

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I think the danger point is when I've developed enough of the story so it feels like the background is colored in. I've got a main character with a sizable supporting cast who all have personalities and backstories. I have a fairly detailed picture of what needs to happen in the first act, and knowledge of the general trajectory the story needs to take. It feels like a complete-enough story that my brain goes, "The puzzle is solved to our satisfaction."

But it's not a puzzle. It's a story. I have an opening image drawn, but now I need to set it in motion. If I stay here, things can stay in a Schrodinger's Cat phase where I know the feeling of what could happen, but I don't have to define what actually does happen. It's a nice place to be in. I can feel smart for coming up with this much, but don't have to risk feeling stupid by failing to bring this to a sensible conclusion.

It's hard to move forward. I have to figure out how things make sense in a character and logistics way, and they don't always. (How does Brightley's side even know about Clara? Why would she be willing to help them? How does she get out of the house? How/when is her family interacting with her later on?) Figuring out how they do make sense is the story, but showing development requires a lot more finesse than just setting up the pieces. If I can find the motivation to do that, we're gold. I've just got to figure out how to move past that threshold.

Me: Wow, Shadowstruck development is really coming along. It's starting to feel like a real book. Maybe even a novel. A grown-up novel with important themes that feels like an original work rather than a half-baked YA-flavored derivative fanfic. Maybe I can be a Real Writer!

Realistic voice in my head: It hasn't been a week yet, don't get too excited. You always lose interest after a week.

Me, after one week passes: Well, would you look at that? All that inspiration just packed up and left town. It's a ghost town in here.

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Me: Wow, Shadowstruck development is really coming along. It's starting to feel like a real book. Maybe even a novel. A grown-up novel with important themes that feels like an original work rather than a half-baked YA-flavored derivative fanfic. Maybe I can be a Real Writer!

Realistic voice in my head: It hasn't been a week yet, don't get too excited. You always lose interest after a week.

Me, after one week passes: Well, would you look at that? All that inspiration just packed up and left town. It's a ghost town in here.

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I write out that whole story of their courtship, and then I think of one I maybe like better?

What if she met him in his home country? She was already there working with the pro-shade movement, helping to save shade babies and get them to Ivaria. A situation came up where she was in danger of being expelled from the country, he suggested a marriage of convenience, and it turned out that she was intelligent and charming and he was blindsided when he actually fell in love.

Not sure that's exactly the way it went, but you know I love a marriage of convenience, and it does seem like a more likely way for him to enter into matrimony.

Henry Brightley is so obviously a man who should be a confirmed bachelor that I'm thinking he has to be married. And there has to be a story there.

Her name's Giovanna. She's from Ivaria, where shades are treated as people, so shades' rights are just common sense to her. She's got olive skin, lots of dark hair, and has a striking beauty of the type that gets better with age. She's a doctor. From a well-to-do family that's big into charitable works. She's probably helped to smuggle shade babies to Ivaria.

She met her husband when he came to Ivaria to study (they're much more normal about heartlight there, which makes it a much better place to study it.) He was in his thirties by this time, total confirmed bachelor. She was only a few years younger, was totally fulfilled in her single life working with her large family in their charitable endeavors. She met him at some social event he was dragged to, where she took one look at this desiccated husk of an academic and went, "That one." She spent time with him, turned out to have experience that was useful in his studies, and as they worked together, he came to genuinely respect her intelligence and compassion. It took him a long time to have even an inkling of her very obvious romantic interest in him, and even longer to realize that he returned it. There wasn't so much a marriage proposal as a mutual recognition of their desire to get married, especially since he was returning to his home country soon. Moving to his barbaric homeland (which needs a name, I should get on that) was a huge struggle for her, but she recognized that she could do a lot of good at his side, and that's proven true, though people in upper-class society tend to side-eye her as a foreign barbarian.

He's an atheist, she's deeply religious. She prays for him, but doesn't push him. Her perspective forces him to admit that religion and intelligence aren't mutually exclusive, and to treat religion with a modicum of respect. She softens some of his rough edges, reminds him to treat people as people, though she is a bit blind to some of his personality flaws. They've been married for like twenty years and people are still astonished when they learn that Henry Brightley is married. I don't know how or why this marriage works, but I somehow know it does.

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I stumbled through trying to figure out the story of the marriage of two side characters in Shadowstruck.

