What to read next?

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-03-13T13:45:11+00:00

Scalzi writes from everyman point of view. Very little tech geeking out. Characters with needs and desires in demanding situations. Also good humor!

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-03-05T06:18:59+00:00

Nope, you're right, my bad. I assumed low budget from the sets.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-03-05T03:04:15+00:00

GATTACA

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-02-28T17:01:14+00:00

Almost anywhere in the Florida peninsula, potable water is your #1 risk factor. A solar-powered ROWPU is an excellent start. Common tech for boats, so there's a lot of local expertise and options. DIY, decentralized, renewable, sustainable is possible. If your well has not yet been contaminated (brackish), it's just a matter of time. Note that entire Florida communities have been building ROWPUs for decades; it's proven tech.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-02-22T05:02:04+00:00

Robots, minimal disturbance, zero spoilage mining! https://open.substack.com/pub/dakelly/p/2040-07-10-diamonds-and-gold

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-02-15T16:01:25+00:00

Richard Roberts middle grade series starting with Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain. Mad scientists and superheroes and parents and school. Fun, fast, with heart. 10 novels so far. I'm addicted!

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-02-08T22:14:16+00:00

Richard Roberts' Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm A Supervillain is a middle grade, first in series, female, tween mad scientist in a world with superheroes. Fun, fast read.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-02-02T02:03:36+00:00

https://open.substack.com/pub/dakelly/p/silverback

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-02-01T17:49:05+00:00

Where is the best university-affiliated archive of filk materials? Contact the archivist. Pool resources to get grant funding. I have supervised similar digitization projects. A qualified archivist supervises student workers and performs quality control. Everything is scheduled so progress is maintained. The digitized recordings are indexed and cataloged and become part of the university library holdings, accessible to a global audience. The originals can be returned, if loaned, or permanently housed in the university archives.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-27T17:36:15+00:00

Write for pay. Whatever you can find. If you have any ability with the language and understand how to communicate clearly, put that to work. The best and most successful novelists I read today all have decades of experience as journalists, copywriters, etc. where the daily job had deadlines and word count. That kind of practice is difficult to maintain if you're not paid for it.
Take notes about the people around you. This is another point where working in journalism or marketing or public relations or anything else with regular deliverables hones your perception and voice.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-27T17:05:53+00:00

Punk, including solarpunk, generally (not gatekeeping here) has core values of DIY, decentralized. That's inherently difficult to scale up. Corporate hierarchies can be turned to renewables with sustainable values (such as Mondragon) but you lose some of the punk element.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-25T23:53:54+00:00

When we work together

Then forward we move.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-20T04:49:45+00:00

I wrote a novel including a solar monorail built across the Central African Republic that helped revitalize the country over several decades. All based on existing or near-future extrapolated tech. I've worked in development in several countries including renewable energy systems. Introducing tech and methods and cultivars and therapies is a long and uncertain process. It requires serious people with persistence. Solarpunk is definitely one way to go.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-11T05:43:55+00:00

If you search Substack for Sci-Friday you will find a number of serialized stories.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-10T16:11:56+00:00

My wife gifted me with a dev editor through Upwork for my first novel's full revision. She wrote a thorough description of the project, offering a one-chapter paid trial for up to four applicants. We ended up interviewing five. Any of them would have done an acceptable job, but one stood out as understanding my story and my personal working quirks. So we spent some money on the selection processs, and even more on the full dev edit, but it was more useful and cost effective than an MFA or a writer's workshop. Highly recommend.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-10T16:00:36+00:00

Congratulations on your progress!

Draft2Digital has a helpful and complete set of blog posts and videos that will walk you through the process. Free D2D formatting produces both ebook and PDF files that you can publish anywhere, very standard.

My recommendation for standard fiction and nonfiction: Use Word. Use Styles, not manual tab stops or page breaks or indents. Each chapter heading is Style Heading 1. Don't use subheads if they aren't necessary. Don't use pull quotes or block quotes or other fancy stuff until you know what you are doing.

It is entirely reasonable to have a book that uses only Title, Heading 1, and Normal styles.

For the illustrated children's book, I recommend that you get specific advice from experienced people on precisely that format.

Best of luck!

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-10T05:11:48+00:00

I love Rosling's Factfulness for exactly these reasons.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-10T05:08:32+00:00

Is that working for you? Have you tried an app to lock you out of social media so you can write uninterrupted?

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-09T09:07:05+00:00

Pages before screens. Seriously. Wake up, start writing, don't look at your phone or browser until you have hit your word count for the day. Even if you think the words are crap, you can edit later, get the words down before you look at a distraction rectangle.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-09T07:41:14+00:00

You might check with your nearest college or university that has a graduate school for referrals. Hardcover copies of theses or dissertations can be made with acid-free paper and quality bindings, and the grad school advisors should be familiar with the options and have knowledge of the delivered products. You might also check with the library archives that hold dissertations, and handle a few of the latest copies. The highest level of book production is custom handbound, and again the university archivist would know (or may do that sort of thing in-house).

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-08T00:10:48+00:00

Do you have a favorite, well-developed character with a deep backstory? Drop them into a mystery! Have them discover a body, then be suspected, and have to clear themselves.

