ECLECTIC PROJECTS BLOG
Sunday Circle

The Sunday Circle: What Are You Working On This Week?

The Sunday Circle is the weekly check-in where I ask the creative-types who follow this blog to weigh in about their goals, inspirations, and challenges for the coming week. The logic behind it can be found here. Want to be involved? It’s easy – just answer three questions in the comments or on your own blog (with a link in the comments here, so that everyone can find them). After that, throw some thoughts around about other people’s projects, ask questions if you’re so inclined. Be supportive above all. Then show up again next Sunday when the circle updates next, letting us know how you did on your weekly project and what you’ve got coming down the pipe in the coming week (if you’d like to part of the circle, without subscribing to the rest of the blog, you can sign-up for reminders via email here). MY CHECK-IN What am I working on this week? I’m part-way through marking at the moment, which means the bulk of this week will be spent grading and critiquing about 72,000 words of student fiction before a Thursday deadline. I’m averaging about 12,000 words of marking a day at the moment, so I’m more-or-less on target. I’m usually grabbing an hour or so for other work over coffee, which are being spent working on Project Rad and the Exile rewrite. Mostly, at this stage, working by hand, brain dumping everything I know about both projects and what the stories are actually about, figuring out

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16/06/2019 1 Comment
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

A Confluence of Time/Money/Success Posts

There are days when the internet feeds you an interesting series of posts, comments, and articles that all seem to weave together in interesting ways. For example, this quartet of things have all showed up on my radar within a twenty-four hour period: Charlotte Nash’a comments about the limits of time on Tuesday’s post about bad systems and newsletters, which I read a few hours before… Kameron Hurley’s Locus essay about burnout, the expectation of productivity, and the reluctance to say “do less” in our culture at the moment. This post by Daphne Huff about writing a novel when you have zero time due to running a family, a full-time job, and a podcast (which seems like madness when read alongside everything else, but the final section about focusing on one aspect of craft/publishing at a time in the final section orients it with in this list). And this highly interesting twitter rant by @GravisLizard about the way we react to the phrase $100 shoes as if it’s a Gold Plated Toilet, rather than a sign that our understanding of money, value, and cost is fucked up and set to the standards of an 1980s economy, and the implications of that in terms of fixing larger problems. I’m intrigued by this because the indie publishing world is hyperfocused on hustle at the moment, with a lot of people getting very vocal about the success they’ve had through producing fast and launching content regularly. It’s undeniably a useful tactic–I’ve seen my

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13/06/2019 2 Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

The Archive Impulse

The first blog I truly followed belonged to Neil Gaiman, when he added the American Gods dairy to his website back in 2001. It was quickly followed by Caitlin Kiernan’s Low Red Moon journal, which quickly metamorphosed into her Livejournal (and has stayed there, even now, after Livejournal has become an archaic thing occupied by Russians and die-hards refusing to walk away). I’m not sure when, exactly, I started my own web presence. The first site I owned was coded by my friend Sean and set up on a friend’s server, a place to flag gaming things. It was quickly followed by a Livejournal, where I didn’t need to know HTML or ask friends for help to make an update. This blog, which turned ten in November last year, was a grudging concession to the idea that I needed a site I controlled more than I needed Livejournal’s friend’s feature. When I was young, you’d occasionally find books full of writer’s letters or notebooks. Compilations of things they’d written that offered a glimpse behind the curtain. These days, you can trace a writers history by going to their site and scrolling back. Those first posts I followed are still out there, archived on Gaiman’s site, a glimpse into a younger writer and the beginning of an ongoing chronicle that evolves with Gaiman’s career. Kiernan’s Low Red Moon Journal is still live, waiting for those interested in her history as a writer to find their way there. Every now and then

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12/06/2019 No Comments
Smart Advice from Smart People

Bad Systems & The Republic of Newsletters

Criag Mod recently did a six-week walk across Japan during which he purposefully removed himself from the phone as a tool of social media. Of course, such things aren’t new these days. 2019 seems to be the year everyone stopped and looked at social networks with a critical eye, evaluating the space they occupy in our lives. This is particular true of freelance artists and writers, for whom the promise of connection the internet offers is of great interest indeed if the cost-to-benefit ratio can be managed. What separates Mod out is his background as an essayist, and in particular an essayist who frequently meditates on the intersection of technology and publishing. This mean he’s got a capacity to turn a lovely phrase when noting particular ironies:  I consider “bad” to be design patterns that subvert impulse control. Anything that obviates agency over one’s attention. Bad is being manipulated by an algorithm in favor of the company over the human. Bad is being stuck in a “tiny loop” of the mind and body — a senseless series of actions that span minutes, hours, days, consume years, and add up to nothing or almost nothing, and that benefit (ideally: tranquility, growth, curiosity) no one but the company (in reality: engagement, ad views) who owns the container in which the loop takes place. To be a bit reductive, for example: Bad is Tinder getting you addicted to the pseudo-pornography of hundreds or thousands of potential mates, the high of a “match,” as

