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 settling back into a work groove this week, right in time for a two week break from uni teaching where I can swing the bulk of my focus around to my own work. There is some marking and thesis writing on the docket, but the big project du jour is either a novella or short novel about boxing, space truckers, and too many hours reading Howard’s Sailor Steve Costigan stories while also watching The Expanse.
Admittedly, I had a similar draft to this underway at the start of the year, but it kept iterating outward to become something else. I’ve stripped this one back to its bare bones, and i think I’ve finally got a handle on the character which allows me to keep the focus on them.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I’m in the middle of a lot of really inspiring books, but I’m going to repeat a book that I’ve recommended very recently: Damon Suede’s Verbalize. While I watched some great movies this week, and read some good fiction, I started a deep read of Suede’s work right as I started planning the novella I kicked off on Monday and started building a development process using the exercises he lays out.
And while his core advice–figure out what characters do, rather than who they are–seems like such a simple thing, the impact it’s made on my writing process is immense. Characters who have previously seemed flat and elusive suddenly have a through-line to their narrative that makes them comprehensible; scenes are built around conflicting tactics between two characters, and immediately become easier to write because the focus is on the consequences of those two approaches coming up against each other.
Even the major beats of the three-act structure become easier to lay down, because they’re often about showing how a particular strategic approach fails or succeeds.
Having put together a system, I’m now running every problematic, “I don’t know how to write this” draft I’ve got through it, seeing if it starts to spark something that makes me eager to write and finish it.
What action do I need to take?
I’ve got to finish uploading the Short Fiction Lab stories to a bunch of stores that aren’t Amazon this week, and I’d like to start the redraft of the current short story once I get all the marking off my plate later in the week. Both are things that are likely to slip my mind by Thursday, when I’m expecting my schedule to open up, so I’m logging them here to help me remember.
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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What am I working on this week?
As with last week, the prequel novella to Ghost Electricity. Hopefully, I will not have the series of near-disasters in the Day Job that have made mincemeat of my schedule lately.
As a rule, I normally make sure I know what’s happening next when I sit down to write. But last week I, when I finally got back to writing on Friday, I didn’t know what happened next. So I sacrificed a writing session to research and planning.
The result was weasels who ride dust-devils and have scythes instead of paws, so I feel the session redeemed itself. Tomorrow, I get to write that scene. But it needs to remain the exception.
What’s inspiring me this week?
Not the book I just read. I should think about why I didn’t like it. Too much time setting up characters who will be long-running through the series, not enough focus on the story itself. I can see why the decisions were made, but I don’t think it quite worked.
One thing that is inspiring me this week is a review I received from fellow author Phil Parker: https://www.philparker-fantasywriter.com/bookreviews. He talks about what he thinks my influences are. While a positive review is always welcome, it’s nice to be reminded of the stuff you like, and which you wanted to put into a story of your own.
Many of us write the stories we do because we want to read them. I’ve always liked that.
What action do I need to take?
I buggered around with WordPress again, then parked it for the moment. I have one of my three new covers and I decided, to hell with it, I’m sending it out into the world. I’ll use it as an excuse to do a bit of promo this week.
You know, relentless pace is a really good description for action in both Ghost Electricity and The Clock Strikes. It’s subtly–and crucially–different to fast paced.
Also: Dude! That new cover for Ghost Electricity is awesome.
Um, but is “relentless” a good thing?
And thanks, I’m happy with the new cover too. The new one for The Mortal Edge is up now too. Currently sorting out the cover for Book 3 and will have it in time for its release.
I’m hoping to get a small amount of marketing effort going again now that I have the new covers. Not a lot, as I still don’t have a lot of time, but a bit more than I’ve been doing.
It’s an aesthetic–good is in the eye of the beholder 🙂
But it may be worst throwing it into an ad at some point and doing an A/B test against faced paced, just to see which people respond too.