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?
Short story rewrites for the short piece I finished last Sunday. It’s a chaotic week, filled with book launches and other distractions, so I’m intentionally keeping the goals easy 🙂
What’s inspiring me this week?
While I’ve got no particular interest in playing Pokemon Go, I’ve been talking to people who are playing and engaging with a lot of the commentary surrounding it. It’s an incredibly intriguing phenomenon, in that it’s the first really large-scale augmented reality event that has a noticeable impact on on public spaces.
Overland’s essays, in particular, have been fascinating reading. I recommend checking out tbe essays on Pokemon Go and the Situationists and, particularly, the politics of digital gaming in public.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
I’ve been avoiding edits for the last four days, on account of…well, at this point it’s best described as “2016 doing its thing.” The next few weeks are going to be more interesting than planned, so I need to get a bit better at making time for writing things than I usually am.
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
16 Responses
My housemate and I are basically obsessed with Pokemon Go. I’m not sure about the longevity of it, but for now, we’re having a blast. I’ll have to check out those articles about it.
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Sorry to hear that life has become more complicated, Sophie. :-/
Sounds like it might be a good time to clear the deck regarding your expectations of what’s important, and build up from the bottom? (also to get a sense of what’s achievable?) Not sure if that’s pat advice, but I found recently that sweeping the decks regarding daily schedule really helped (although I’m still not necessarily hitting everything I want in a regular day)
Also, once you run out of Legends of Tomorrow, it might be worth checking out Leverage if you haven’t before – I say this owning a copy but not having watched it, but it comes highly recommended, and ticks some or all of the same boxes.
What am I working on this week?
The last week has largely been a wash for anything non-critical thanks to the latest daughter-delivered lurgy. Today is a quarterly review, and this week will be mostly working on editing for a long-form narration gig. That, and trying to tie up some loose ends.
What’s inspiring me this week?
Pirates still suck very much in the brain, so I’ve started reading On Stranger Tides, and I’m loving it. Thank you for the poke on this one, @tanaudel/Kathleen! I’ve got two historical books on pirates queued up to read this quarter as well.
While I was sick I watched most of S1 of Marco Polo and while it has its problems, it tickled some of the same adventure in far-flung places nerves. And boyo, did it make me want to go horseriding again.
What am I avoiding?
Up until the sickness things had been going pretty well. The only thing I need to push harder on is the project that’s commercially lucrative in the shorter term, which is getting the commercial demo together.
Bravo for getting to the quarterly review! Hope the inevitable child-borne illness is on its way out. Best of luck with the coming week’s focus!
Peter: I’ve been finding the public response to Pokémon Go really interesting as well. Probably from my perspective more on the immediate social response, than the more complex social theory, but I love that it’s had such an impact, and that there are interesting conversations circling it.
I hope that 2016 eases up on you in the week to come.
I’ve seen all the Pokemon Go craze online but yet to see any impact in real life. Normally this would be because we live in a rural location but this weekend we’ve been in the UK just outside London and yet… still nothing.
Very quick update for me…
What am I working on this week?
The Fun Flimsy is DONE. Now I’m desperately in need of beta readers because there’s a deadline for me to get this to the publisher requesting it. If Maggiedot is reading this and still keen, please let me know!!!
What’s inspiring me this week?
Just finished Eva Ibbotson’s “Journey to the River Sea” and, curiously, it’s almost the introduction by Michael Morpugo that’s most affecting. Not my favourite of her novels – I found it very predictable – but a lovely one all the same. Hoping to catch Ghostbusters!
What am I avoiding?
Back to part-time writing and first point of order is amending the 2nd MS with agent feedback. (Although I’ve a kicking idea for a new soft scifi/rom.) Had a really heartfelt “thought hard but decided no” rejection this week (from someone I admire very much) on first MS and absolutely gutted over that.
Absolutely! Send it over! 😀 Email’s slatermaggie@gmail.com. So sorry to hear about the rejection, what a bummer! At least they had to think hard about it. May the next editor be just the right fit for it. 🙂
Sorry to hear about the rejection! Good luck with the next try.
*What am I working on this week?*
Submitted two big poems to competitions, with another one to go. Three of my four promised subs for the fortnight done.
