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?
Two weeks until I have to hand in my thesis prospectus, and I’m about a third of the way through my draft at the time of posting. I’ve more-or-less admitted that nothing else is being done until I clear this as the major project that is stressing me out, which unfortunately includes drafting the short talk I’m meant to be doing Friday.
Short version: if you need me this week, I’ll be hip-deep in genre theory and thesis planning.
What’s inspiring me this week?
A few weeks back I had a heated discussion with Kevin about the difficulties facing John Wick 2 as a sequel, largely because the first film has a strongly dramatic, very personal arc for the main character that reminded me a lot of Die Hard. I figured the sequel risked being very much the Die Hard 2 of the series – all the same beats, with none of the emotion behind it, with the law of diminishing returns starting the slow transition from everyman to superman.
And, in truth, John Wick 2 doesn’t come anywhere near matching the emotional stakes of the first film, but it comes a damn site closer than many other franchises could manage and the way they’ve set that up is fascinating. It remains a film that is at its best when the action is small and intimate, focused on the consequences of John’s actions and choices on him and his circle of allies. It’s at its worst when it goes big, exploring the larger mythology of the world presented in the first film, which transforms the central character from a bogeyman walking among mortals into a bogeyman walking among gods. At one part he becomes, metaphorically speaking, bulletproof, and that’s a misstep that stops an incredibly good sequel from being a thematically great sequel.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
This is one that I don’t like to admit, but over the last week my oh-shit-I-have-a-deadline instincts saw me ignore a lot of the basic habits that have kept me relatively even for the last twelve months or so. This kinda hit a boiling point on Friday, when I was running on three hours sleep and on the jangly, anxious side when interacting with people.
The upside is realising what was happening much, much earlier than usual, but it does mean that this week basic self-care (and regular sleep/work hours) go back on the menu, no matter what.
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
5 Responses
Hope you have a productive week working on your thesis outline, Peter. Focusing on self-care will get you there.
Here’s my Sunday Circle.
That’s great, productive news on your revision process!
You’re nearly there!
What I’m working on
I’m flying in two weeks and EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE. I need a cook-housekeeper/spouse/personal assistant. In lieu of that, I am concentrating on the following:
– getting some grants in for next year, albeit very last-minute;
– attempting, in half-hour segments, to wrestle a weird dream-sequence story about cheating Charon into a 1920s lady gangsters story; and
– reading the stories for two additional things that need to be illustrated by the end of the month.
What’s inspiring me
– I’m rereading the (original) Wizard of Oz, and wanting to illustrate elements we forget, like the Queen of the Field Mice rescuing the Cowardly Lion, and the one-eyed Wicked Witch of the West with her army of black bees. Then there was a reread of one of the gentlest, most loving Heyers (The Foundling). I also picked up Glen Weldon’s The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture while I was in Adelaide
– But mostly I am listening (while driving) to Simon Vance read my very favourite novel, Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend. It’s just… it’s such a good novel anyway, but to have it read out loud so that I get to listen to every word and sentence is wonderful. I’ve been objecting a little to how some modern, pacy novels feel hammer-beat drawn out as audio books, but this one, for all its immense length, is just a constant, word-level source of joy. It makes me want to go on holidays to a cold climate with a friend to read aloud with beside a fire while drinking rum-punch.
What I’m avoiding
– It’s less avoidance than a function of days being too short, but everything, to some extent.
Good luck with flying through everything you need to do before you jet off. I’ve never read Our Mutual Friend, my favourite Dickens is still Great Expectations. I think the image of Miss Havisham is one of the most powerful I’ve ever read. I can summon it up so clearly – and it’s more than 30 years since I read the book.