Welcome to the second writing club update! (See the previous update here.) I hope you’ve had a pleasant month, and are managing to stay cool (this is me presuming northern hemisphere anyway). One short month ago, a month seemed like such a long time. But now I see it for a just a couple of weekends, and a sprinkling of free evenings.
I’m keeping this update brief, since I’m behind on my own goals. But it’s raining here, and I don’t have to go to work (at my job anyway) today, so I’m excited to get back to it! May you be similarly blessed with dreary weather and lack of responsibilities on this Monday.
Participants
- @JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net - July goal
- @grrgyle@slrpnk.net - July goal
- @hazeebabee@slrpnk.net - July goal
- @Pip@slrpnk.net - June goal
As always, there is no pressure to have completed your goals. But sharing how your month went is super beneficial not just personally, but for the rest of us. Additionally, participants and guests are encouraged to chime in with any comments or questions they may have on project projects, writing club, etc.
I wrote a poem about reclaiming language this morning
Sweet! Is it the kind of thing you’d be comfortable sharing it online? I’d love to read it, if so. Either way, thank you for sharing your win!
I was planning to post something up once I got myself feeling brave sharing poetry with someone for the first time since highschool. I kinda stopped writing poetry in college and haven’t written anything in a decade. But I want to get myself brave enough to start showing people my art to participate in the whole “make art at home” movement to be part of reclaiming creativity from our culture of emptiness. Which I want to do some poetry about to.
I was also writing some poetry earlier this evening realizing I was more willing to be real with myself through poetry than I am through journaling
Aw that sounds like an amazing journey towards reconnecting with poetry and writing.
I’ve also found poetry can be much more illuminating than journaling. I think for me it’s that my inner monolog is very rigid & sometimes journaling just repeats those inner judgements whereas poetry forces me to word things differently & in that process I find I have new things to say.
I hope you keep finding inspiration to be creative this month, would love to hear about how your journey progresses :)
I totally get how sharing your art is hard, especially something so raw and close to the heart like poetry. I’ve never had any skill in poetry and the few times I’ve tried, I feel I was blushing with embarrassment just sitting there alone. But I guess that’s also the power of poetry in a way…
That kinda reminds me: the whole reason I kicked off this writing club was because I wanted to “practice in public” with other people, where we could share how things are going, post snippets, and just like actually take an interest in eachother’s stuff, rather than be each stuck on our own little islands of self doubt or inertia or whatever.
Anyway, I’m glad to hear you’re getting back into it - I sincerely hope you keep it up! (Maybe even have a goal of writing another poem this month? 😉)
So for my goal, I said I would
… finish my short story outline: characters, plot/events, worldbuilding (enough for the story anyway), beginning, conflict(s), and end.
I’ve done maybe 60% of that, but feel good about it, especially since it’s my first time looking it up and trying to make a “proper” outline.
My current conflict (as a writer, not like in the plot), is that it’s a story about colonialism and I’ve been thinking of my characters as indigenous coded, whereas I’m actually a white settler person. I’ve been reading through resources like this to help me through, but I worry that I don’t have the experience (speaking of lived experience, as well as writing chops) to pull it off with the care it deserves.
My thinking at the moment (and I feel like this might change easily) is to keep the details scant, rather than wade right in and risk botching the job. But then I run the risk of just gesturing lazily at indigeneity as some amorphous monolith…
Those challenges aside, my goal for August is to finish the outline of my short story. Actually, now that I know more about what’s involved in writing an outline, I’m even less certain than I was last month about finishing it, haha!
That’s a super understandable challenge of writing beyond your lived identity. I would say to base the characters on a specific indigenous group. Heavily research that group, their customs, and their history. Look for first hand accounts. & If at all possible seek feedback on your characters and writing from the groups you are writing about as well.
Having the characters based on real peope helps prevent them from becomming stereotypes & can help give you the added ideas for how certain situations might be handled by different peoples.
Good luck on beefing up your outline :) I hope august is a productive month
Having the characters based on real people helps prevent them from becoming stereotypes …
Thank you, this is an excellent point (among several). I think your suggestion of diving into a specific peoples’ lifeways is the right approach. It seems more obvious the more I think about it, yeah.
A haiku!
Grass
I have mowed my lawn.
The preying mantis left us.
She will not return.Yes! I love this. I’m taking this to mean you offended a preying mantis with your lawnmower noises
I cut down her habitat because I couldn’t afford the HOA fee
I love both of your poems :) thanks so much for sharing them. I know how hard it can be to share something that feels so personal. I hope your poetry journey continues :)
Thanks! I haven’t written anything in about a week but I plan to write more once I’m done moving house
I feel like I’ve made pretty good progress on the solarpunk TTRPG adventure module so far. I mostly focused on the soon-to-be disincorporated fictional town of Comity NH this time, building out landmarks, local characters, and a map of the site:
Red dots are potential dump sites. (The guy who agreed to ‘store’ the industrial waste owned a lot of properties). Narrowing down potential sites will be a big part of the investigation.
