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?
Finished up the first act arc of Float last week, so I’m going to spend this week attempting to get down the first sequence of the second act in rough draft. Maybe five or six scenes, all up, plus continuing work on some short-story rewrites.
What’s inspiring me this week?
To no-one’s surprise: Luke Cage. I’m not sure if it’s the best of the marvel Netflix shows, but it’s definitely the smartest they’ve done so far. Cage draws on some pretty cheesy source material, but it does a great job of updating the Blaxploitation origins of the character to the 21st century. Cottonmouth gets the best villain introduction they’ve done since Kingpin in season 1 of Daredevil, complete with a scene that is just magically shot.
Also, a whole lot of Misty Knight, and Clair Temple.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
I’m meant to be finding a certain amount of time each day to focus on writing, but Saturday’s are proving to be the hard ones on this. I need to sit down and figure out how to get myself working on the weekends, so I don’t succumb to the temptation of goofing off.
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?
Until Wednesday night, nothing creative (at least not for me, personally) After Wednesday night the Queensland Literary Awards will be over, and two grant applications submitted, and I can return to some of my own projects. But later this week I plan to lay down some notes for a novel, which will be the NaNoWriMo project I have just registered for. I also owe a friend some feedback on a manuscript draft, so lots of reading ahead of me.
What’s inspiring me this week?
Oddly enough, the weather. I must be some kind of hibernating bear because every year as soon as the weather warms up I come alive and re-connect with my exercise routines and generally feel more active and energetic. The same is true for my creative brain at this time of year.
What part of my project am I avoiding?
Actually putting pen to paper. I have never been very good at combining full-time work with writing, but now I have a toddler in the mix as well, and the idea of a “writing routine” is laughable. So in order to write productively I need to have a serious think about how to structure it into my life in a meaningful way. I’ve been reluctant to start writing because I have been worried about stuttering to a stop like so many projects before, because I haven’t put the right supportive measures in place to get writing done. I also have a partner who has similar pressures. A large part of October is going to be devoted to us discussing and working out together how we can support each other to write.
Writing with a toddler around is certainly a challenge. The trick is to ditch the idea of routine. Have something handy to jot notes throughout the day then the moment naptime swings round, dash out whatever you can. In some ways it can get really creative, because there’s a lot of monotony for your imagination to fill.
Are you able to start mornings ahead of the toddler at all, Kate? Or are you cursed with one of those early risers?
I’ve found that even half an hour of my own time before the household wakes up makes an incredible difference to my mindset for the rest of the day, because I’m able to meet the day on my own terms, and enjoy some brief order among the chaos.
I’m glad that you’re enjoying the leap into Spring! (And I’ll bet that the exercise and creative brain happening at the same time is not a coincidence!)
Not often. Sometimes I’m up before she is, but we drop her at daycare at 6:45 and are in the office by 7:30am each day. My best chance for some time for myself is after she’s asleep, usually by 9pm which in the past was a great time for me to write, but not so much at the moment due to fatigue. I’m still hoping for an hour a day of creative time, and maybe an extra half hour during lunchtimes. Possibly some extra time at weekends. That’s okay. It’s our reality right now and for a few years but it won’t be permanent.
Ooh, working and a toddler and writing – even tougher challenge, especially with such a long day. There is an upside to fatigue writing: you’re generally too stuffed to self-edit. Can be good for getting in a word count that you can then finesse during a lunch break.
Ooo! Same boat here, at least on the toddler front. I’m really embracing notecards in the back pocket and a pen handy–just being able to jot down a snatch of something has really helped me at least stop worrying that I’m going to lose something when inspiration strikes. Lunchtimes were my godsend back when I worked, but these days, I’m with you on the post-bedtime hours. Fatigue is tough, and definitely something I struggle with too. At the moment, I’m embracing the irregularity and remembering that a lot of writing is head-work. As for getting the words down, even just a small chunk of 10-15 minutes in the evening might help to make things feel like they’re moving forward on a daily basis? At least for me when I’m exhausted in the evening, the good intentions of trying to lay away an hour a night can seem so tough I end up blowing it all off, but ten minutes can make me feel like I’m not totally ignoring my own goals (and often leads to twenty or thirty minutes, or the elusive hour of writing I wouldn’t have had the energy to start if I’d known it’d go that long!).
Best of luck! Sounds like you’re already well-ahead of the personal mind-games and taking it one day at a time. ^_^
All the best for writing – and support! If you need NaNo writing partners, think of me…
Thank you! Would love a few writing sessions. I’ll let you know a few days in November I can meet up.
What am I working on this week?