I listened to some pieces from the Pride and Prejudice 2005 soundtrack and the Sense and Sensibility 1995 soundtrack while I did it, but it was more distracting than anything, so I turned it off after a while.

Camp Tolkien: Day 5

Welcome to another day at Camp Tolkien!

Our two-week summer camp is a chance for you to work on the project of your choice in the company of other writers. No matter which stage of the process you’re in–brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising–Camp Tolkien’s activities are here to help you make progress. Bring along your projects, and have fun!

Today’s four activities are listed below. Choose whichever one you wish–choose more than one if you want to.

Woodcarving: Take a previously-written portion of your project and try to reduce its wordcount by 25%.

S'mores: Set a timer for five minutes and write as many words as you can. Then do a ten-minute writing session. Then a fifteen-minute one. Then treat yourself to a snack.

Storytelling: Tell us about a story from within the world of your project. It could be a folktale, a bit of history, family lore, something from a character's backstory, whatever you like.

Movie Night: Listen to a favorite movie soundtrack while you work on your project.

When you’re finished, reblog or reply to this post, telling us how it went, and/or sharing what you wrote for the day.

So glad to have you all at camp! Have fun, go forth, and create!

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Henry Brightley is so obviously a man who should be a confirmed bachelor that I'm thinking he has to be married. And there has to be a story there.

Her name's Giovanna. She's from Ivaria, where shades are treated as people, so shades' rights are just common sense to her. She's got olive skin, lots of dark hair, and has a striking beauty of the type that gets better with age. She's a doctor. From a well-to-do family that's big into charitable works. She's probably helped to smuggle shade babies to Ivaria.

She met her husband when he came to Ivaria to study (they're much more normal about heartlight there, which makes it a much better place to study it.) He was in his thirties by this time, total confirmed bachelor. She was only a few years younger, was totally fulfilled in her single life working with her large family in their charitable endeavors. She met him at some social event he was dragged to, where she took one look at this desiccated husk of an academic and went, "That one." She spent time with him, turned out to have experience that was useful in his studies, and as they worked together, he came to genuinely respect her intelligence and compassion. It took him a long time to have even an inkling of her very obvious romantic interest in him, and even longer to realize that he returned it. There wasn't so much a marriage proposal as a mutual recognition of their desire to get married, especially since he was returning to his home country soon. Moving to his barbaric homeland (which needs a name, I should get on that) was a huge struggle for her, but she recognized that she could do a lot of good at his side, and that's proven true, though people in upper-class society tend to side-eye her as a foreign barbarian.

He's an atheist, she's deeply religious. She prays for him, but doesn't push him. Her perspective forces him to admit that religion and intelligence aren't mutually exclusive, and to treat religion with a modicum of respect. She softens some of his rough edges, reminds him to treat people as people, though she is a bit blind to some of his personality flaws. They've been married for like twenty years and people are still astonished when they learn that Henry Brightley is married. I don't know how or why this marriage works, but I somehow know it does.

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If the first version of Shadowstruck was a Cinderella story (girl cast down from her rightful social position into a place of servitude gets the chance to enter elevated circles and be seen and treated as a human being), the version I'm working on is a Snow White story (girl's life is threatened by a family member and she has to seek refuge among kind strangers).

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And I'm sure a lot of the anger is a desperate cover for the guilt she feels when comparing herself to Elizabeth. You had two mothers who both gave birth to shades. Sarah killed her child. Elizabeth protected and eventually died for the child. If Sarah dares to consider, even for a second, that a shade is a real human person just as worthy of love as any other child, the guilt would break her. I think Clara may have a new worst enemy.

Wait a minute, if Sarah did give birth to a shade that was killed in its first day of life, she is going to be livid if/when she finds out about Clara. Her husband had a shade in the family before they were married. If she'd known, it could have prevented her from making the mistake of marrying in. For years, she's dealt with guilt, thinking she was the reason the child was a shade, because of course the Lynwood blood is so strong and flawless that they could never have a shade in their family tree. And now it turns out it was from his side? She could have known and she didn't? This marriage is in big trouble.

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Wait a minute, if Sarah did give birth to a shade that was killed in its first day of life, she is going to be livid if/when she finds out about Clara. Her husband had a shade in the family before they were married. If she'd known, it could have prevented her from making the mistake of marrying in. For years, she's dealt with guilt, thinking she was the reason the child was a shade, because of course the Lynwood blood is so strong and flawless that they could never have a shade in their family tree. And now it turns out it was from his side? She could have known and she didn't? This marriage is in big trouble.

