✍️ Writing
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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I've been making good progress on the Fully Automated! solarpunk TTRPG campaign! We got a group together to play it and we've done four or five sessions now.
At first I'd been thinking of the play sessions as the cost of getting the campaign guide finished and out the door but I've been having an absolute blast running it. It helps that my players are awesome - two are devs from the game, one is an experienced player, and one joined recently but has been great - their collective knowledge has basically allowed me to run the story and lean on them for the gameplay. It's worked surprisingly well.
I've never GM'ed before, played a couple DnD sessions but that's about it. But I've watched tons and tons of Actual Plays and read a lot of world building and session running guides because they were a good source for writing advice, so I guess I picked up some GM tricks a long the way. It's so fun! And they seem to be quite enjoying it - it's been lovely getting to watch them occupy this world I put together and we're looking at doubling how often we meet per week.
The sessions have been a great motivation for making more content and an awesome way to find gaps I need to fill. It's going to be a much more thorough document after the rest of the playtesting.
I've also made a lot of character artwork (in a kind of old comic book style) and an additional map for one of the main locations which has been very helpful.
It's just been great and I'm looking forward to working on it more.
Wow what a great surprise. It sounds like you have a terrific group! A group like you're talking about is truly special.
I've probably mentioned this in the context of this writing club before, but the concept of "practising in public," and soliciting others for feedback. That kind of fast feedback loop is invaluable in all creative endeavours, even if it can be uncomfortable at times! That's the whole point of this writing club.
I'm so happy that it's been a rewarding time for you, because we know you've absolutely been putting the work in. Always great to see effort rewarded! I hope the new year brings even more good times - and I can't wait to hear about them. :)