I now have a description prepped for every spot with a name, a list of characters at each with a description and writeup of what they know along with suggestions for dialogue. The map shows the old state routes because they’re relevant to the mystery, but I’m kind of hand-waiving that the place is actually riddled with tons of small trails and paths which the locals have built in lieu of trying to maintain a full network of paved roads barely anyone uses. I was inspired by the downsizing to achieve a maintainable transportation network described in this article. Some roads obviously still exist because they’re useful, but others have been washed out and never repaired because none of the current residents need them for anything, while new trails cut through properties nobody has lived in for decades.
I’ve split the current population and the named sites between locals (the people who’ve lived here for the whole time and plan to continue no matter what) and the work crews (the population of younger folks who are here to assist in the deconstruction of abandoned buildings, the rewilding of damaged habitats, in various research and environmental safety test type activities, etc. Generally the locals will be able to give the players clues about the past which can help with that mystery, and the work crews will be able to answer questions about the present thanks to their equipment.
Fairer Way, down in the bottom right corner, is the players’ starting point, at the end of the incomplete public transit system. They’ll be able to talk to people there, do some research, and find transportation to Comity.
The Fully Automated Dev team has actually provided a template for making modules that I quite like - it’s very organized and useful, almost academic in its layout. It’s helped me a lot. The only thing I’ve run into is that the original format seems to expect a somewhat more linear game - perhaps because I’m fairly new to actually playing/running TTRPGs, the only thing I’m counting on is for the players to surprise me, so I’m doing my best to build the locations and clues with no set order, so they can explore as they please. So I’ve been building an outline, but it only has the broad sweeps of events, and goes by location rather than chronology after that, which I hope helps. I’m very interested to see how the players handle the investigation, and if they’ll manage to think of avenues of inquiry that surprise me.
My goals now are to finish getting it organized and to keep filling in any gaps (there’s fewer than there used to be, but it still needs some detail work). The plan is to get what Andrew (lead dev) calls a minimum viable product so we can try running it, and then see what it needs from there. I did start on some art assets (a few character portraits and one scene of the bike co-op) but that’s mostly just keeping my attention span engaged.
So I’ve been building an outline, but it only has the broad sweeps of events, and goes by location rather than chronology after that, which I hope helps. I’m very interested to see how the players handle the investigation, and if they’ll manage to think of avenues of inquiry that surprise me.
This is exactly the types of campaigns I remember most fondly - the open-ended ones that really make the player (and to an extent, even the GM) feel like anything is possible.
Maybe I missed it in your descriptions, but what is the black outline that rings most of the named locations?
The plan is to get what Andrew (lead dev) calls a minimum viable product so we can try running it, …
Am I interpreting this correctly - that it sounds like you’re working the Fully Automated dev team on a campaign (for a wider audience)? I’ve been imagining this was for a specific tabletop group, but this sounds like it might be for a wider audience.
Either way very cool. Thank you for sharing your progress in such detail!
it sounds like you’re working the Fully Automated dev team on a campaign (for a wider audience)?
Yes! I started out proofreading a series of four premade adventures/modules they were preparing for release as a playable campaign, and that got me thinking about trying to build one of my own out of some story and worldbuilding ideas that had been rattling around in my head. I really like the idea of making it available as a polished, finished product, through their channels - there’s already a pretty wide range of modules but I don’t think any really dig into the kinds of rural areas I’m from and some of the possibilities there. I’ve been having a lot of fun exploring themes around what makes a community sustainable (as in, practical, long-lasting, viable, and at what scale), deconstruction, rewilding, and other aspects of wildland conservation, the health of watersheds, and sort of the different way people interact with the habitats and species around them. There’s also a lot of reuse and salvage happening because I think it’s cool.
I’m honestly not sure if I’d have had trouble pouring this much work into something for a one-off game with friends, I think that’s part of why I haven’t GMed in the past? I am looking forward to running some games of this, but my main goal is to produce a module booklet, (hopefully a bookmarked PDF), and a zip file of all the maps, place art, and character portraits a GM might need.
The black outline is the old town border (since they know the ‘treasure’ was dumped somewhere inside). A lot of borders have sort of faded in importance, being replaced with watershed boundaries when it comes to managing shared resources, but the town is still incorporated and operational on paper at the moment (not unlike Centralia PA 50 years after the fire began). Towns have a way of lingering even when there are fewer residents than your average homeowner’s association.
Thanks again for running this discussion, it’s nice to get to chat about this stuff!
@grrgyle@slrpnk.net As promised, here’s a poem. It’s not the poem I told you about. I’m still… Nervous to share that one. It came from a very authentic place but I just… Don’t know. But this one is very personal to me.