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For the Friendship Bracelets prompt, I talked about the gooseherd in my Tattercoats retelling, and the activists who are going to befriend Clara in Shadowstruck.

Camp Tolkien: Day 4

Welcome to another day at Camp Tolkien!

Our two-week summer camp is a chance for you to work on the project of your choice in the company of other writers. No matter which stage of the process you’re in–brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising–Camp Tolkien’s activities are here to help you make progress. Bring along your projects, and have fun!

Today’s four activities are listed below. Choose whichever one you wish–choose more than one if you want to.

Friendship Bracelets: Tell us about two characters who are currently friends, or talk about a childhood/former friend of one of your characters.

Skits: Write a short dialogue scene in script format.

Relay Race: Start a stopwatch. Write 100 words. See how long it took you. Set a timer for the same amount of time, then see how many words you can write in that time.

Tumbling: Switch up the format of how you work on your project. If you usually type, write by hand (or vice versa). If you must type, type in a different program, or use a different-colored font.

When you’re finished, reblog or reply to this post, telling us how it went, and/or sharing what you wrote for the day.

So glad to have you all at camp! Have fun, go forth, and create!

[bookshelf-in-progress]

I've spent enough time talking about Clara's anti-shade family, so it's time to sketch out some of the good guys on the shades' rights side.

Henry Brightley: Academic researcher of all things heartlight turned political activist--he tends to do his arguing in long, scathing newspaper essays rather than face-to-face debates. In his late fifties to early sixties. One of the most vocal opponents of Clara's father from his earliest days as a politician. Very dry. Very sarcastic. He's totally committed to shades' rights, but is kind of a jerk about it--he knows he's right and that's all that matters; he's not going to spare anyone's feelings. This includes the shades he works with--he's going to treat them like any other person (not kindly), and he's willing to use them however he thinks necessary to prove his point. He's named after Henry Higgins, so honestly, just picture Rex Harrison surrounded by a pink glow of light and you're 85% of the way there.

Charles: Surname pending. Shades' rights activist in his mid-twenties. Became committed to the cause in his university days and quickly became a prominent member of the movement. (He may have a sister who was a shade). In appearance, he's probably too similar to Phineas, but that may be a reason Clara initially trusts him. Very friendly, easy-going guy, able to keep his cool in just about any situation. Upper middle class, but not very wealthy; dresses extremely neatly and as well as his budget allows. Looks like the most normal, boring, straight-laced, harmless guy imaginable, but secretly has an insane trickster side underneath. Takes advantage of his Resting Idiot Face to take shades out of the country along public routes with no one suspecting a thing--he's got a talent for sharing his heartlight just long enough to get shades past suspicious onlookers.

Harriet: Charles' wife. A year or two older than him. Blonde, pale, quiet, slightly frazzled at the edges. Always seems to be wearing something that's just a bit too worn. Doesn't talk much, but when she does, it's in a very soft, breathy, almost raspy voice. Blue heartlight that's not very strong. Tends to fade into the background, but she's got practical strength and organizational skills that no one suspects that make her valuable to the movement. Is quietly the bedrock of her husband's efforts, able to smoothly handle anything they throw at her. Very kind to Clara, but in an understated background way; probably the person who most clearly remembers that Clara is just a kid and shouldn't be expected to carry adult concerns.

There need to be a lot more people, but they're not clear enough to write descriptions for yet. I'd like to have several shades among them (possibly including Rinna from the original version of this story?), at least one prominent journalist, the guy who's running against Clara's father in the election, and I'm not sure whether to include Brightley's wife from previous drafts.

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For Camp Tolkien's Friendship Bracelets prompt, I'm going to switch gears to my "Tattercoats" retelling and share the piece from the draft that introduces Tattercoats' only friend. (This will be expanded into an actual scene later on, but it works as an introduction for now.)

My only human friend was Gideon, the gooseherd. He was like me—a creature of the land. He seemed to have come with the wind sometime after my fifth birthday. He was like a young tree, slender and long-limbed, like a colt with a head full of shaggy golden hair, peaceful and patient as the stones, playful and changeable as the wind. I recognized him as a fellow creature and followed him to the pasture like one of the goslings. We would spend our days in companionable silence, me chasing after butterflies and wildflowers, he playing soft songs on his pipe. One day, he stopped his song and gazed at me with patient curiosity. “What is your name, little one?” I’d been named after my mother, but no one used it. The servants called me nothing but “pest” and “urchin”, but lately there was one name they had taken to calling me more than any other. “Tattercoats,” I said.

