โ๏ธ 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 didn't really follow my goal at all for last month lol. I was busy over the holidays and didn't write at all, then the first half of January I've spent distracted by a couple of topics I got inspired by.
One of the topics centers around liminal spaces and horror. I'm not sure if the final product I make from all this research will actually be an essay or if it is going to shape up into a fiction piece. I'm kind of just enjoying getting lost in the genre and taking notes on different aspects of it.
The other thing I've fallen into is the history of communism and cults of personality. Trying to look at the history of why many of these movements end up authoritarian despite the good intentions of their founding. The also includes looking at why democracy is often seen as the antithesis of communism when I would think it's more communism vs capitalism and authoritarian vs democratic. I found some really interesting books on the topic (both fiction and non fiction) and have been diving into them. This area might also end up being a few essays, but will likely more so be back ground research for some of the fictional worlds I've been building.
This month I want to keep diving into this stuff and hopefully next month will have something to share that isn't just messy handwritten notes lol.
Happy new year to everyone, I hope January hasn't been too scary for you :)
That sounds like you've done a lot of interesting reading and thinking at least.
I suspect if you forced yourself to just sit down and write on the subject more would come out than you'd expect.
Super true! Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to take a few hours and just write through some of my thoughts. I think your right and my ideas will be alot more formed than they feel right now :)
No lie, that sounds like a great time to me! Sometimes I label these periods as "filling the well" or planting seeds for when I go to do some creative expression. Even if they're not directly related to my current project, it's all grist for the mill (to borrow another expression).
I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this. I've just recently started more formally reading an intro to Marx, and I'm finding it pretty compelling. I've skimmed the Wikipedia pages of course, but that's not the same as really studying the subject.
I did corner two communists at a house party this month and try to get a sense of where they stand on social democracy, but I think they were not interesting in lecturing a newbie haha. I did come away with some questions on Maoism, though.
Anyway, so yeah, not to repeat myself, but yeah I would love to hear whatever you put together, fictional or otherwise on the topic. It's fascinating to me, and as someone who doesn't actually know much on the topic I'm still hungry for more takes!
G- g- g- gulp! Hahaha, but for real liminal spaces are a form of creepiness I adore. The concept of something going on forever in this weird unknowable order, is super scary and un-look-away-from-able to me. ๐ซฃ
Great goal! Fill that well hehe :)
I love the metaphores you used at the start :) filling the well is definetly an important part of the process, plus it just feels good to have something to hyperfixate on lol
And yay! I'm glad there's some interest in the my current focuses :) I'm curious to see where I end up with all of it. Sometimes it's fun when even i don't know what I'm doing & suprise myself lol
Also very funny to imagine these cornered communists at a party being questioned about the nuances of their political beliefs by a well meaning but uninformed person :p i have a decent grasp of the theory (I commune hopped in my early 20s), but the actual history of its implementation is in some ways more interesting because it's actually testing the theory & points to certain weakspots in the underlying ideology. I'm not sure where it's all headed but I feel excited to find out :))
Edit to add: I'll definetly try and do a write up this month to make some of my thoughts understandable l. It would be cool to have someone to bounce ideas back and forth with :)