this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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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 - June 2025 (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 week ago by grrgyle@slrpnk.net to c/writing@slrpnk.net
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Hello folks, welcome to the twelfth (12th) writing club update. Just to pick a random book off of my shelf, chapter 12 of Foucault's Pendumul Umberto Eco begins with

Sub umbra alarum taurum

Which apropos of the topic of that book, is the Rosicrucian motto. Something about being under the protection of God's wings--anyway, among other things, they were like a religious puzzle group that loved leaving little hints for fellow obsessives to follow.

Speaking of obsessed brainiacs...!

As always, all are welcome to participate in the writing club, but these are our current roster of regular participants. Those who do battle against the great enemy indolence, by their pens, pencils, or keyboards. I look forward to hearing your updates!

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[–] JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

We've been making good progress on the Buried Treasure Fully Automated campaign! The second test group finished their 14-session playthrough and had a blast. They were sad it ended but are looking forward to the follow-on story.

We've been making good progress on line edits and have talked out a lot of goals and changes in the weekly developer meeting. I need to work on the cover but haven't gotten to that yet. Andrew has been working on some additional, realistic watershed maps which I'm very excited about. Anything that presents realistic how-it's-done info is awesome and if they're a little complicated to understand, I think it's a good kind of puzzle. I can't remember if I wrote about testing the new soil testing mechanic last time or not but we did that too.

I've also reached out to a few more folks for input. I'd very much like to vet everything for accuracy, even the stuff I know.

I also had the great good fortune to make friends with some more writers, one of whom has published a Choose Your Own Adventure before. Long, long, long-term I'd very much like to make a CYOA version of this campaign. The more self-contained format really appeals to me as a way to present much of the same information. A reader can just pick up a solarpunk CYOA in a way they might not try to read a premade campaign for a specific TTRPG. It'll be a huge project, restructuring the open sandbox into branching storylines, but I have a lot of content already written so flowcharting it out doesn't feel as impossible as once it did. It's not something I'll start working on until the campaign is finished but I'm having some fun thinking on how to do it and what will go where. Like the campaign it'll be copyleft, with a free ebook and bookbinding version.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Like the campaign it’ll be copyleft, with a free ebook and bookbinding version.

Woo! That's awesome. I first learned about copyleft not too long ago, and I love to see its spread.

Really glad to hear the campaign continues to go well (14 sessions!!!!?! I am in awe of this dedicated group), and wow, what a multifaceted project--and now with the concept of a CYOA to puzzle over while you're working on this, it seems almost endless, if you'd like it to be.

It's been really cool getting a sense for your personal aesthetic/ethic over the course of this writing club. I like your approach of sort of play-acting out real skills as part of your fiction. It's like the fiction is a delivery mechanism for these lessons. Anyway, that's a long way of saying it's very solarpunk. :p

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I love the idea of a cyoa version of the campaign, it'll definetly help open the material to another audience.

I hope this continue going well for you :)

[–] ellie@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I've been still kind of lost on a temporary tech adventure as well as had a ton of unusual and unexpected in person events to attend and some paperwork nonsense. But I'm posting here anyway so I feel bad about the writing break and get back into it sooner than later 😆 my current time table is to finish drafting a book that is 25% written by about the end of the year, so while I'm still on time I have to get started with that soon so there's a realistic chance of that working out.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But I’m posting here anyway so I feel bad about the writing break and get back into it sooner than later 😆

rofl, this is a very valid use for a writing club. I've definitely been motivated in this way to write (negative reinforcement).

Also timetable you say 👀 Do you have a hard deadline for finishing your draft? You don't have to say exactly, but I have heard time and time again that having a specific deadline can have a motivating effect.

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

It's a soft deadline, but yes I want to wrap the draft before the end of 2025.

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sorry for missing last month, it was the end of the school year and that's always a bit chaotic getting packed up and prepping the classroom for summer.

I've been doing quite a bit of reading and have written a few book reviews, as well as personal journaling. Its nothing super creative, but its kind of my standby mode to stay writing. Summer has been nice so far, I've gotten many of the house projects I had on hold all school year finished & am finally about to get my office space set up. I really think having a dedicated work space will help me get into a better work flow. Basement life & living out of boxes has really taken a toll on my creative process lol.

Hopefully next month I'll be able to share more & will make some headway into my larger form projects that have essentially been on hold for the last year.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Great to hear from you!

