Sunday Circle

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 particular his Hap & Leonard books, but after devouring the first half of the series a few years back I ran into a roadblock in the form of Captains Outrageous. It’s a book where the tenor of the series shifts a little: more recurring characters start appearing, the primary character’s lives start to settle down as they hit middle age, and the book doesn’t have the lean efficiency of Lansdale’s earlier novels. So I’d keep starting it, then setting it aside.

This week I finally sat down and read it, largely using it as a test case for some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about with regards to the thesis.

And this time I devoured the book, gulping down the narrative in huge bites. The stuff that Lansdale does extremely well is still there, but the series expectations have shifted a little–Captains Outrageous feels a lot like a pilot episode, showing us characters undergoing a moment of profound change that will guide their story from this point on. Given that they’ve been relatively iconic, up to this point, the subconscious reacts to the shift as I read.

What action do I need to take?

Marking. I have a small pile of papers that need to be graded, and no real desire to do them at the moment.

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. I’ll also be re-reading the other books in the Keith Murphy series, making notes for things that I need to keep in mind.

What’s inspiring me this week?

I am both devastated and inspired by last night’s results in the Australian election, which promises three years of a government I’m fundamentally opposed to on every level but also serves as a stark reminder that my primary contribution towards getting a world I want to live in is showing up to vote every three years.

There’s a world of possible contributions that could be made beyond that, as an individual as an artist, and I spent a lot of time thinking those through last night while watching the results come in.

All too often I check out of those kinds of decisions because they either a) feel too hard or overwhelming, or b) feel like they need more than individual action to actually have an impact. But the lesson of being an writer is focusing on regular, cumulative efforts and watching them payoff over time–and I’m starting to think it’s time to apply my logic here.

What action do I need to take?

I cleared 100+ emails that had been accumulating in my inbox over the past week, in addition to responding to a whole bunch of outstanding messages in other venues. I’m still not back in the swing of things–my anxiety kicks in bad when I’ve been AWOL on a conversation for a while–but this week is all about working my way through all of those and finally getting up to date on the hard stuff .

I also need to get across all the changes happening over at Mailchimp at the moment, and figure out the long-term implications for my newsletter.