unday. The day of rest. The day of having a sleep in and getting the laundry done. The day of The Sunday Circle, where I ask the creative-types who follow this blog to weigh in about their goals, inspirations, and challenges for the coming week. 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 week two (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? Still going through the opening chapters of Space Marines: Pew! Pew! Pew! Eschewing my usual goals of trying to hit a specific plot-point and getting back to basics – I want to spend 14 hours on the manuscript over the next week, as measured by RescueTime (which only counts the active typing time, not the sitting in the space and staring time).
What’s inspiring me this week? The most recent episode of NXT on the WWE Network. It’s hard to explain the brilliance of this show if you’re not a wrestling fan, but in terms of concise character work, it was phenomenal. Wrestlers will get, maybe, a minute of promo time to get over their characters and conflicts every week, which means they need to embrace economy and really focus what they’re doing. This often goes wrong, or comes off as lame. This week had a whole bunch of short promos that were brilliant.
What part of my project an I avoiding? There’s a series of clunky action scenes that need to be fixed and I’m avoiding them ’cause I hate action scenes. Which may be a failing, in an action-oriented Space Marine book.
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
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(Let’s try this Facebook thing shall we?)
What am I working on this week? Queerish PNR! Halfway through Chapter Three! Plot is happening, and so far I haven’t had reason to diverge from my rough outline, which is quite pleasing.
What’s inspiring me this week? Lots of time hanging with my characters and letting them comment on everything I see. Strictly Come Dancing, for some reason. A London band called The Indelicates, who I love, seem to have a kind of weird rotating earworm radio station thing going on right now. I’m not complaining. Meanwhile, reading Emma Newman’s By Any Other Name (I love her fantasy worldbuilding!) and looking forward to the next book on my list, Maelstrom by Jordan L. Hawk, which is the latest in a m/m fantasy series with Lovecraftian leanings and just came out this week. Totally my crack.
What part of my project am I avoiding? Based on the evidence of the last three weeks, Saturdays seem to be a bit shit for writing? I had a real blast finishing the most recent scene on Friday night, with lots of encouragement from an IRC channel I belong to, but today has been mostly not-writing. I have once again reached a point of “I need to figure out how I’m going to approach the next bit”. Apparently I do this every week.
I might be way off track here, but is there something that makes Saturday different outside of the regular writing rhythm that makes you hit those analysis problems? Like, is it when your energy is highest, so you’re more aware of structural issues that you might not worry about as much on a Friday night when you’ve got a head of steam behind your writing?
What am I working on this week? A book cover – I finally organised reference photos for it (the story is here) and sent the pencils off yesterday for approval, so now I need to tidy up the background and do the colour-flats. I also need to pencil and ink a 5 page comic. I finished the first draft of the short story! It is dreadful, and I may edit it this week.
What’s inspiring me this week? Dorothy Dunnett – I’m onto the third book of the Lymond chronicles. I feel like I’m being educated as a reader as well as a writer. I’m also rotating through The Accidental Creative (thanks for the recommendation) and The Road to Middlemarch (via Lucy Sussex who reviewed it here), which is creating an interesting interweaving of creative theory and creative biography/autobiography.
What part of my project am I avoiding? Sketching out the dim background details of the book cover. I *know* preparation pays off but I still kick against it.
What am I working on this week? Continuing progress on closing out the audiobook editing. Progress feels slower than I’d like. Trying to unpick that. Also the usual run of auditions, online training. FINALLY put down some audio for the video game character concept that’s been kicking my arse for a while. Got to a point today while playing with it on the way home from dropping a friend off at the airport where I was happy with it. There is no better place to play with voice acting than by yourself in a car.
What’s inspiring me this week? The cyberpunk deep dive continues. This is the first time that I really feel like I’m exploring a genre in depth, and not just engaging with the surface. Rewatched Blade Runner (final cut) on Saturday night, and it was amazing. Been listening to French electronic music I found via http://8tracks.com when I went looking for cyberpunk music (whatever the hell the internet figures that might be) Reading Diamond Age after it was recommended glowingly by friends.
The other thing that’s really been working for me this week is the practice of morning pages: three pages written freehand in tiny scrawl just dumping whatever’s in my head. Focus has been hard to come by this week, but this lets me unravel whatever tangle is in my head and be my own cheerleader/therapist to work it through, or at least get it out of my head and onto paper. And I’ve been keeping a 3×5 system card handy because most of the day’s priorities fall out of that stream of consciousness, so I can jot them there without stopping the exercise. Really helped today in particular: I started work properly at around 11, but was able to unkink my brain and just be focused on getting stuff done.
The other thing I wanted to mention that’s been helping me is an app recommended by a friend: http://forest.cc Available on iPhone, iPad, and for most browsers. My worst procrastination habit is just popping into Facebook for a few minutes here or there, which becomes ten minute stretches. There are really useful conversations over there, but I want to limit my time there more. The deal with Forest is that you start a 30 minute timer, and if you stay away from sites like YouTube or Facebook for 30 minutes, then congratulations! You’ve grown a virtual tree. You hit those sites before the timer is up, your tree dies. It might seem a little silly, but that disincentive is working for me at the moment.
What part of my project am I avoiding? I’ve developed a mysterious intermittent pop somewhere in my recording chain, which affects all recording across the board. I’m not relishing unpicking where the hell its coming from, so I’m trying to just work around that for the moment. Ugh>
Yeesh. Didn’t meant to turn that into an essay!
Ooh – the URL for the Forest app is actually http://forestapp.cc
To ad to your Cyberpunk movie list: Source Code. Very much in the “what is reality” mode of The Matrix, but not at all interested in doing the big action scenes.
Perfect. Thanks!