Digging through the archives

I’m trying to figure out, going through my old files, exactly what happened on September 18th, 2005.

I say this because it appears to be a significant date, as of my old worldbuilding files and notes, MANY of them were last modified on September 18th, 2005.  So why was that the last time I touched them?  Near as I can gather and recall, that was around the time I got rid of my old desktop, so I probably transferred/saved a bunch of stuff onto my flashdrive.  And while I’ve kept and shuffled those files around between computers since, I’ve not really touched them. 

Most of this stuff is worldbuilding files of various other nations and cultures in the same world as Druthal.  I wrote up a lot of those documents (using a “National Document” format, the origins of which lost to memory) with my old worldbuilding/writing partner (who I still consult & confer with, even though he doesn’t do any fiction writing anymore), mostly between 2000 and 2003.  Some of them are incomplete.  And most haven’t been touched since Sept. 18th, 2005.

The truth is, they would all need massive levels of overhaul.  For one, I’m not particularly fond of the “National Document” format, and I would need to come up with a new template that’s more to my liking.  Second, much of the actual writing– on a craft and sentence structure level– I find somewhat embarrassing.  Third, and most important, there’s a lot of stuff in all that I don’t necessarily agree with anymore. 

Some of it is due to being more knowledgeable now. I’ve done a lot of reading and research since writing those, and knowing that I have stuff in there that’s just plain wrong.  Other parts I just don’t like, too simplistic, or the broad brushstrokes are a little too broad.  (I’m looking at one right now that I really don’t remember a lot of it, but I don’t care for it.)

But the only nation in which I’ve done modern, up-to-date work on is Druthal.  Two other nations (Acseria and Imachan) I had some more recent work (dated in 2007)– but that was because I was working on Crown of Druthal in 2007 (that was when I finished the rough draft), and it’s set primarily in those two nations. 

Since then, I narrowed my focus to Druthal, and specifically the city of Maradaine, which was a major factor in improving what I was writing.  I was trying, since I had done an entire world’s worth of building to showcase THE ENTIRE WORLD.  I mean, that was the underlying concept of the Crown of Druthal series– they would travel around the world and stop in every country.  Because I made it so I MUST SHOW IT ALL.

I’ve gotten that out of my system since then. 

At some point, I would like to go back through it all.  Especially since I’ve made far more specific maps since then.  But that’s not a project I’m going to get to any time soon.