Update 2024-09-05: The writing club is underway! I’ll keep this post updated to act as a hub for any further WC related materials.
Writing Club posts:
2025
2024
I’ve never been in a writing club but I’m interested in trying to get one going. Would anyone else be interested in giving it a go? I don’t have to lead it, but will do so if no one else wants to.
What I’m picturing:
- Monthly check-in cadence
- Everyone sets a personal goal, and then talks about how they did the previous month
- No pressure other than what you want to take on to motivate you
- Maybe some “assignments” in the vein of a creative writing class
- I volunteer to send members reminder DMs to motivate them :)
I was thinking I’d just start with this post - come up with a goal for myself to accomplish by end of June, and then check back sometime in the first week of July. If that sounds interesting to you, feel free to join in and comment with your goal, and any details you want to add.
PS Also very open to writing club discussion meta. I’m new to this so wide open to suggestios, comments, critique, etc.
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Slightly off-topic but feel free to use our collaborative text editor for sharing and working on drafts: https://pads.slrpnk.net
Thank you, that’s very much on-topic I’d say! I’m sure this will come in handy 👀
Sounds fun. Should we have some sort of word limit for works we can post or something like that? I have short stories under 1,500 words and didn’t know if I could just post those or links to the story.
It is fun! Although outside of the writing club itself, I’d recommend avoiding posting links to your own work unless you’re looking for specific feedback on your writing.
RE sharing text in comments, there’s no hard length cutoff, just try to be mindful of people scrolling on their phones - so no longer than a long comment, for example.
Finally, if you’re posting in the writing club, definitely feel free to share a link to your project(s), since the purpose of the writing club is to provide friendly accountability to motivate us to complete project work.
PS. Welcome to lemmy. PPS. I’m not hard set on this rule against self-promotion, so if you want we can open up that rule for discussion, and see what folks think generally.
For what it’s worth, I mainly thought of putting that rule since it seems more relevant for larger writing communities, and might be slightly harder to enforce later if it hasn’t been really been a thing earlier. But perhaps I was thinking too far ahead. I imagine at this community size it’s really not an issue.
Ah thanks for the context - that makes total sense. It’s something I am wary about as well.
Obviously it would be preferable not to even need the rule, and just have everyone use their best judgement but that kind of goes out the window if someone takes too many liberties.
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I want to have finished my full cast , series outline and pilot script for my main project by August
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I want to write at least a 2k word piece of fanfiction
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I want to find a writing partner for an experimental project, to see what it’s like collaborating in that way
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Almost a year ago I started trying to write solarpunk fiction and got daunted by the amount of research I needed. Writing scifi had always meant extrapolating current trends and pointing out problems. To do solarpunk I had to be able to offer solutions and that meant lots and lots of reading to learn from the folks who’ve been talking about and trying out alternative ways of doing things (from agriculture to infrastructure to anarchy) and thinking through their answers.
For awhile I did a worldbuilding art/essay project focusing on very small glimpses of a solarpunk future, trying to emphasize things like creative reuse, industry, and seasons/weather that didn’t show up much in solarpunk visual art. The narrow focus helped a lot.
I think I’m finally comfortable trying to write something, though instead of a short story I’m working on a campaign for the solarpunk TTRPG Fully Automated, where the players are on a treasure hunt for tons of industrial waste which were illegally dumped sixty years before. The waste is valuable because it’s a useful input in the production of geopolymers, and the stakes are high as the largely-abandoned rural town they’re searching is in the process of being deconstructed and rewilded, so nobody else is likely to notice it in the future.
I’ve had a lot of fun building a wide swath of locations, communities, and means of travel for the players to possibly explore, along with the rough outline of the decades-old conspiracy and coverup murder.
My goal is to build out the characters, build out the past/conspiracy, and to start seeding people and locations in the present with clues for that mystery.
Oh cool! Truly, I can’t wait to hear more about this. I’ll add a link to your comment in the main post.
Will you be doing it here? I love stuff like this. I’m not in because I’m not a writer, but I used to be part of a songwriting club that operated like this. It really helped with both my craft and motivation and the feedback was amazing.
Good luck, and I hope this turns out amazing!
Oh an idea: we could make a writing club community where people can post about process and post stories to get feedback. Then there could be a pinned weekly/monthly post that has goals and other general discussion and well as letting people say if they want motivational DMs
Sounds like a great idea! There could be a monthly or quarterly post to encourage people to link (or quote, if not too long) the various things they want feedback on in the response comments.
I did in a previous writing community run into the issue that people would, when somebody discussed general writing approaches, point back to their own previous feedback posts and find flaws in the posts to try to “prove” to them their more general thoughts on writing approaches was wrong. Which in my opinion scares people away from daring to post their work, when it later comes back at them in a more general discussion.
Therefore, I would only request people stick with “3. What happens in feedback or critique requests posts stays in these posts” which I suggested as a rule for that reason.
Super good point! Also I don’t know if you saw, but we’ve been doing the writing club in this community. I think there are 3 or 4 of us who have been consistently checking in, but we have had a few people chime in just for the month. I can link to it if you haven’t already seen those posts.
So far it has luckily been a very positive and motivational space :) no one getting weird and nitpicky, mostly just encouraging eachother to keep up with writing
