Building Elemastra
Nano Update:
As of the day I am writing this, we are more than halfway through Nanowrimo. The clock is ticking, Thanksgiving is approaching, and that means that the finish line is almost here.
How has my writing gone? Well…not as expected. I thought it would only take 2 days to reread my manuscript, another 2 days to review the plot and that I would be writing within 5-6 days of Nanowrimo.
Add in a last-minute road trip and general procrastination, and I didn’t finish even reading the manuscript until 5 days into the month. Then I took a week to review the plot and read Save the Cat Writes a Novel.
I have officially put words on the board, but only about 6000. But that’s okay. It’s a start.
Today I thought I would start sharing with you about the world of my stories and how it came to exist in my brain.
Building Elemastra
When I decided to get back into writing in 2015, I was trying to decide which of the various stories that had been living inside my head since I was a child I should start with. And what they needed to look like.
It all started with Sunania. Originally, Sunania was a kingdom in the sun (yes that burning ball of fire in the sky) and they warred against other factions from places like the moon, the stars, and more. I wanted to pay homage to this origin story (and the cartoon Sailor Moon that had inspired it) by keeping the space-themed names. I also wanted to transfer it into a more traditional fantasy setting.
Thus, Sunania, Lunaria, Estrella, and Tahra were born. Kingdoms divided by their homage to the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Earth respectively. The four kingdoms of what I originally just called Astra, and became Elemastra.
Each of these worlds was then assigned an appropriate element or two and a representative deity that they would worship.
And that is how it began. I’ll tell you more about my kingdoms next week and hopefully have some good news about how Nanowrimo wrapped up!
