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?
Another big week of teaching (including one class I’d mistakenly included in last week). The biggest job, at present, is writing two hours of content for the workshop I’m teaching on Thursday night.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I saw the closing night of Cassandra and the Boy Doll at the Anywhere Festival here in Brisbane. It was a short play about identity and the trans experience, and while I quibbled with a lot of the directorial choices, there were some genuinely great bits. And even when I disagreed with the directorial choices, it was useful to start figuring out why and have a conversation about it.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
Pretty much everything. I have not written things that are not workshop materials in a week and it is making me extraordinarily grumpy, so at the very least I need to sit down and inch forward on one project or another.
And I really need to replace my phone, which is now on its last legs and refuses to include letters from the right-hand edge of the on-screen keyboard right as my contract ends, but I can’t bring myself to go through the effort of researching options before re-contracting.
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
20 Responses
Any chance you can use price point to guide your phone purchase choice without having to think too much about utility, Pete? Wondering if that might make things easier. Or have you grown into a ‘must do’ list for your mobile phone nowadays in terms of the things it needs to be able to do easily?
Hope you manage to find at least a half hour in the open terrain of Sunday to write something and cure the grumpy, too!
Or what about brand favouritism? I can’t look back after heading down the Apple path. Once under warranty (and sometimes not), they have been terrific at customer service for me in two countries now.
It’s more doing enough research of my bills to figure out the price point I need to be at, given that the contract I was on no longer exists. The phone comes after that, and there’s generally another couple of hours after that while I check into the phones on offer to look for the traits that matter to me.
But I did manage to pull myself together long enough to do all that, today, which means that’s *something* achieved during my bunker day where I just wanted to lie down and forget the world existed.
Probably a spanner in the consideration works, but what about a standalone provider? I used Amaysim in Oz (still keep the account going, actually) and found it cheaper to do that and attach it to a phone bought direct. Mind you, I’d originally needed the phone for work and had to switch from my old company paying for the calls to me doing so – so might not be an easy option for the upfront purchase required.
What am I working on this week?
This week is the first moment of being back on deck after what feels like about nine days of sickness and uselessness, so there’s a lot of picking up pieces and momentum. Looking to do a proper monthly review this week, along with pre-planning for a video game gig I scored on the directing/producing side (via a company I run called ‘Tavern of Voices’) so I’m excited for that. Getting back into the regular rhythm of daily voice exercises and physical exercise. Fixing my voice over website and updating my performance resume. Starting work on putting together a proper Tavern of Voices website. Sending emails to make connections regarding selling ALTERED.
Possibly not all of that is going to get done, but that’s what’s at the forefront currently.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I’ve been reading Leena Van Deventer & Dan Golding’s Game Changers, and really enjoying it. It’s such a cheerful, irreverent and bulletproof nuking from orbit of GamerGate dogma.
Also getting excited about a possible podcast project for late this year which is taking shape slowly.
What part of my project am I avoiding?
I don’t know if it’s a bad night’s sleep, sugar hangover from the daughter’s second birthday today, or it being one of the first ‘real’ days back on deck again, but I’m finding getting moving slow work, so avoiding pretty much everything through procrastination. Hopefully getting this off the list kicks things into gear.
Ugh. I just realised I worded part of that terribly. By company I run, I mean company name under which I do certain freelancing work. Not meaning to put on airs.
Why not? If you have to do the paperwork and sort out the tax, I say take all the airs it will give you!
Very much appreciate the thought, but there’s something about it that doesn’t sit quite right at the moment. I guess because the company doesn’t exist as a thing outside of me and my network of contacts? I’ll chew on it. Thanks for calling me on that point.
Hope the momentum-gathering works. Are there some easy/small wins you can get on the board at the beginning of the day? I find that helps.
Yeah, now that I’m back at full health, my day starts at 5:15, which makes it easier to get in some initial exercise, and get through some emails. Makes the texture of the rest of the day much better.
Glad you’re feeling better. Can’t imagine getting up at 5.15 voluntarily, although getting in exercise would be good for me. Well done and kudos to you for the discipline. (Have you tried The Rock’s new app? He can sing you awake – which gets me out of bed real fast, anyway.)
A post about that app was actually what inspired me to make the change! I love the Iron Paradise alarm. So inspiring!
Ugh, all the best with content-writing. The best bit of advice I’ve received on researching purchases is that everything is so close these days that looking at any more than three options is likely to be a waste of time unless you really, really enjoy researching that thing.