*What’s inspiring me this week?*
Writing something I’ve never tried before.
Finally rewatching Top of the Lake, after seeing the first half of it a couple of years ago. Set in NZ, it is lovely at multiple levels to hear accents and culture I recognise as my own in an emotionally complex and well-shot world. Among other things, a great study of male privilege.
Andy Jackson’s new chapbook is humanely gorgeous.
*What am I avoiding?*
Work/life stuff. Living and breathing words at the moment. Redrafting like a mofo–more than 30 drafts each of aforementioned big poems. I think a lack of commitment to redrafting is one of the things that’s held me back as a writer. Rejoined the entire social media world. Will see how that goes…
I started Top of the Lake a couple years ago, and really enjoyed the first half–I didn’t get a chance to finish it before Netflix shifted it off the streaming roster. But it was fascinating. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it again and finish it up! And congrats on the submissions goals!
Same here–watched the first half, but didn’t get to finish it. And thanks!
The Pokemon Go thing has been fascinating to see play out. We’ve already had our first mugging here in association with players walking/driving around while focused on the game. As an old, first-season Pokemon fan, I thought it was interesting watching the ads for it and seeing how much of this is targeted (ad-wise) specifically at that late 20s-30/somethings rather than kids. (And I can’t say I haven’t been tempted, but haven’t quite gotten there yet… 🙂 I’ll have to check out those articles, because it really is interesting to see how it’s playing out!
What I’m working on this week: I had a very relaxing (yet unexpectedly productive) week, largely thanks to experimenting with letting go of deadlines/goals for the time being. I went to a great panel on writing while parenting at ReaderCon and just hearing the stories of the other (very successful) author/parents helped me gain some perspective on this particular period of life and its specific productivity challenges. Last week, I didn’t guilt-obsess on days when I couldn’t fit writing in, but still made certain to write when I could. Somehow, I still managed to hammer out a brand new 3.5k short story in one day, and I’m actually rather delighted by how much fun it was. I think I’ve always tried to perform to the write-everyday mantra, but after the delight of last week’s rush, I’m wondering if maybe I write better (and enjoy it more) when I give myself time to pent-up creative energy. It’s only been a week, so no conclusive decisions there, but I’m curious to explore it. So this week, I’m hoping to continue the trend, and just go with the flow, recognizing that productivity is going to be variable for a while, and that’s ok. I’ve got several short projects bouncing around in my head, and the novel outline needs some attention, so que sera, sera.
What’s inspiring me: Coffee and Tour de France! I finally sprung for a little five-cup coffee maker, and something about having a nice cup of coffee and watching a hundred cyclists in a peloton try not to run over each others’ back tires is just a delightful change of pace.
Playmobile. My son is finally getting to the age where tiny things aren’t imminently going in the mouth, and after an adorable session of “tea” with a couple of tiny porcelain cups we found at my parents’ house, I thought I might see if he was interested in the pounds and pounds of Playmobile my sister and I accumulated over the years. Even just digging through all the stuff, picking out people and gathering some of the house stuff, I had this crazy surge of nostalgia for those long summer days when playing massive Tolstoy-esque dramas all day long was the best thing I could think of. And it’s interesting coming back as an adult and engaging in creative play that has nothing to do with producing anything tangible. And he’s finally old enough to enjoy the very beginnings of that make-believe play, too, which is so much fun to watch develop.
What am I avoiding?: Nothing specifically, but I do need to get a critique back to a friend. Otherwise, I’m trying to not plan more than simply getting a lot of reading in and writing whenever I can scrape a few minutes together, and just seeing if a more relaxed system is something I can work with (at least until I get better control over my own time), or if I really need the structured time to produce steadily.
Congrats on the new story! And the lack of guilt. Interesting point about building up creative energy. I read a Paris Review interview recently, or was it a review of a book about the history of word processing, that talked about writers becoming more loquacious once the typewriter succumbed to the computer, presumably because it was easier to type. Have been thinking over writing problems while falling asleep and almost invariably waking up with solutions. Also leaving my pen at home on some outings–the lack of an outlet seems to better distill any words that come to me. I guess because they have to be more memorable.