I've been taking part in [Swordtember](https://x.com/faith_schaffer/status/1823551850584662139?t=a1q0TtrSB0om1_ZHyn-miw) this year (it's one of those art challenges with a one-word prompt for every day of the month) and I've learnt some interesting things about creativity and productivity during this first week-and-a-bit. I'd like to share these thoughts with you, reframed from the perspective of worldbuilding. 1. It's okay if some ideas aren't as good as the other ones. They can't __all__ be perfect, especially when creating things every day. 2. Finding the right time of day to be creative takes trial and error, but once you find what works it makes things much easier! 3. If you plan on creating things every day, keep it small and keep it simple. Make goals that are achievable for your skill level and time available. 4. Reduce the time spent stuck staring at a blank page by planning ahead. The days I've struggled with the most are the ones I didn't plan ideas for. 5. Make your creative workflow easier by making templates for yourself. Before the event began I created a range of different blank templates that I could customise each day to suit my needs. 6. Taking part in a chill, no-commitments daily challenge is a great way to build a creative habit and routine! During this challenge, I've also been trying to get back into using social media & Discord servers to share my work. I was worried that by posting every day I'd come across as being spammy or that people would get bored of only seeing me posting in my friends' small-server art channels 😅 but after just asking and checking in with folks I learnt that they actually look forward to it and enjoy it! ❤️ If you'd like to see the rest of the pixel art swords in my collection, you can check them out on my: [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/tjtrewin.com), [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/tjtrewin/), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/tjtrewin/), or [Cara](https://cara.app/tjtrewin). Moving forward to the later months of the year, I intend to keep showing up every day with something I've been working on 🙌 Speaking of later months... 👀 New on the blog this week are two more subscriber-first posts in mega-early prep for the 10k worldbuilding challenge at the end of the year, [WorldEmber](https://tjtrewin.com/prepare-for-worldember/)! This time it's all about banishing burnout and boosting wordcount (without cheating, of course)!