The “Love Story” component of the Fun Flimsy. I’ve flipped the original around completely when it comes to the big revelation. This is weird, but what it does is give me 100 pages for the poor, tortured couple to work through their issues together before external forces test how well they’ve done.
What’s inspiring me this week?
My first Anne Gracie novel. I know. The shame of admitting I’m new to her stuff, especially since I’ve known about her for years and EVERYONE raves over her writing. Well, now I know why. Also, I stayed at this fab B&B just outside of Belfast and the owner let me steal her Dorothy L. Sayers paperback because I was enjoying it so much.
What part of my project am I avoiding?
Getting down and dirty with the new content. Getting the transition right to move into the next Act has largely occupied my every waking minute this week, and yet I think I only wrote about 3-4 pages. I’m concerned I’ve overbaked it and my climax will be weak. Other fear is it’s all been very intense and I need to lighten the mood and make it fun for a while, without losing the tension.
This might be a really daft suggestion, but would it be useful at all to skip over the transition point to somewhere in the next Act where you’re sure of what’s happening next, and start writing there to just get it down first, and then come back and work on the seam between the two?
I’ve actually done that and know what comes “just after”, but it’s that whole make em cry, make em laugh (Joss Whedon’s for god sake tell a joke) angle I’m trying to knock into shape.
Sounds like exciting developments in Fun Flimsy! Best of luck with the new material! If you’re worried about the climax falling flat, is there a way to either slightly reduce the stakes in earlier segments, so you can up the stakes more later towards the ending? Or add in some lesser but important stakes into the earlier material and save the gut-punchers for closer to the climax? (Are there any secondary plots that could be used as a “lightener”? Something that could weave into the climax or the revelation eventually, but which could break up some of the intensity, without losing the intensity of the main thread?)
Oh man, Dorothy L. Sayers is fantastic! I need to read a bunch of her short Lord Peter stories…
<3 Sayers! Which Gracie?
Finished the Autumn Bride and am moving through the remaining three seasons….
Also, spotted in the library last week: someone has been licensed to write a “Lord Peter Wimsey investigates…” series in the style of Sayers.
What am I working on this week?
Meetings and refining focus for the rest of the year. Got a catchup with my change strategist guru this Sunday which I’m super excited about, to sanity check where my time and energy is planned on going for the rest of the year. Figured a way finally to implement the morning routine in a flexible way using a Pomodoro app. Also taking some time for self care after a fairly full-on stretch of work.
What’s inspiring me this week?
This week’s been a little light on for conscious consumption of stuff, as I’ve only just cleared the backlog of work. Been watching the first few episodes of Luke Cage and really digging it. As Peter already mentioned, the light touch it has on referencing blaxsploitation cinema but not feeling clunky is just delicious. I can say that I plan to spend a bunch of time reading more about pirates this week, and wrapping my head around a coding side project where I’m contributing to something much bigger than myself, just for yucks.
What part of my project am I avoiding?
Regular study has been triaged over the last few weeks by necessity. Looking forward to getting back to that.
Sounds like it’ll be a productive and strategic week. Best of luck getting all the ducks in a row, and getting back to studying! 🙂
Glad the flexible approach is working. It’s amazing what can get done in 25 minutes!
Peter: what do you tend to do breakfast-wise on a Saturday? Weren’t you finding successful for a while with writing at Low Road? Would it be possible to wrap writing around a special Saturday-only indulgence routine of some sort to reward yourself for writing, and set the context for your brain?
Cost becomes an issue there. And the availability of seats at the Low Road. This weekend also had the Luke Cage factor – once I’m that deep in the groove of shirking writing and sleep, it’s easy to keep going 🙂
@Peter: Would it be helpful to write before breakfast, even? Maybe even before getting out of bed, just to get some solid time in without it really feeling like your day has started yet? I’m not sure if that’d be helpful, but I used to find that helpful if only to check some portion of the to-do box before even engaging with the distractions of the day.
What I’m working on this week: Mainly, choosing the October Story To Fix from my backlog of rough drafts, reading it over, and deciding on an edit plan. I think I’ve settled on one, but I’ve been bouncing back and forth between three the last few days, so I need to pick one and stick with it. Other than that, I got started with the short novel edit using Charlotte Nash’s PAPER plan, and am making up the scene and time maps. No deadline on that, just a general desire to keep it moving in the right direction on a day-to-day basis.
