The subject line says it all, pretty much.

That makes 6 for this summer, and 5 all set in one world.

This whole experience of writing in one world has been a learning event.  When I first began, I hated having to be confined to write in that one world.  So much so, I wrote a story set somewhere else.

Then the first of the 5 short stories set up the world and the main story line that was to play throughout all the other short stories. 

Setting the second story in the same world felt restrictive.  I wanted the freedom to do my own thing.  But I forced myself to do it, albeit on another continent, with the first story's enemy as the main characters.  I liked that one because I learned how to build a bridge using stacking stones.  That was cool.

The third took me back to the original continent, but with ew characters and well into the conflict set up in the first short story.

The fourth went to a third location, an island on the far side of this world, filled with sorcerers.  And I wrote it as a young adult story to help me work through how magic works on this land.  As a child, the main character, too, learned how to gain mastery of her magic.

This fifth short story took us back to the first setting on this world, and the bit I chucked, which was set inside a university.  I re-used some of the costumes and decorations, and one of the characters reappeared with a walk on part, with the main story revolving around a murder mystery.

The most amazing part of this experience is that throughout the writing of these short stories, I was thinking in the back of my mind, wouldn't it be nice if I could be like some of the fantasy authors I enjoy reading, who write characters that became staples for their stories.

Someone on one of my lists who critiqued a short story I’m working on said she had a difficult time figuring out whom to root for in the short story. 

I thought about that and realized what I've done in this particular short story was unconsciously write it from the  villain's point of view.

Which made me realize that villains and heroes have a lot in common.

Like heroes, villains usually think they're right, are passionate about what they want and often have a tragedy in their past that propels them onward.  Some even have friends and can inspire a nation, as this one did in my April short story, tentatively titled The Bridge Builder. 

It's been well critiqued and edited now, and I should start to market it soon. 

AFTER the retrograde ends :-) 

Bad enough having a villain for a hero, without going against the stars in trying to sell it, lol.

Shereen

I was going to do some world building to set up the background for a series of 10 fantasy short stories I’m going to attempt writing this year (at the pace of 1 a month). 

My plan is (as usual it's based on reducing my workload) to build one world intricately, and then set all the short stories in it, so I don't have to keep building a new world for each one.  Laziness strikes again!

Well, I followed the instructions from http://hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/maps-workshop.html pretty closely.

I'd been trying to do the map for about a week but I was never quite happy with it. It looked too crowded or confusing. I think that's because I didn't devote enough time in one length to the work, since I kept trying to work on it during my lunch hours.

But on Sunday, I devoted all morning to this project.

I must have sketched about 8-10 different versions of worlds, tearing it up after each attempt, 'cause I didn't like it, until I settled on one layout I absolutely loved! 

This is slightly different than Holly’s version of coming up with a map.  When I first tried her method, I came up with one continent, and I wanted more.   So, I decided to just draw the continents and fill in the bits in the middle after.  In my case, that worked for me.

So, after I was happy with the shape of the continents and islands, I divided those into bordering lands, and people, and mountain ranges, and started naming places.