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I gotta say, that whole thing about gender color associations flipping sometime in the past--where pink was considered a masculine color while blue was a feminine color--is making more sense now that I'm working on Shadowstruck, because I'm finding it much easier to picture men with pink heartlights and women with blue ones than I do the other way around.

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Shadowstruck Character Notes: The Lynwood Family

(Note that everything is subject to change)

Jefferson Lynwood: Clara's father. The most vocal and vehement anti-shade senator in the country. Undersized, auburn hair, orange heartlight. Constantly moving, usually talking over everyone. Came from a respected, but not terribly wealthy family. Had to scrape to get into university, where he did well, but got a bit too caught up in academic sociopolitical theories at the time, which led to debates, which led to taking up politics. Has been a powerful voice in government for at least two decades.

Elizabeth Lynwood: Clara's mother. Comes from a well-to-do merchant family, but didn't get much beyond the very basics of a female education. Very sociable person, was the belle of society in her younger years. Had at least six men vying for her hand, but Lynwood's passion and ambition captivated her. Dark hair, yellow heartlight, slightly taller than her husband. Made the ideal political wife--a very good hostess who knew how to keep people mingling without overpowering the room herself. Had to give it all up when she had Clara--blamed it on her health. Is a charming and witty correspondent and keeps in touch with the world by being a prolific letter-writer, though even this dropped off as illness and isolation made her more fretful about Clara.

Miles Lynwood: Clara's eldest brother. Looks like a more elegant version of his father, with his mother's hair and a blue heartlight from somewhere way back in the family tree. The world sees him as his father's heir, and he's dedicated his life to filling that role. Went straight into politics as early as he could, working as a secretary and later a campaign manager for his father. Is much more refined and rather more entitled than his father is. Engaged to Delia, a gorgeous fluffy-headed bauble from an extremely wealthy, prominent family. (She totally drank the anti-shade Kool-Aid, but she has a naturally kind heart that makes it impossible for her, in practice, to treat shades as monsters.)

Samson Lynwood: Clara's middle brother. Hair redder than his father's, and is more energetic and angry than his older brother. Married to Sarah, a girl who's more handsome than pretty, and is almost more into politics than he is--she's 1000% invested in his career and is pushing for him to run for a seat in the lower house. (They have no children, but Sarah may once have given birth to a shade. They killed it immediately and told no one. I'm not even sure Samson knows.)

Phineas Lynwood: Clara's youngest brother. Very red hair, orange heartlight. Tall and slender like their mother. Is a puppy dog bundle of sunshine and energy. Recently finished law school and is just beginning work as a lawyer. May have a crush on the sister of a friend. Very fond of Clara and frequently comes to visit her.

Clara Lynwood: Clara herself! Undersized, with dark hair that is kept very short, and a pale yellow heartlight. Very practical, analytic mind. Very observant. Usually weak and tired. As a young child, she adored her mother, but as she grows up, she's come to see her mother as unintelligent, and has come to resent her overprotectiveness. Idolizes her father and brothers. Has an interest in science and mystery novels, which she shares with Phineas.

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I tried a round on the Zipline, jotting down some character details about Clara's family. It did not go well--I type worse than I realize, and this didn't work well for coming up with details, but I did get about 360 words out.

I also went for a walk, but nothing's coming to mind as applicable for any project, so I'll let that one sit.

Camp Tolkien: Day 3

Welcome to another day at Camp Tolkien!

Our two-week summer camp is a chance for you to work on the project of your choice in the company of other writers. No matter which stage of the process you're in--brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising--Camp Tolkien's activities are here to help you make progress. Bring along your projects, and have fun!

Today's four activities are listed below. Choose whichever one you wish--choose more than one if you want to.

Alphabet Game: Make a list of twenty-six things that could happen in your story--each one starting with a different letter of the alphabet.

Dioramas: Write a detailed description of one room in one setting in your project.

Hiking: Go on a walk outside and use something about the experience (a sensory detail, something you saw) as inspiration for your project.

Zipline: Write as fast as you can for ten minutes. You are not allowed to backspace, cross out, or delete anything during that time.

When you're finished, reblog or reply to this post, telling us how it went, and/or sharing what you wrote for the day.

So glad to have you all at camp! Have fun, go forth, and create!