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11/06/2019 4 Comments
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

The Brain Jar’s Heartbeat

I’ve been reading ReWork and It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy At Work over the weekend, processing the business advice of the 37 Signals/Basecamp founders who have rejected the notion of building a growth-at-all-costs business. The former is very philosophy focused, while the latter is a ore process-oriented approach which implements that philosophy. One of the ideas that intrigued me in It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy At Work is the discussion of heartbeats–a way of overcoming communication challenges in a decentralised workspace without devolving into meetings and reports. There’s a more detailed discussion of it over on their blog (and another discussion here), but at it’s core its a system of automated check-ins where folks list what they’ve worked on with their day, coupled with a system for discussion and requests for updates. It’s a really intriguing idea, but not terribly useful in a company of one (which, essentially, most writers are regardless of whether they self-publish or not). With that in mind, I did what I often do when encountering group-based management systems that seem like useful ideas: I figured out a way to deploy it online. The last time I did this it launched the Sunday Circle, which has been rolling on for a bout three years now and continues to be useful to me. This time around, I’ve been doing analog heartbeat updates on pen and paper then posting them up on Instagram. The first one turned out a little rough: But I got a lot

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10/06/2019 No Comments
Sunday Circle

The Sunday Circle: What Are You Working On This Week?

The Sunday Circle is the weekly check-in where I ask the creative-types who follow this blog to weigh in about their goals, inspirations, and challenges for the coming week. The logic behind it can be found here. Want to be involved? It’s easy – just answer three questions in the comments or on your own blog (with a link in the comments here, so that everyone can find them). After that, throw some thoughts around about other people’s projects, ask questions if you’re so inclined. Be supportive above all. Then show up again next Sunday when the circle updates next, letting us know how you did on your weekly project and what you’ve got coming down the pipe in the coming week (if you’d like to part of the circle, without subscribing to the rest of the blog, you can sign-up for reminders via email here). MY CHECK-IN What am I working on this week? I’m setting aside the next weeks weeks to do rewrites on the Flotsam/Keith Murphy series, with the coming week focused on adding some scenes to  Exile in order to balance out the narrative–fleshing out a subplot that got truncated by the word-count limits back when I first wrote the series; adding in a little more scaffolding for the series based upon my PhD research. At the same time, I’m trying to lock down the branding of the series on the cover and blurb front. What’s inspiring me this week? I spent the weekend reading both

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09/06/2019 2 Comments
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

The Dailies

A few weeks back, I started picking up an old habit I’d left behind. It goes like this: every morning, I tend to wake up and work my way through a three-page planning document designed to help me frame my to-do list. It started out as a bunch of notes from Todd Henry’s Die Empty, then gradually evolved to include little bits and pieces from other routines I’d trialed (such as this one at the bottom of of Tobias Buckell‘s bullet journal post). It’s a useful document that walks me through four major areas of focus with dot point prompts to guide my planning: what’s important to me today? What am I trying to change or progress? Who will I talk to and what do I value about them? What are the things that need to be done, and the things I may have forgotten? It makes for a nice little ritual to work through over coffee, and generally gives me about two pages of detail to guide my activities for the next twenty-four hours. I set it aside when I left office work behind and my focus narrowed, but as I move into the tail end of my PhD, I’m starting to accumulate more focus and split my focus a lot more than I’d like. Ergo, I’ve busted out the list once more, and started a dedicated notebook I’ve dubbed The Book of Days. Right at the end of the process there’s time and questions set aside for dreaming:

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06/06/2019 No Comments
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

Hope and Fear and Writing

I’ve been tutoring creative writing at UQ for the last few months, going back to some early principles and trying to explain them in different ways. Sometimes it takes a particular example or way of phrasing a technique for it to click with a particular student, but you can always see the epiphany and the excitement when the see how stories work. I know a few things about writing, but I read how-to books voraciously because I want other people’s phrasing and techniques in my toolkit for things like this. One of the winners, this time around, was this description of how scenes/stories work from Robin Laws Beating the Story: More importantly, the important thing to keep in mind that he drops a little later in the chapter: We don’t just want to know what happens next. We’re rooting for an outcome. I don’t often do this kind of planning up front, but it’s the first thing I turn to every time a scene or story isn’t working. What do I want the reader to hope for? What result do I want them to fear?

