Writing Club - October 2025

Welcome to the 16th (5+5+5+1) writing club update. Looking at the intro to the 16th chapter of Procedural Generation in Game Design: Generative Art Toys by Kate Compton, we find the somewhat quaint observation:

Everyone loves being creative. And everyone likes discovering that they're more creative than they thought they were. For many years, people have enjoyed crafts like pottery wheels, Spirographs, Mad Libs, spin art, paper marbling, and tie-dye. These artistic toys helped everyday people make interesting artworks (even if those people lacked creative talent or inspiration) by producing surprising and emergent results from simple choices.
Now that we have digital systems, we can make art toys with even more surprising and emergent behaviour. [...]

This book (edited by Tanya Short, and Tarn Adams) was first published in 2017, long before the term "generative art" would take on a very different insinuation. I've certainly got some strong opinions on the subject of both interpretations, but this is a writing club update not my personal soapbox.

Having now fulfilled my self-imposed rule of introducing a quote related to the number of WC updates since we started, I now turn to an observation about my local climate/weather, before introducing our writers, and finally extending a friendly invitation to any lurkers in our midsts. :)

Up here in the Northern hemisphere, at the heel of October, it's starting to get chilly. The ideal weather for reading and writing probably varies as much as the individual writer, but for me this feels like book weather.

Speaking of individuals, here is the call for our regular writers to share their updates!

I think I'll move this list to the main Writing Club sticky post next update, since the @s don't seem trigger notifications consistently across applications. Let me know what you think, if you have an opinion on this.

As is forever the case, passers-by are very welcome to come on in and lurk, comment, or post their own updates.

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For my update, I've still been filling the well of creativity more than I've been drawing from it. That is to say, I've been reading a lot (mostly sci-fi), and catching stray ideas in notebook pages, sticky notes, text files, and plain html pages -- Actually on that note, I have been doing more net-art kind of web weaving for a kind of chaotic diary I have up for one of my mastodon personas. Been spending a lot of time on the visual as well as screen reader experience.
On another note, I worked a shift this week with a prolific poet who is quite famous in my city. He works one day a week at the same art gallery as me. It was great talking in-person with someone so full of stories and creativity (he's in his retirement years) about the creative process, our fav exhibitions, the soups we plan on making this winter, and cheap places to eat out in town. I feel like I got a glimpse into a modest future that would be so happy to inhabit.
My goal remains unchanged: work on that bio/corp/hell/hope/punk bromance fanfic short story. I'd love to get a rough draft going, but still at the stage of collecting inspo and other snippets that I want to include. The universe is also based a video game, so I should probably replay that game. Maybe I'll even get my bro to replay it with me and we can live those glory days anew. 🤩
- If you ever want input on that draft or somebody to brainstorm ideas with, you know where to find me!
  
  I'll probably take you up on that! Having had a chance to read some of your dialogue, I know I could definitely benefit from your notes.

I haven't been doing much writing. I'm in the process of going to grad school and getting settled into a new job. I'm hoping things will settle into more of a routine in november, but I'm not super hopeful I'll get much creative writing done.
I do hope to continue reading, and collecting ideas for when I do have more time to dedicate to creative processes :)
- Personally and anecdotally, that has been my experience with post-secondary: that it can mark a decrease in creative writing, as so much of your active and even idle focus powers are taken up cogitating over what you're studying. Not to say that that's a bad thing, and I'm positive this is not universally the case. Also, it can be a very rewarding time for writing and reading, and in other ways, so please don't take my factoid as pessimism.
  Reading and collecting ideas is so great. In some ways it's my favourite part of the cycle. It's my suspicion that even if you aren't consciously doing creative writing, that if you're feeding your imagination your creativity will inevitably find some avenue to express itself. Even if that's just hosting a monthly writing club, hehe. :)
  
  I agree, unless I'm taking a creative writing class, my mind tends to be focused on my coursework. I've found I'm most creative when I have lots of slightly idle time -- when I'm doing something with my body but its simple enough that my mind can wander. Things like driving, or working a very repetitive job.
  Still its always good to get new information in, and I enjoy hearing about what other people are up to :)

