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