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’ve spent the last week kicking around potential endings for a short story I’ve been writing, on and off, for about four years now. Still haven’t quite figured it out, but the most recent sequence of scenes is probably closer than I’ve been for a while.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I sat down and watched the first season of Faking It on Stan this week, and discovered that it is a show that is drastically undersold by it’s pitch. The surface description is all “two friends fake being lesbians in order to achieve status in high-school,” but the reality is far more complex of that.
The high-school setting is…well, so thoroughly liberal that it verges on being an SF story. The writing is sharp. The show is…funny.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
I need to sit down and do both my May Checkpoint and my weekly checkpoint, both of which I’ve been I’ve been slack about over the last seven days. I’ll be spending some quality time with the bullet journal this morning.
I’ve ended up taking a short, unscheduled break from writing newsletters over the last fourteen days. Regular GenrePunk Ninja transmissions will resume
Like many of you, I have good weeks and bad weeks on the writing front. This week has been rocky, and if
Welcome to GenrePunk Ninja supplemental, where I occasionally post foundational essays written before I launched the GenrePunk Ninja newsletter, especially if they’re
20 Responses
I actually really like Faking It! It’s a lot of fun, even if it can get a bit OTT. Also yay for getting closer to the end of a short story. I’m working through a pretty murky middle of one at the moment in a redraft and it’s killing me slowly.
Anywho, my Sunday Circle is here.
Wow, Sophie – how amazing is that Kino library resource! Gorgeous – and useful. I hope you get through your redraft in one piece.
I can’t thank you enough for posting the Kino Library link – I’ve already subscribed to that super-quick!
Regarding finding time over the next week – how do you find the time around plane flights, typically? Having travelled a lot for work, I find that the transit time to and from airports and the flight time itself can be really useful provided there’s nothing else making demands on your time at that particular point.
What am I working on? Writing enough horrible draft of the novella to refine my outline; setting up an assembly-line arrangement for an intensive bout of illustration; finding background sources for the next novel project. (The Regency is finally out on its first query!)
What’s inspiring me? I started watching Outlander while in a state of collapse the other day, and while I’m pretty sure it’s not for me long-term, it was a very easy and gratifying watch – just hitting a lot of the notes I expected and, in that state, welcomed. I’ve been following the costume designer on Twitter for a while, though, and that’s definitely inspiring: costume design as an integral part of the story-telling. I’ve been enjoying Flotsam very much, too! And I’ve been reading literary critical theory, which tends to give me story ideas. And I introduced my housemate to Forever, which is both so cliched and very charming, mostly because of how Ioan Gruffudd and Judd Hirsch play their family unit. I’ve a weakness for domesticity on film.
What part of my project am I avoiding? Setting up for the art, but a big box of paper arrived the other day, and my parents shouldn’t need me as much this month so fingers crossed.
Ooh, the first query – well done and good luck! As for Outlander, if we’re talking series one, than perhaps consider passing the last two episodes. I recall you finding similar nastiness in The Captive Prince uncomfortable and let’s just say, the Outlander take is extremely, err, realistic.
I’ve never heard of Forever but I do have a soft spot for Ioan Gruffudd who invariably plays his more comic roles with a subtle knowing nod to the audience that somehow adds to the performance rather than detracting.
I hope this month is kinder to you in terms of your available time!
And woo for The Regency getting out there into the world for you!
Congrats on getting the query out! How exciting! And packages of art supplies is always a fun thing. ^_^ Sounds like you’ve got your game face on, so best of luck with it! 😀
What am I working on?
Oh more on the Fun Flimsy. In line with The Weekend Novelist, I skipped to the end this week and pounded out the Climax. It’ll need refining but the guts is certainly there and it was great to hit thousands of words in a session instead of tens. As a result, I’m now getting firm ideas for the Black Moment… Curious thing is – TWN doesn’t seem to “have” this, per se. Unless it’s Plot Point Two. Er, help?
What’s inspiring me this week?
Last week I spent the better part of three days at The Old Rectory – a writing retreat in County Mayo, Ireland, that I cannot recommend highly enough. My sole responsibility there was to write – and to show up for meals (which were agreed at mutually suitable times, not set in stone). A very artistic house, piano and guitar played by the owner’s son of an evening, poetry books scattered everywhere, Fado music on stereo for breakfast (traditional Portuguese songs of longing and loss), art, sketchwork abounding, more books, and an abandoned church with graveyard next door.
This week… Well, this week it’s school holidays (AGAIN) and child-centric activities are on the cards. Also, I have to make a business website. Writing shall be scrounged once more in the evenings.
What part of my project am I avoiding?
No avoidance, save that of rewriting. NEW MATERIAL is the goal. I think I may not exactly follow TWN’s requirement to now do the midpoint (although I know it), but will keep to this notion of writing Key Scenes rather than maintain a linear production.