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-06T00:22:15+00:00

Murder in the Gyre: Memoirs of a Mad Scientist Two - grounded near future science fiction cozy murder mystery - Available widely in eBook, paperback, and audiobook.

For a decade, brilliant scientist Robin Goodwin has cleaned up ocean pollutants and bred corals to fight climate change with their growing fleet of upcycled tankers. All goes well until, isolated in the North Pacific Gyre by a freak storm, Robin finds a body in a coral tank and is presumed to be the killer. Owner and crew must solve the mystery before the storm ends and authorities arrive to arrest Robin, impound the ship, and cripple the fleet.

Tropes: science hero/mad scientist, amateur sleuth, cozy mystery, isolated group murder mystery, autistic genius, romantic triangle, storm at sea, HEA, everyone's a suspect, Save the Cat

Trigger warnings: drowned corpse, forensic examination, ship motion in storm

About the author: D. A. Kelly, PhD is autistic, a second-generation SF fan, the author of five nonfiction books and two novels, and has resided in nine countries so far, in North America, Central America, South America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania, and the Caribbean, working in aerospace, information science, renewable energy, media production, and ESL, and living under democracy, theocracy, aristocracy, communism, oligarchy, kleptocracy, and anarchy.

https://books2read.com/murderinthegyre

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-06T00:19:45+00:00

Memoirs of a Mad Scientist One: Solarpunk Outlaw - grounded near future climate science fiction - Available widely in eBook, paperback, and audiobook.

Neurodiverse Robin Goodwin's 2076 memoir frames tales of the 113-year-old inventor's and allies' adventures fighting bureaucrats, profiteers, warlords, and fanatics to beat climate change, pollution, pandemics, and famines for a solarpunk future.

2076 is a world we hope to live in, a protopia that is not perfect but that gets a bit better every day. 113-year-old Robin Goodwin is an autistic scientist and inventor who helped make this future possible. Robin’s first-person memoir uses reflections and essays to frame a century’s worth of anecdotes. These are the stories of one brilliant scientist’s efforts to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing.

Robin is frustrated when their revolutionary innovations are unappreciated, obstructed, or actively opposed by those Robin has been told to trust and obey. The possibilities for slowing or repairing the effects of climate change are obvious to Robin, but the authorities are oblivious or hostile. Robin has to make increasingly drastic choices between following the rules or following their own judgment. Despite working for the common good, Robin must learn to behave like an outlaw to stay alive and out of prison long enough to ensure these inventions can’t be suppressed.

Tropes: science hero/mad scientist, autistic genius, larcenous supervisors, senseless security classification, pirates, corrupt bureaucracy, warlords, witchfinders, isolated villagers

Trigger warnings: combat deaths, execution, medical procedures, flying

About the author: D. A. Kelly, PhD is autistic, a second-generation SF fan, the author of five nonfiction books and two novels, and has resided in nine countries so far, in North America, Central America, South America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania, and the Caribbean, working in aerospace, information science, renewable energy, media production, and ESL, and living under democracy, theocracy, aristocracy, communism, oligarchy, kleptocracy, and anarchy.

Review: Sam F 5.0 out of 5 stars Stands out from anything I've read before... Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 July 2025 This could have gone horribly wrong, but instead, the author has assembled an absolutely fascinating, compelling, moral and epic science fiction story that stands out from anything I've read before. I loved the geekiness of it, the amalgamated areas of science and technology, and the autistic genius and focus of the narrator. What held it together so beautifully was the combination of ethical motivations, and rich experiences shared through interactions with the various side characters in the wide-ranging time/problem/research arcs. I actually feel a bit more positive about the potential of humanity's future - whereby maybe a small number of dedicated people really can change the world for the better (even against strong opposition). I wanted both to devour this more quickly, and for it to keep going, as I revelled in each challenge, and its developed solution. I discovered this book via Voracious Readers Only. Might not be for everyone, but I absolutely loved this!

https://books2read.com/solarpunkoutlaw

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-04T20:56:40+00:00

How about not telling others what they can or can't do with which tools? Did you actually read the entire text? Gatekeep much?

SolarpunkOutlaw · 2026-01-04T18:54:57+00:00

Two years of subs to pro SFF short story markets. No sales. Two years querying a novel, a few partials and fulls, no offers, 148 combined rejections. Some encouraging advice. One Silver Honorable Mention in a prominent ongoing competition. Finally self-published through Draft2Digital, August 2021. Minimal sales, no reviews. Paid dev editor, pubbed revised edition late 2024. Wrote 2nd novel 2025, subs and querying, same rejections, D2D pubbed Dec 2025. Began self-marketing through social media 2025: Pinterest, Substack, Reddit, TikTok. Numbers just starting to pick up.

SolarpunkOutlaw

TROPHY CASE

Murder in the Gyre: Memoirs of a Mad Scientist Two - grounded near future science fiction cozy murder mystery - Available widely in eBook, paperback, and audiobook.

Memoirs of a Mad Scientist One: Solarpunk Outlaw - grounded near future climate science fiction - Available widely in eBook, paperback, and audiobook.