What am I working on?
1. US tax.
2. Uni prospectus documents.
3. The Big Illustration Job.
What’s inspiring me?
1. I’ve borrowed all 33 episodes of Morse from my parents so I’m ready to leap into that as art-background, having nearly finished Lewis and Endeavour.
2. My dad wanted me to read the Pemberley sequence of P&P to him yesterday but I argued for the last few chapters instead, and was glad: they are so full of lively dialogue (the awkwardness of Pemberley is too keenly observed) and little human truths and satisfying denouments for everybody.
3. Hellboy, which is so robustly simple and beautiful.
What am I avoiding?
I feel like I’m avoiding accomplishing things. I’m now keeping a list of Things Achieved to help overcome this. However, I do lose a lot of time, and have started resenting planning. So I have decided to Act First and Plan Second – both on projects overall, and on a daily basis – and see how that works out, since it has not let me down particularly in the past. Boots First.
Do you find that your resentment lifts as the list of things you’ve gotten done Boots First grows through the day?
Also, are you reading the Hellboy Dark Horse comics, or referring to the film? (awesome, in either case!)
I find I resent the time it takes, because if I do it first it happens at a point where I clearly have some motivation and momentum happening, and I’d rather capture that by… actually accomplishing something. And sometimes when I successfully follow a detailed plan I feel a bit claustrophobic.
This week I’m going to tidy up the work area and do the broad-stroke plan in the evenings, attempt to hit the ground running, and worry about any nitty-gritty details after I’ve hammered out a slab of something at the beginning of the day. I’m really just shifting the usual process by about 12 hours.
And I’m ready the Hellboy comics. Well, reading implies speed. I’m savouring them.
Nice! I love the tone of Hellboy, but I’ve only ever dipped a toe in the water of reading the trades. The art is just… amazing.
I’m also hoping this will make me less resentful of lost evenings. I’m naturally an evening person but since I’m getting more exercise lately I’m tireder in the evenings, which makes me crankier when other people who live in my house have the temerity to COME HOME and SAY HELLO and USE THE KITCHEN. If I can shift procrastinatory busy-work to the evenings, everyone will be happier.
How very dare they!
What am I working on?
The Fun Flimsy doth progress! Just shy of 20k linearly and well over that with a couple of key scenes either written or mapped in advance. I finally have my hands on a copy of the KM Weiland text – and bought the workbook while I was at it since it seems to have some useful exercises to try. This week I want to get the “Fun and Games” section out the way. That’ll bring me up to the Midpoint.
On the further adventures of plotting, I watched the Lego version of Star Wars in 2 minutes: where the original trilogy was summed up (all three) in just 2 minutes and then the set of prequels in the same. The first was a logically coherent and simple synopsis. In the second they included lines like “and then there was lots of talking” and “he killed everyone but the girl still loved him anyway”, which pretty much summed up for me all the major plot issues and weaknesses in a succinct demonstration of why that trilogy failed.
What’s inspiring me?
By chance we caught the latest instalment of The Hollow Crown last night. (We have most on DVD.) This featured Benedict Cumbersnitch as Richard the Turd and what a good job he made of it! Marvellous asides to camera, some without dialogue, in all his delicious villainy. Interesting to note, too, how they emphasised the hunch post-archaeological evidence of the same to the real man. In previous recent iterations (Ian McKellan, for instance), this was downplayed a good deal more than it was in the distant past.
Watching a villain vamp it up was this week’s theme for we also saw Face/Off with John Travolta doing much the same in his version of Nicholas Cage. Funny how much suspension of disbelief that film requires of its audience. Almost as much as A New York Winter’s Tale which had a worthy cast but just couldn’t pull any of its plot threads off convincingly. All very informative to current Fun Flimsy where my villain really loves her work.
What am I avoiding?
Well I’m off to Dublin next Saturday for the International Literary Festival as I’ve had Opus 2 shortlisted as a work to discuss with publishing folk in this neck of the woods. Given the local spec fic market is entirely YA, I’m not sure if there’s any immediate relevance for me, but it does mean I can’t put off looking at it again. (Although it simply wouldn’t work as a YA piece – my characters can’t be younger than eighteen for a whole gamut of reasons.) Other than that, we’ve folks over from Australia, it’s my son’s 5th birthday, and I need to optimise our business website.