The Weekend Novelist sounds really interesting as a process for moving writing forward – the idea of writing key scenes rather than creating structural glue makes a lot of sense! (out of curiosity, what is the Black Moment you’re referring to? Is that what’s typically referred to in 3 act structure a’la Robert McKee as the low point in Act 2?)
I guess so… *looks doubtful*. I’d have to know the McKee reference, but sounds likely. It’s a common term in romance circles: the False Victory in Beat the Cat parlance, the Ordeal in the Hero’s Journey. In romance, it tends to immediately follow a sex scene – largely as sex invariably fails to solve the issues keeping hero/heroine apart but also, I suspect, for the other “taste of death” implications of the La Petite Mort.
It’s been a while since I read through TWN, but flipping through it now, it doesn’t look like he mentions it specifically, though it’s kind of hinted at in the example of The Accidental Creative as taking place as a result of/following Plot Point II, when Macon (at Rose’s wedding) turns away from the positive progress he’s been making and goes back to his old (and unhealthy) ways. He may not be consciously aware of it being a “Black Moment” for him, but he’s definitely worse off after PPII. So slightly post-PPII. Does that help?
Have you read K.M. Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel? (There’s a link in my post, I think.) As someone who’s struggled a lot with structure, I felt like her approach to the Three Act structure enlightened/explained some structural elements in a way I hadn’t see elsewhere, and really broke it down enough for me to wrap my head around.
And hey–TWN is a great book, but you do what you’ve got to do to keep the energy going. No point locking yourself into anything if it doesn’t help! 🙂
What am I working on?
This week coming is meetings for tentpole projects, working on the commercial demo, and likely doing more recording for a video game project. I’m going to try to do my first proper monthly review for this year, too – I’ve been good with quarterly checkpoitn reviews so far, but monthly reviews have fallen by the wayside. Also, updating performance resume, which is lagging far, far behind the body of work.
What’s inspiring me this week?
This is a tough one, as this week has been a bit full of either meetings or social events in the evenings, so I’ve been taking my inspiration on the run. Things that have really filled me up this week though:
Reading Cam Rogers’ Quantum Break: Zero State. Cam’s ability to throw in beautiful turns of phrase without drawing attention to the writing at the expense of the flow of the story is delicious. It’s the kind of book that I’d love to do an audiobook version of, but at the same time worry about leaving so much opportunity in the text unutilised.
Having finished Art of Learning and already finding some of the principles in the book useful in keeping an even mental keel in situations of stress (like robbing a fictional bank: http://popupplayground.com.au/small-time-criminals/)
The rare experience of seeing my work out in the wild at a museum exhibit and being able to share that with friends
What part of my project am I avoiding?
Probably the biggest thing being avoided for one of the tentpole projects is sitting down and doing a slab of research on avenues to pursue for funding, but at the same time that’s waiting for a meeting this Friday to hopefully open up some options. So, I’m not sure on this one, which either means there’s no avoidance at the moment (but rather prioritisation) or whatever I’m avoiding is buried deep. Hrm.
OMG that “robbing the bank” scenario looks like so much fun! Was that your exhibit?
Did you ever get Bryn’s email about Iago?
My exhibit was actually at University of Melbourne’s “Somewhere in France” exhibition – the Small Time Criminals event was a fun thing with friends.
I did indeed get Bryn’s email, and responded a little while back. I’ve sat down and worked through the text, so I’ve got a few questions I’ll be shooting his way likely next weekend. Thank you again for the introduction!
Pop Up Playground sounds like a blast! (Reminds me of The Man Who Knew Too Little in the absolutely best way. ^_^) What fun!
Good luck with the monthly checkpoint. It’s something I should think about doing but just…haven’t…yet… 🙂 It’ll be great when it’s done, though!
It was a hell of a lot of fun! It’s the first Pop Up Playground event I’d been to, and it was just wonderfully fun, and smoothly run.
Thanks for the well wishes – I’ll let you know how I go this weekend! 🙂
Let us know you go with your checkpoints, Pete! I’ll be competing in the same sack race to get my checkpoints done next Friday, before the first of two toddler birthday parties this month!
Good luck on the checkpoints check-in, Peter! It can be a challenge to make the time to do something that feels a bit adjacent to getting work done, but it sounds like it’ll be great for driving the productivity of the month. ^_^ I should do that this month too…
Out of curiosity, when you’re not on deadline for a short story, what is your typical turn-around timeline? I often force a finale on a story, only to later (maybe years later) rewrite it completely because I just wasn’t able to conceive the proper ending at the time. I used to write a story up to a stumped-point and leave it, and I feel like that might actually be a better, more honest approach (and cultivates a more creative solution) than just forcing an end, which creates a false sense of completion (and often a bad-taste towards the story as a whole). What are your thoughts?
My Sunday Circle is over here this week.