this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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✍️ Writing

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A community for writers, like poems, fiction, non-fiction, short stories, long books, all those sorts of things, to discuss writing approaches and what's new in the writing world, and to help each other with writing.

Rules for now:

1. Try to be constructive and nice. When discussing approaches or giving feedback to excerpts, please try to be constructive and to maintain a positive vibe. For example, don't just vaguely say something is bad but try to list and explain downsides, and if you can, also find some upsides. However, this is not to say that you need to pretend you liked something or that you need to hide or embellish what you disliked.

2. Mention own work for purpose and not mainly for promo: Feel free to post asking for feedback on excerpts or worldbuilding advice, but please don't make posts purely for self promo like a released book. If you offer professional services like editing, this is not the community to openly advertise them either. (Mentioning your occupation on the side is okay.) Don't link your excerpts via your website when asking for advice, but e.g. Google Docs or similar is okay. Don't post entire manuscripts, focus on more manageable excerpts for people to give feedback on.

3. What happens in feedback or critique requests posts stays in these posts: Basically, if you encounter someone you gave feedback to on their work in their post, try not to quote and argue against them based on their concrete writing elsewhere in other discussions unless invited. (As an example, if they discuss why they generally enjoy outlining novels, don't quote their excerpts to them to try to prove why their outlining is bad for them as a singled out person.) This is so that people aren't afraid to post things for critique.

4. All writing approaches are valid. If someone prefers outlining over pantsing for example, it's okay to discuss up- and downsides but don't tell someone that their approach is somehow objectively worse. All approaches are on some level subjective anyway.

5. Solarpunk rules still apply. The general rules of solarpunk of course still apply.

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Writing Club - October 2024 (slrpnk.net)
submitted 3 weeks ago by grrgyle@slrpnk.net to c/writing@slrpnk.net
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Welcome to the fourth writing club update! See previous writing clubs here. I hope you have all been able to charge up your batteries in the sunshine, and got the chance to step on some extra crunchy leaves.

Here are our participants! People who have stated their writing goals in the previous writing club post in September:

Participants!

As always, anyone and everyone is super duper welcome to comment or share their own work. And if you'd like to be included in the next writing club update, simply say what you're working on this month.

Have a great October!

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[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

This month has been chaotic for me. I'm finally moved into my new house but am in the midst of quite a few projects. I'm currently living in my basement while I fix and refinish the wood floors on the main floor. This sadly means I haven't gotten to set up my new office space :( though i did rip out a closet and replace some rotten boards in the room that will become my office.

I have gotten some writing done, though it hasn't been a particularly productive month. Most of what I've written has just been journal entries and a few short essays. It's not anything super great, but it does keep me in the writing mindset & keeps the words flowing.

This month my goal is to at least continue writing little things. Story ideas, journaling, commentary essays, stuff like that. Maybe adding to my longer story in little chunks. I also have a few grant proposals I will need to write.

As a streach goal, I hope to have my floors finished so I can at least move all my office stuff into the space it goes. It would also be nice to get another chapter of my book drafted.

Mostly, I'm just trying to keep in mind that any progress is progress. As long as I'm writing something, I'm on the right track.

[–] okasen@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh, floors... I have had writing foiled by floors before. I wish you all of the luck getting the flooring finished swiftly so you can focus on the words!

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks so much! It's definetly taking way longer than my anticipated 1 or 2 weeks lol

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Indeed, any progress is progress. I'm also a pretty big diarist, and like you say, it's a good way to keep one in the writing mindset. Actually, that reminds me how most of the book Cloud Atlas is written as letters and diary entries. It makes me wonder if the book takes that form, because it's relatively frictionless writing - at least compared to illustrating live scenes as a narrator. Anyway, just musing lol. Who knows!

Too bad about your office. Having a dedicated work space is a huge help, but when it comes to renovations we all must abide its fickle schedule. Hopefully your basement setup is alright. At times like that I sometimes try to think how I might be nostalgic for the current times in the future. It's a coping strategy for sure, but sometimes it works.

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago

The dedicated works space definetly makes a big difference in my productivity. My basement set up is kind of funny, reminds me of communal living from my early 20s lol. Right now I have 3 beds, 2 monitors, 1 chair, and a shelf with my clothes.

I like that musing on cloud atlas too. Though I find it's harder for me to embody a voice different from my own when writing in first person. I end up defaulting to myself rather than sticking with what works best for the story. It could be a fun writing exercise for this month though :) maybe a spooky series of journal entries.

