Checkpoint 1: Kick-off

[nepenthee]

With slight delay, this DW community is now open!

As mentioned on the event site, the challenge will be accompanied by regular checkpoints where you can share your plans and progress, ask for help and discuss anything regarding site-making. These checkpoints will be posted in approximately biweekly intervals by me, your host, and sometimes by larissa. :)

Some questions to start with: What are you making and why, how long has the shrine been on your wishlist, and where are you starting from?

Feel free to chat about anything, no need to answer any of these questions!

Comments

[nepenthee]

Hi everyone!! I’m delighted (and touched) that so many people signed up within days after the event site was uploaded. I’ll try to advertise the challenge some more now that I’m no longer sick and the DW is ready. :D

I’m going to make a small dedication to Nanako Amachi, a character who shows up in one chapter/story of the manga The Top Secret, whose pilot chapter I’ve already made a shrine for. The motivation behind both shrines is very similar: digesting the story in writing so I can slowly shake off the still-vague feelings that follow me everywhere. For this one specifically, I also want to experiment in a different direction to explore what shapes shrines can take… I’ll see if I can pull it off.

The shrine’s been one of my dreams since at least 2021, and I have a despairingly awful graphic WIP from then (to be tossed and forgotten), a concept, a foreword, an outline that needs to be reevaluated, nearly a dozen paragraphs of drafts and many notes. This is one of the projects I have to get out of the way so I can start dreaming up new things. TIME TO SORT THINGS OUT FOR GOOD. >:(

WE SHALL MAKE ALL THE SHRINES.

[velvetdusk]

I’m so looking forward to seeing how this one unfolds — your writing voice has always been something I deeply admire. The length, the cadence, the way you let emotion and observation breathe on the page… your shrines feel alive in their own right. You could write about paint drying and I’d still be spellbound. There’s such a quiet gravity to everything you craft, and it’s always a joy to read 🥹

[nepenthee]

Oooh Elita... Thank you for this gift of words. It touches my heart that my writing has resonated with you in that particular way, and I see you more clearly for it. I hope this shrine, too, will feel alive.