Writing Club - April 2026
Welcome to the 22nd writing club update. Spoken aloud in English "twenty-two" or "two two" or "tutu" reminds us that anything can be made cutesie or twee, even a harsh number like 22. And shouldn't that give all some hope for a cuter future?
Things have been getting warmer here, but still unusually cool, which suits me just fine. It's lovely bike riding weather.
To any new eyes, this is a monthly writing club where we share progress on our writing related projects and general goings-ons. Everyone is free to participate either by commenting on others' work, or by sharing their own goals and/or achievements.
17 replies
For my goal I said I would write 1 000 word of proper story for this short story I've been poking away at. I mayyy have technically reached that goal, if I could up all my edits, but I got a bit lost in rewriting some exploratory character scenes. The tone has become much darker which I find easier to write (it's an easy nihilistic sci-fi story closer to cyberpunk than solarpunk as it stands), but I'm trying to find a way to weave a thread of hope(punk) through it. We'll see. It's pretty out-there post-human sci-fi fare--very far from the more grounded roots of most of the writing we talk about in this community.
Other than that I've kind of become obsessed with making maps for Doom (1693+), and while not strictly writing related (though I always have an environmental story or theme in mind for each map), I have been spending a lot of my creative energies there.
I'm still interested in test reading ☺️ and test dooming! 🔫
🙏 🙏 🙏
Would you mind sending the story once you feel confident with its final version? I'd love to give it a read!
Absolutely! We can do a short story exchange. :D
This month we continued edits on the TTRPG campaign book, and I worked on the first big branching zone of the gamebook. I'll try to remember to update this post with a new screenshot of the layout in twine.
edit to add:
I also added one page to the wiki, on rethinking maps, based on some excellent comments from five, local admin, a couple years ago now. I also started researching for a page on what work might look like in a solarpunk world (starting with reading Bullshit Jobs).
Very interesting page, the US watershed map looks fascinating! Thank you so much for working on this!
I've noticed some of the images don't have a source, e.g. https://wiki.slrpnk.net/_detail/writing:b39b2d07-f63c-4d43-a31c-700fd660aed3.webp?id=writing%3Arethinking_maps this one, perhaps it would be useful to add one if only to credit the original creators. If you still happen to have that info around.
That's a good idea, I'll see what I can find! I'm still getting set up using these tools, but my main goal at the moment is to duplicate relevant images from old lemmy posts since the wiki uses a different photo system which shouldn't be disrupted if slrpnk.net switches from Lemmy to Piefed in the future. I want to make sure nothing gets lost. But I shouldn't have too much trouble tracking those files down.
Finally getting the chance to post without several days of delay! 😂
April has been quite fruitful! I've finally completed the revision of Kanteletar's Section B, so I've already started to outline Section C (which is to be written across May and June, if I manage). School practice was intense so I didn't get to write anything else, and next month will also be quite busy with... more useless essays 😩 Hopefully the last ones for the foreseeable times.
Plenty of summer projects:
That short story already sounds fascinating 👀 Congratulations on your continuing progress! It seems like you really thrive when you're busy.
That progress sounds fun! What's Kanteletar again, is it a novel?
Yes! It consists of five stories across four centuries, following the twists and turns of a library in Tampere as the world around it changes.
The first story was set in 2067, the second in 2148 and the one I'm about to write is in 2232. I always try to keep it realistic, so there's no standard scifi tropes like aliens or androids or teleportation.
Ooo I love these kinds of multigenerational stories. Reminds me of a problematic fave that I've gone about before: A Canticle for Liebowitz.
Indeed, that was one of my inspirations for the template of separate stories, although the setting is wildly different and it mostly becomes straight up feudal in the middle section. I would like to avoid scenarios of regression or dystopia, so let's see if I manage!
Wish I was more active and not so terrible at writing, 15 years of going to and here we are. Now with AI....
It's a craft that requires failure, and everyone has their own learning times. As long as you're enjoying it, you should keep writing it!
If anything, AI has motivated me more. It makes me feel proud of the imperfections, the parts that remain a little rough. Like yeah, it's not 100% polished, but now that suddenly seems to become something people look for and I love it! 🥰