[–] okasen@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Oooh this is neat! I've been writing a solarpunk/cli-fi sci-fi novel lately, as well as a serial romance that will hopefully help fund my sci-fi. My goal right now is just to keep writing weekly, and so far I'm on a 7 week streak of writing at least once a week, which is massive for me. There's even a 23-day streak hidden in those 7 weeks that was only thwarted because I came down with a stomach bug.

I guess my other goal is for my romance to be accepted by the serial publisher that I want to work with. But I've submitted my sample, and now it's just up to them to deem if I'll meet that goal or not, heh.

I would also love to figure out what I'm actually doing with the cli-fi. I have vague theme and plot concepts kicking around, but I usually discover most of the story as I write it.

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

Kudos on keeping up such a great writing streak! I hope the publisher gets back to you quickly with good news :) serialized romance is such a good way to pull in money from writing. Romance readers are particularly voracious lol

& good luck with the cli-fi sci-fi, I'd never heard of that subgenre before but I love the name :p

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago

7 weeks wow, I'm jealous! Also I like your idea of tracking streaks by week rather than day, because as you demonstrated it's way too easy to miss a day because of something out of your control.

That's a lot of goals! I'd be happy to even finish have of one of those. I'll look forward to hearing how the weeks proceed for you as October continues. Hope they're great!!

PS my apologies for the late reply

[–] JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I haven't done much on the campaign - my big project this month was researching and making the photobash of a more flood-compatible city.

I've also been reading about modern sailing ships, including having a great conversation over on the naval architecture subreddit. My goal is to both make a new photobash of a cargo sail ship at sea, but also to write up what I've learned to consolidate the info and links for other solarpunk writers/artists. That's part of a new thing I want to do - trying to make resources that make it easier to make solarpunk stuff.

Edit: I did talk with an expert I know about testing sites for contaninants and got a list of tools and procedures they'd use in real life, so I now need to figure out how to abstract it in an interesting way (and that reflects the goals of the players in the game).

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Super cool! I love all the research that goes into your work. The resource for making solar punk stuff sounds really useful as well

[–] JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Thank you!

I'm hoping it'll make my notes useful to others, and I'm also hoping to start a culture of building resources in the solarpunk art scene. Like, if there's something someone wants to see in solarpunk art, and they feel they can't write or draw well enough to make it themselves, then make it easy for writers and artists to make that thing by making the info easier to find. Write up a list of details, things to avoid and reasons why, gather visual examples. I don't know if it'll work but I'm hoping it sets a useful example.

I'm also hoping this pushes back on something that's been bugging me - I think because solarpunk is so new, there's a bunch of people trying to steer its long-term course from the sidelines just by complaining at the people who make anything. (I'm mostly thinking of the subreddit here). And that can get pretty frustrating.

I think it's also something that could help with building solarpunk media that reflects the movement half of the scene. (I think there's a bit of a gap right now between the aesthetic side of solarpunk and the nuts-and-bolts permiculture social movement thing trying to carry it out). I think especially if we want artists who've just gotten into solarpunk to get the details right, then we need to make the cool ideas we want conveyed in the art easily accessible to them.

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

I think a resource like that would be good for artists as well as amateurs! Sometimes it can be so hard finding good reference photos or inspiration for ideas. Search engines often seem to show the same few images over and over.

& so true about some people wanting to gatekeep slrpnk as a whole based on their own personal ideas about it. I think it often happens as a small niche movement becomes more popular. It would be good to have something more open and inviting.

The idea of using the resource to try and bridge the gap between different sections of the movement is could have such a positive impact. We can widen the definition and grow the movement rather than giving into nitpicky infighting.

Love your ideas, so grateful to you for sharing :)

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

For my part, I'm still somewhat distracted by other factors in my life, so I'm very glad that I set such a humble goal: to "get back on track with my outline" and while it's still not finished, I have managed to do some work on it. It's something lol.

For my next goal, I think I'll draw a page from @hazeebabee@slrpnk.net's book, so to speak, and try writing a smaller story in the world I've been building. In my case a much smaller story: I'm going to write a piece of micro-fiction, and for my scary stretch goal, I would be sharing that piece of writing here. 🙀

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

Oooo! So excited to potentially read some of your writing :D

Glad you were able to get some head way on the outline too, I know how important it can be for motivation to make even a little bit of progress.