Welcome to the fourth writing club update! See previous writing clubs here. I hope you have all been able to charge up your batteries in the sunshine, and got the chance to step on some extra crunchy leaves.
Here are our participants! People who have stated their writing goals in the previous writing club post in September:
As always, anyone and everyone is super duper welcome to comment or share their own work. And if you'd like to be included in the next writing club update, simply say what you're working on this month.
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 :)