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?
Still working on short fiction this week, and my goal is to finish a story about coffee carts, families,and the end of the world that I’m trying to get done by the end of the month.
What’s inspiring me this week?
Glen Weldon’s The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, which started out as a thing I planned on reading for fun and quickly revealed a metaphor that’s going to be incredibly useful for explaining a part of my thesis. The book itself is an interesting mix – frequently smart and funny, but occasionally marked a tendency to separate “nerds” from “normals”in a way that frequently feels uncomfortable.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
I’ve been slowly building up the writing muscles after a slack period, but I’ve been reluctant to move back to a daily quota system where I active track time or word count to measure progress. It’s probably time to start looking at the twenty-hour writing week as a default thing again, working regular hours and filling in time-sheets. It’s worked pretty well for me in the past, particularly when I need to maintain focus, but I keep avoiding taking that step at the moment.
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
9 Responses
Peter: do you have any sort of feeling as to where that avoidance of going back to the regular schedule is coming from?
The coffee cart story sounds ACE. Can’t wait to read it!
Mostly, it wasn’t really necessary. PhD life means I’ve got a lot of time to get stuff done, so structuring my days only really becomes an issue once I hit a certain level of competing priorities.
What am I working on this week?
This week is continuing to work on recording for the film, some time put aside for my partner’s birthday, working through On Directing, more prep for EOFY, and small steps forward to progress video projects. Integrating tech work back into the regular schedule again due to a chance of circumstances. A bit of everything.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I’ve been working slowly through the current season of House of Cards and really enjoying it stepping up the gears to a more heightened, theatrical mode. I’ve been particularly enjoying the character of Tom Yates and what the writers do with a quiet, compassionate outsider’s perspective. (less so with what they do with his relationships)
Other than that, it’s a bit navel-gazey, but as part of EOFY prep looking at the numbers for the year past and realizing how much things have built. As dorky as it is, looking forward to putting together a weekly dashboard around key numbers that *matter*.
What part of my project am I avoiding?
Cold leads, promotional writing (newsletters, website content) are the big things at the moment that could be going out the door and aren’t. Nothing’s on fire there, but could definitely be doing more.
The EOFY might be a pain, Kevin, but it’s great to see that it also allows you to focus on your achievements for the past 12 months. Too often we forget to celebrate all those small wins that, when added up together, become a big deal.
Here’s my Sunday Circle.
Go you for having everything in hand, Ree! Nicely done!
Peter do you really fill in time sheets when no one is looking over your shoulder making you do it? For me one of the best things about my PhD was that I got paid but no one was asking me to fill in bloody time sheets!
I don’t fill in timesheets, but I do track pomodoros and aim for a specific number every week, and I “accumulate” leave and TOIL like I would at a paid gig so I know when it’s advisable to take time off. It means nothing, but it’s a useful mindset focus.
Now that makes sense.