What’s inspiring me this week: Well, in a kind of navel-gazey way, I was a notebook dork today and covered my new writing-specific bullet-journal-ish notebook with a collage of all the various visual cues I could think of (ranging from Alex Andreev’s surreal and eerie artwork to Natalia Pierandrei’s delicate characters mixed with pictures of the Goblin King from Labyrinth, Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad, Bernard Black from Black Books, Tim Gunn, Totoro, and a lovely poster for Stranger Things), and it turned out so much better than I’d expected, it’s kind of possessing me at the moment. I haven’t decorated a notebook like this for years (maybe even a decade), but I forgot how much fun falling head-first into visual inspiration could be. It’s kind of a mash of a lot of things I’ve found inspiring this past year or two.
Other than that, the Little Man’s insane language acquisition of the past two weeks. It’s like he’s this tiny computer and every word now is permanently implanted in his mind for future use–it’s amazing. I’m blown away by the capacity of the growing human mind!
Oh! And baking. Because I apparently do that now. My dad gave me some of his sourdough starter, and these dinner rolls are deadly.
What I’m avoiding this week:This week, we’re going to continue with the deliberately avoiding guilt, and continue to focus on letting be what will be. I need to cultivate some of Kate’s positive perspective!
I’d love to see a shot of the new notebook!
And here’s to a week without guilt. I like that plan!
Sure thing! I just put it up last night. ^_^ It’s here: https://maggiedot.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/the-sunday-circle-4/!
Lovely! (Did I tell you we named our son Jareth?)
That is the best name! 😀 (We named our son Ryan after remembering that the Dread Pirate Roberts who came before Wesley in the Princess Beide was Ryan. ^_^)
Yes – show the notebook, please:)
Peter, I’ve had some success with moving the avoided work (eg Saturday writing) to first place in the day’s activities, if I remember to. Also, it gives me something to grumble comfortably about until I’m fully awake.
What I’m working on:
– Somehow a lot of art is due this week. One t-shirt design (done today!), four Tremontaine covers, test art for a music book…
– Art for a group art show, and the accompanying description of the dream on which it was based. Fortunately I keep an occasional record of dreams, for curiousity and amusement, but unfortunately I do not dream in my own art style.
– A HORRIBLE story. It’s haunted me for ages, I finally finished a nasty draft earlier this year and it’s just – ugh. I don’t know how to fix it. There’s something in there I really like, or at least can’t let go of. I’m playing around changing the tense, pov character, trying to find and keep the original inspiration. It’s 11,000 words, so maybe what I need to do is just do a ruthless hack-and-slash to get it under 7,000, and then seek a second opinion.
What’s inspiring me:
– I’ve started setting a timer for 1 hour mid-morning and reading. I finished James Hamilton-Paterson’s thrilling Marked for Death: The First War in the Air and have started Some Remarks by Neal Stephenson. Mid-1990s tech journalism feels like another world. I have previously quite enjoyed Levy’s Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and have (based off Stephenson) ordered Arthur C Clarke’s How the World Was One, but will gladly accept recommendations for more contemporary books on related topics.
– I started and am enjoying Luke Cage, but got distracted by Designated Survivor. At first I was disappointed in it, because it wasn’t good, but then I realised that in the genre of accidental-leader-of-a-nation, what I like has an inverse correlation to objective quality, and I am very much enjoying it.
– New sofas. Real sofas! Actual adult furniture. I love them so. It’s my annual realisation that a pleasant environment is important.
What I’m avoiding:
– Ergonomics. I’ve taken off a lot of the weight of that was messing with my back (half as much more and I’m allowed to try running again), but my computer desk height is all wrong for heavy drawing-tablet use, and I don’t know what would be right, and it’s all too haaaaard.
– Update emails to clients. I have to trick myself into just ‘writing a quick draft’. Every. Single. Time.
– Doing things that are important but don’t have a due date. So far, I am having some success with putting them first thing in the morning, but it’s a work in progress. I’m also trying to combine them with other activities, eg handiwork with tv series… I’m sure there are other examples.
– Portfolio redesign.
Hooray for adult furniture! I look forward to that beautiful future step which will replace all the various odds and ends we’ve compiled over the past few years. ^_^ (Pictures of the notebook are here: https://maggiedot.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/the-sunday-circle-4/)
As for balancing important but non-due-dated projects, recently, I’ve been creating two lists of things each week: a to-do list (which I try to keep on the short side), and a to-think-about list. The To-Think-About list is all the stuff that isn’t urgent, per se, but that I want to keep somewhat in front of my eyes so I don’t forget about them. I often find I end up treating the TTA list as an optional to-do list, and it still feels great to make progress on those things, even if they’re not urgent. Not sure if it’d be applicable to the kind of projects you’ve got on your plate, but keeping that second list (and migrating the ones that don’t get done each week so I recognize how long it’s been since I put them on the list initially) has been really helpful for me.