Ooo I love book reviews, although I generally don't read a real, like, "full" review until after I've finished reading the book--I consider it like a little treat for finishing, to dive into the meta discussion. There are so many different types of reviews: teaser/no-spoiler, blow-by-blow (just explains the plot beats), recommender (try to communicate what kind of people would like the book), thematic deep-dive, meta cultural super contextual zeitgeist spiderwebs, highly academic, highly personal (how someone related to the story--love these), etcetcetc. It's like as infinite and myriad as there are people who have lived.

Definitely understand this "standby mode" phenomenon. I suspect for many writers it's the default mode.

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

My reviews tend towards being discussions of the themes of the book and thoughts on what did or didn't work well. I also have one or two sentences recapping the plot. They're mostly for my own records so I can jog my memory of the book later on. Or so I can find the title of something I vaguely remember lol

I do love spoilers though, so I often read reviews before going into a book lol. I enjoy knowing where things are headed so I can appriciate the journey there. I can fully understand having them as a post book treat though :)

[–] Clockwork@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I love these kinds of reviews! I've been reading so many books that either botch the ending or disregard their core themes in the last few years, that at this point I look for such reviews before putting in the time and effort to read the book itself. Avoids so much frustration!

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

Same! Endings are the hardest part & soooo many books just completely miss the mark.

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

Nice. I can also understand liking spoilers. I love rereading books for this reason. Sometimes it's even better after you know what to expect.

Kind of an aside, but I wonder aloud if there's a book version of "doesthedogdie" for very light spoilers regarding like content triggers. I've certainly got one of two that will make me put a book down.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So while I haven't hit my full stride again as far as daily creative writing, I did manage a first: I wrote an inaugural blog post for my personal website! It's something I've thought about for years, and finally I guess had the gumption to actually go through with it. Actually, since I've been doing less creative writing, I've been finding that creativity has been kind of spilling out of me at the seams of text messages, emails, and website updates. It's like I got used to daily creative writing, and now my body misses it, so finds any chance it can to express itself.

Anyway, it's associated with my real world persona/name, which I try to keep seperate from this more authentic place, so I'm not going to share a link, but still wanted to share the progress. It felt really good to do some longer form writing again.

I think I'll continue nurturing my long-neglected realname web presence. So for the coming period, I'm going to work on my named personal website and write another article, probably about some technical topic or other I'm learning about.

[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago

Oooo congrats on getting personal blog set up! I bet that felt like a good accomplishment. Plus it'll be nice to have a collection of your writings you can look through :) i hope you're able to get a decent amount of eyes on it

[–] Clockwork@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hey, that's great! In case you feel like sharing in the future, I'd love to add it to my "neighbour" links, so more people can find it! And I also can point you to some webrings to join, if you want 😄

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

Thanks! I'm not at that stage yet, but will definitely follow up with you when I do get there. :)

[–] Clockwork@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Well, summer is hardcore SUCKING here (been raining for like 12 days out of the last 15...), so I got the chance to write a bit more.

Done this month:

  • Translation of ALXD's Solarpunk Seed Library to Italian (also the reason why I had to delay this update for a few days)
  • Finally started the Kanteletar novel! Only three chapters in so far, and only in Italian
  • After reading mostly fiction for six months, I read an essay (Work by Andrea Komlosy) and damn, it felt so refreshing!

To be done in July:

  • Finish the first Kanteletar story and translate it to English
  • Edit that god-forsaken fantasy I've been postponing for... I don't want to count the months even, lmao
  • I've had another cool idea for the Meteorina, so maybe sketch that down too?
[–] hazeebabee@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago

Ooooo kudos on getting so much done! It can be so tricky translating in a way thay lets the original authors style shine through.

Also I'm kind of jealous of the rain, we were supposed to get a big storm where I'm at, but haven't gotten more than an hour of rain at a time.

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

Well, summer is hardcore SUCKING here [...] so I got the chance to write a bit more.

Hahahaha, funny how these two so often go together.

Sounds like you had a good month. Also great to hear about that Solarpunk Seed Library getting some love! It's such a cool idea.

I can't remember our last conversation in detail--what's keeping you from editing that fantasy story? Not to judge, your worst months are more productive than my best ones haha. I know it goes a bit beyond the scope of this group, but I'm wondering if this is something the writing club might be able to take a look at in more detail - like is there are particular part that's giving you trouble?

[–] Clockwork@slrpnk.net 2 points 6 days ago

I think it's because it's an old story that I wrote in 2021-22 and I edited/reviewed it so many times that I just can't motivate myself to edit it on my own again. It would be a lot easier if I got someone that followed me through the process because it would feel like I'm not entering the echo chamber again, but maybe that part will begin next month (hopefully!)