This month has been very non-productive for me, at least in writing. I've been working on a bunch of other projects and hope to post about some of them soon, but the writing definitely took a hit. About the only thing I've been doing is reading through a solarpunk romcom novel manuscript someone sent me to see if I can suggest any edits to add more solarpunk stuff to it (which, it's really cool they asked me to do that!). I'm about sixty pages into my readthrough and I think I have a few ideas but haven't gotten back in touch yet.
- Oh that's awesome. Given your posts/comments here and elsewhere, with your focus on the more pragmatic aspects of solarpunk, I can definitely see you as a editor. I know you're usually more personally "productive" in your updates, but it's cool to hear an update emphasizing the support side of things as well. That's definitely in keeping with the solarpunk aesthetic.
- Romcom sounds fun! That's neat of you, to help out.
  
  I absolutely love solarpunk world building, so getting the opportunity to slip some of that into someone else's project is a delight. I've helped with a couple other books by another author (though they were a little more my genre) and did some research for them that eventually became my list of car parts that could be scavenged and repurposed.
  So yeah, I'm always happy to help with this kind of thing! I'm also trying to organize my own writing research into easy building blocks for other writers and artists. To me it feels like writers often need a level of detail that's hard to find in publications - news articles and pop science stuff tends to be too broad and lacking in specific detail (or incorrect) while industry publications tend to go in depth on a narrow slice of a topic, assuming the reader has the baseline knowledge to put it in context. I'm hoping to start a bit of a culture of packaging up and sharing writer-level research to make writing solarpunk easier.

I've reworked a few more chapters for the fun change I mentioned last month. Most of my time was taken up by unrelated tech things, however. But my writing work is ramping up again which is nice.
- Nice, that is a major change, by the sounds of it. Glad to hear your writing is going well. Do you have any explicit goals for next month?
  
  I want to get that change done, and then also rework something in the sequel. That may then naturally lead me into finally drafting the last one.

Passer-by here.
A family vacation (wonderful) and ADD (less wonderful) ground my writing to a halt this month.
And the previous month.
...Along with my other projects.
Ugh.
But the heat is fading here, which is indeed ideal reading and writing weather, as long as I can keep my allergies in check.
Now that we have digital systems, we can make art toys with even more surprising and emergent behaviour. […]
This book (edited by Tanya Short, and Tarn Adams) was first published in 2017, long before the term “generative art” would take on a very different insinuation. I’ve certainly got some strong opinions on the subject of both interpretations, but this is a writing club update not my personal soapbox.
I do too (probably different ones from yours?), but either way, the historical perspective is interesting.
- Welcome, stranger! What were you working on in previous months, before your writing ground to a halt? If you don't mind me asking, anyway.
  I definitely feel you on trouble writing. If you were to line up all my updates, I probably have more "off" than "on" months. But, y'know, the "on" months still come, and that's something to look forward to.
  Always nice to hear from a passer-by, and from another instance too, how exciting. :)
  
  What were you working on in previous months, before your writing ground to a halt?
  A sprawling post-Korra Avatar fanfic, lol. I am more than happy to ramble on about speculative Avatar lore.
  I probably have more “off” than “on” months
  Yep. I have short periods of furious writing followed by luls. The story itself is practically bursting out of my head, yet getting it on paper is the difficult part.
  I suppose I'll take the opportunity to massage/trim what I've posted so far, and 'get me going' again.

