Sunday Circle

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

PETERMBALL Sunday Circle

Sunday Circle Banner

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?

This week is all GenreCon, all the time. Pretty much everything else takes a backseat to getting the whole thing launched on Friday and running over the weekend, which means my checkins will be pretty sparse this week and next.

What’s inspiring me this week?

I’m about halfway through Caliban’s War, the second book of The Expanse, which I picked up after going through the first book at a pretty steady clip. I love the TV version adapted from James S. A. Corey’s books, but it’s definitely one of those series where the books are the better format. Reading this and the Game of Thrones books in relatively close succession has been really useful, as I can start seeing how they both do the big, sprawling conflict with multiple stakeholders.

What action do I need to take?

Schedule breaks that are meaningful, rather than just collapsing in a heap. This week is kinda constant and it takes conscious effort to keep myself from checking email and checking hashtags for potential problems with the con, and it’s hard to set aside that impulse and get away from the conference.

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

PETERMBALL Sunday Circle

Sunday Circle Banner

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?

We’re two weeks out from GenreCon, so creative goals are largely taking a back seat to con management, answering last-minute questions, and whatever minor Brain Jar/Writing tasks I’m fitting around the edges. My main focus this week is making progress on the thesis chapter, and setting aside two hours a day to do some serious reading and annotating as I scan the key texts for quotes I need.

What’s inspiring me this week?

One of the projects I’ve got planned for 2019 or so involves writing in the late Victorian era, right up at the end of Victoria’s reign. I keep putting this one off because I can’t picture it in my head, reverting to Jane Ausen-esque regency trappings whenever I start putting the story together simply because I’ve got a lot more reference points for lie in the 1830s than I do life in 1901.

I mentioned this to my partner and she immediately started looking for stories and shows that would start to fill that gap, and this week we sat down to watch The Paradise – a BBC adaptation of Emile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames that moves the story over to England. The first season is an incredible amount of fun, visually spectacular and very sweet, although the second season embraces a kind of absurdity that only makes sense within the context of the show what with everyone engaging in elaborate plots.

What action do I need to take?

Self-care. And not the do-something-relaxing-and-take-care-of-yourself kind, but the somewhat harder lets-be-realistic-about-whats-fucking-you-up-and-manage-boundaries kind, since the combination of con-running, press launching, and upcoming PhD confirmation have moved me over from stressed to the kind of prolonged anxiety that means I’m spending about 70% of my waking hours in a state of fight-or-flight.

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

PETERMBALL Sunday Circle

Sunday Circle Banner

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 fleshing out my notes on the first chapter of the thesis exegesis, refining the first act of the thesis novella, and doing a deep dive on the planning for a Brain Jar project, Hell Track, where I try revising the current plan and locking things down the how-and-why of all the character actors.

What’s inspiring me this week?

I’ve been continuing my reading of the hardboiled detective cannon over the last week, picking up Mickey Spillane’s first novel, I, The Jury. The book’s copy draws a connection between Spillane’s Mike Hammer and current character’s like Jack Reacher, and there’s definitely something too that. On the other hand, it’s a book that’s incredibly problematic in its depictions of psychology and pretty much anyone who isn’t white, male, and a cop; that’s the kind of thing that gets me interested in seeing how it can be updated and subverted in other works.

What action do I need to take?

I’m rolling through the to-do list for getting Brain Jar Press off the ground and realised that I’ve been shuffling the question of a web presence down the list several times. Part of me is contemplating just keeping it as a landing page here, on my site, as an interim measure, but it will mean investigating plugins since they’re not a default option with my WordPress theme.