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 on the downward slope of the next Short Fiction Lab story. It’s a ghost story build around a road trip, and the two characters have finally hit the ghost where everything picks up and we barrel towards the inevitable conclusion. Aiming to get the draft finished this.
Also on the docket: more work on Warhol Sleeping, which has slowed down a lot due to the necessity of focusing more time on my thesis for a stretch; more work on the thesis novella, with some heavy thinking about how I can do something interesting with the conventions of the Space Marine/Bug Hunt genre.
What’s inspiring me this week?
If you’re not an aficionado of the writers-being-interviewed genre, it’s going to be really hard to explain why Meredith Maran’s Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do is such a breath of fresh air. It’s a combination of the way the interviews are framed and contextualised, and what’s being asked of the writers themselves, and it delivers interviews that simultaneously feel shorter than normal and more densely packed with useful information.
It is, however, a book that I’d strongly recommend to anyone still trying to figure out what it is they want from writing–you start to see the goals emerging in various ways as people find their answers to the book’s core question.
What action do I need to take?
I need to book in to see a physio, and figure out where the money for that is coming from in my budget. I’ve been putting this off for months as something-I’ll-deal-with-later-the-problem-is-not-that-big-yet, but it’s largely to deal with back pain that’s kicking in hard after long periods of writing and getting bad enough to wake me up in the mornings.
Given that I will typically use that early wake up to sneak in some extra work before my partner rises, I fear that I’m creating a vicious cycle that’s only to get worse.
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?
Line edits on Book 3. Two thirds down.
Got the ball rolling with the Operation: Re-Cover. Got my monthly newsletter out. Editing is the name of the game this week.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I treated myself to the World of Warcraft Chronicles Volume 1. It starts with the creation of the universe. I’ve been a sucker for that sort of thing since Tolkien’s Sillmarillion. This is a deep-dive into Azeroth’s history that reveals the reasons why there are certain ruins in particular deserts, and what certain celestial entities are on about when they ask you to do things after you’ve made the journey from farm boy to world-reknowned hero.
What action do I need to take?
I think a rejig of my basic AMS ads. Someone gave me some pointers on who I should be targeting recently. I want to hold off until I’ve had the covers redone, but maybe it’s worth setting up something now that I can copy later.
Otherwise, it’s plant my butt in the chair and edit.
If nothing else, having pre-cover data means you can start getting some idea of the difference the new covers are making.
What am I Working on This Week?
Since I’m writing again (thank you, Peter) after a few years pause, I tried to set up at least a skeletal new WordPress site, but have lost so much know-how that I set it to private and will take my time with it instead of doing a panic job to get it going.
What’s inspiring me this week?
After the writing damn broke, I finally went to Medium.com, set up an account, wrote a poem, hit “publish” (and immediately felt like puking) and was accepted as a new writer in the P.S. I love You publication. Writing again is inspiring more writing is inspiring more writing.
What action do I need to take:
I need to slow down and stop flitting between WordPress and Medium.com and just go back to the real fun, which is fleshing out two or three personal essays. I forgot to pee or eat for three hours, it was so f*cking cool. It was also a shitload of work, and my ass hurt like hell.
Congrats on getting back on track with the writing, and working to slow down and hit a pace that will work for you long term. I tend to struggle with that part a lot after a break.