Glad to see our club is slowly growing!
Haven't written a lot, but I put down a short story I'm very proud of, and re-sketched the second section of the Kanteletar novel. Now for the whole next month I'll be busy with advertising the crowdfunding for the (still underedited!) fantasy books, although I'm not very hopeful about that going well 😅
But regardless! Goals for next month are mainly to be able to do the required salesmanship and maybe polish that short story so I can share it with you!
- Crowdfunding is scary, it sucks that it's so hard to get art funded.
  I'm looking forward to that short story! ☺️
- I believe in you! 🙌 🙌 🙌
  Pardon the unsolicited advice, but here's a little trick for editing that's worked for me (for tiny projects anyway): rather than editing the original document, open it in one window, then open a blank page in another window, then rewrite the original on to the blank document.
  Most of it will be the same ofc, but since writing fresh prose is sometimes easier it feels less finicky, and rather than editing parts of this big huge document, you're kind of changing things as you're copying them over. This won't work for moving around big sections, but it can help with line edits and rewording specific passages. Plus I'm sure you'll notice some more edits that you should do in a future pass.
  What is it about the editing process that is most daunting for you?
  
  What is it about the editing process that is most daunting for you?
  You should answer as well, grrgyle!
  I'll answer for myself: I find the most daunting when I am making major plot changes, for example moving an entire chapter around or introducing a new bigger element early on that will affect most of the chapters after it. Often I miss some consequence that change will have later on, and I'm usually anxious that once I realize the less obvious effects it will have that I'll manage to fix all the new plot holes that it will cause.
  
  I edit without issues many of my more recent stories, it's no big deal in general. It's just that I'm grown past fantasy and the thought of having to edit that thing simply demotivates me. I want to write solarpunk and scifi now, fantasy is behind me. I have no interest for it.
  Anyway, if the crowdfunding goes well, I'll be followed by an editor, and I know myself well enough to say that with a clear goal and a set deadline I'll breeze through it when push comes to shove. :D

Hello everyone — Shayan here — new lurker in the group. I love the idea of having people to bounce ideas and pieces off of.
I published my first book (a collection of 10 short stories) earlier this year, and it was the most fun I’ve had doing anything in my entire life.
If anyone is interested, I’d be happy to share a link, but I don’t want to spam the group with self-promotion. I’ve been busy with my editing work, but I fully intend to get back into writing again soon. My current projects are:
Second collection of short stories
First novel (the first draft is complete, but it’s a MESS. and a half).
Short-term goal? Write ONE story before December.
Does anyone have any ideas?
✌️
- Welcome! It's considerate of you to show restraint re sharing links. If you've got a homepage or hub of some sort online, you can also put in your Bio for anyone who goes looking, if you don't want to come on too strong.
  It sounds like you've read the sidebar already, but yeah, the rule around self-promotion is mainly to keep people from just dumping their work in the community without actually engaging with other posters. On that note, a great way to open up avenues for sharing is to comment on the stuff other people have shared.
  Also if you've got a specific story, sample, or draft that you'd like to share, either for feedback or just to show off (it's allowed!), you can use pads.slrpnk.net to do that. It's not a rule or anything, just one of the available tools.
  Short-term goal? Write ONE story before December.
  Does anyone have any ideas?
  I mean... with the turning of the season, the nights drawing in... I've got to say horror, right? 😈 Hehe.
  
  I accept. I've never written horror or anything close to it. But I'm gonna give this a shot!

I have not been doing anything other than thinking about it and longing for some free time and excess energy to start diving deep into the research phase. Since my last update there has been no progress. I initially stated that this is a passion project that I will only want to work on when I want, and that could lie dormant for some time if I don't really feel like working on it. That is not the case now - I WANT to work on it, I'm just dead tired after work to get anything done.
I have another idea for a Solarpunk-based fiction that I half-started a long time ago, and I am wondering if I should pick that up for now instead, as I could then get straight to writing without as much research (although I would definitely want to do a lot of research for the world-building which is not complete).
- I WANT to work on it, I’m just dead tired after work to get anything done.
  😭 that sucks and I know what you mean. Sometimes I just do my work on the weekends if I'm too burnt out during the week.
  For the solarpunk fiction project, is there any part of it that you can just start writing without prep work? Just because it sounds like you miss writing. Obviously research is important to solarpunk, and a huge part of the creative project so don't feel bad!!

42 comments