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05/06/2019 1 Comment
Sunday Circle

The Sunday Circle: What Are You Working On This Week?

The Sunday Circle is the weekly check-in where I ask the creative-types who follow this blog to weigh in about their goals, inspirations, and challenges for the coming week. The logic behind it can be found here. Want to be involved? It’s easy – just answer three questions in the comments or on your own blog (with a link in the comments here, so that everyone can find them). After that, throw some thoughts around about other people’s projects, ask questions if you’re so inclined. Be supportive above all. Then show up again next Sunday when the circle updates next, letting us know how you did on your weekly project and what you’ve got coming down the pipe in the coming week (if you’d like to part of the circle, without subscribing to the rest of the blog, you can sign-up for reminders via email here). MY CHECK-IN What am I working on this week? I’m in the process of re-branding the Flotsam series this week, fleshing out the first novella and re-thinking all the sales copy. I keep getting stuck on Project Rad and letting the momentum stall, and I suspect the reason for it is that I’m subconsciously worrying about doing something that doesn’t fit with the rest of the series.  What’s inspiring me this week? I started listening to David Tennant’s podcast a few weeks back, and this week went back to re-listen to the episodes where he interviews his Good Omens co-star Michael Sheen and Jessica

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02/06/2019 1 Comment
Sunday Circle

The Sunday Circle: What Are You Working On This Week?

The Sunday Circle is the weekly check-in where I ask the creative-types who follow this blog to weigh in about their goals, inspirations, and challenges for the coming week. The logic behind it can be found here. Want to be involved? It’s easy – just answer three questions in the comments or on your own blog (with a link in the comments here, so that everyone can find them). After that, throw some thoughts around about other people’s projects, ask questions if you’re so inclined. Be supportive above all. Then show up again next Sunday when the circle updates next, letting us know how you did on your weekly project and what you’ve got coming down the pipe in the coming week (if you’d like to part of the circle, without subscribing to the rest of the blog, you can sign-up for reminders via email here). MY CHECK-IN What am I working on this week? The week just gone was not a good writing week–the election had banged me around more than I thought, and we’re hitting the pointy end of the semester, so good habits fell by the wayside. I did get the rough framework for my novella’s final act down, though, even if it’s a little scrappy. My big goal for this week is getting the habits back on track, and getting that final act in place so I can flesh out the middle. What’s inspiring me this week? I’m a huge fan of Joe Lansdale, and in

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26/05/2019 No Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Podcast Rec: 50 Things That Shaped the Modern Economy

For years, I worked on the theory that I was not built for podcast listening. I didn’t like the formats people used, and the signal-to-noise ratio didn’t add up when I looked at fitting them into my schedule. Then I discovered the genre of podcasts I really enjoyed: short, topic-focused essays and the interview series, as exemplified by Writing Excuses, the Allusionist, and Chris Jericho’s wrestling interviews. Recently a whole host of the podcasts I listen to regularly went dormant, so I started searching for things to replace it. The one that’s really captured my attention: BBC World’s 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy. The series is everything I want from the format: short, informative, and generally built around a seemingly innocuous topic that ultimately changes the way you see or understand the world around you. Which isn’t a bad result for something which spends 8 minutes charting the history of things like barcodes and spreadsheets. The transition from “this is how someone built a program to handle complex accounting calculations” to “this is actually a meditation on what ‘the robots will take our jobs’ actually looks like’ is deftly handled, and always leaves me wanting to go and check out their source texts to find out more. Strongly recommended.

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24/05/2019 No Comments
Sunday Circle

The Sunday Circle: What Are You Working On This Week?

The Sunday Circle is the weekly check-in where I ask the creative-types who follow this blog to weigh in about their goals, inspirations, and challenges for the coming week. The logic behind it can be found here. Want to be involved? It’s easy – just answer three questions in the comments or on your own blog (with a link in the comments here, so that everyone can find them). After that, throw some thoughts around about other people’s projects, ask questions if you’re so inclined. Be supportive above all. Then show up again next Sunday when the circle updates next, letting us know how you did on your weekly project and what you’ve got coming down the pipe in the coming week (if you’d like to part of the circle, without subscribing to the rest of the blog, you can sign-up for reminders via email here). MY CHECK-IN What am I working on this week? The first draft of Project Rad involves a lot of sprawling mess at this stage, a proliferation of no-longer-useful scenes and narrative diversions that didn’t pan out. But it’s got me tot he point where I can see the underlying structure of the novel (and, at this stage, I’m predicting it’ll be a short novel) and the voice of it is starting to come together.  The bulk of this week will be spent working on the third act, laying down the end-point before I go and flesh out the two halves of the second act.

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19/05/2019 No Comments

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