Hey, everyone else, though. This poem, while very authentic to me, and very personal, contains EXTREMELY coarse language. It’s an accounting of a lived experience I had.
Hatred
spoiler
Left foot, right foot One step at a time Hours at a time
Left foot, right foot Focused on the road Focused on myself
Left foot, right foot Checking on my form Making sure I’m good
“FAGGOT!”
Left foot, right foot I set it aside for now Something doesn’t sit
Left foot, right foot Talking with my friend Gender is a spectrum
Left foot, right foot New understanding Feelings I set aside
“FAGGOT!”
Left foot, right foot There it is again This child hates me
Left foot, right foot This child hates me I didn’t even know
Left foot, right foot I didn’t even know Men, women, it’s love
Left foot, right foot It’s still love. I see it now I didn’t know myself
“FAGGOT!”
Left foot, right foot This child hates me I didn’t know myself
Left foot, right foot I can love anyone It doesn’t change me
Left foot, right foot I’ve always been this I just didn’t know me
Left foot, right foot Who I’ve always been It’s okay. I’m okay.
“FAGGOT!”
Left foot, right foot This child hates me Who planted this seed
Left foot, right foot I was born this way This child was not
Left foot, right foot This seed was planted It had to be planted
“FAGGOT!”
Left foot, right foot I’ve focused myself I make myself better
Left foot, right foot The way I improve me I will improve the world
“FAGGOT!”
Left foot, right foot This hate shouldn’t be Passed to the next child
Left foot, right foot Kids need the future Deserve not to hate
Left foot, right foot The child hurts, too I’m wounded. Him too.
“FAGGOT!”
Left foot, right foot My team gives strength This kid needs strength
Left foot, right foot We are strong together We are strong without hate
Whoa. Powerful. Sorry, I would have replied sooner, but I guess my mobile lemmy client doesn’t show me @s as notifications.
I’m not super well versed in poetry or its forms, but the tempo as I’m reading it feels oppressive. The “Left foot, right foot” paired with the thoughts that are also doubled feels to me almost like a martial rhythm. And then of course the shock of the ugly slur as the rhythm continues, and the internal monologue (?) also continues on; maintaining composure, doing mental labour…
I know I’m projecting hard onto it, but that’s my raw feelings just from a first reading. Thank you for sharing!
This might be a silly question, but what are you writing poetry for? Like, to process personal thoughts, or communicate something to others? I guess that is silly, why does anyone do anything lol, probably always for those reasons and many more. I’m just an overly curious person. :p
what are you writing poetry for? Like, to process personal thoughts, or communicate something to others?
Yes. I don’t think you can separate the two. I grew up in the United States and the older I get the more I see our atomized nature as a soft form of torture that allows those with power to perform more overt forms of torture. All of our personal thoughts are hidden from each other so we can survive to tomorrow. Meanwhile, we do that and isolate ourselves. Who we isolate ourselves from though are the people who would be most ready to help us because they’re going through the exact same thing. I think sharing our pain is a form of culture building, and I don’t just mean “this is the pain I feel” but instead realizing its pain we all feel.
I am incredibly blessed to have been gifted a body that was extraordinarily well suited to cross country running and to have found my tribe in college. I’m also grappling with all the other things I’ve been cursed with that have prevented me from being all that I can, and I’ve been realizing this is how its always been, what we’ve always been as a species. There is absolutely nothing stopping us from enjoying the things we love except for an oppressive regime of torture. I want to help others find their tribes the way I did, find the people who love them for who they are and enjoy the things they do and say. At the same time, the tribe I found frequently found itself coming under derision for not fitting in with others. At the time I laughed it off, at least when it was our cohorts doing it. But when it was children… It hurt me.
This month was fairly productive for me :) I got another chapter drafted for my book, some new scene ideas written up, & did some restructuring of the outline.
I’m worried this month won’t be as productive, my moving date is 3 days away, my sister is visiting, & I start work again at the end of the month. Its going to be busy & im not sure how much time ill be able to find for writing.
My realistic goal for the month is to get my writing space set up in the new house. My lofty goal is to have another chapter drafted & a more structured outline for the first section of the book.
I’m looking forward to seeing what other people were able to get done this month :)
Oh I love the idea of having both realistic/lofty goals! I think I’ll try that out for myself going forward.
Also wow, it sound like you had a very productive month. Given what you’ve shared, it seems natural that August will not be as productive, but then sometimes a creative, like, geyser comes out of nowhere and you find yourself pouring out page after page in a matter of hours. So you never know!
In any case sounds like it will be an eventful month, so I will look forward to hearing how it all shakes out. :)
Yeah lol, it’s nice to have two goals so I can stay motivated even when I know I won’t reach my big goal :p
& will any luck I’ll have one of those inspired sessions, it always feels so nice to be locked into the flow of writing
