The Sunday Circle: What Are You Working On This Week?

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?

I got distracted last week and ended up working on books-that-were-not-scheduled-to-be-worked-on-yet™, so this week I’m making a really specific to-do list. First cab off the rank is nailing the duel-on-the-bridge scene of the short story I’m trying to write, followed by nailing a confrontation-with-an-alien-nobleman-who-holds-life-and-death-in-his hands scene. I’m still working out the rest of the list for the week, but I’m trying to get it as specific as that all the way through, to the order of one scene a day.

What’s inspiring me this week?

I don’t really know how to describe Rose Lerner’s A Little Among Thorns, so I’m just going to quote the tweet that convinced me to read it:

My first review for @SmartBitches is live! I had a lot of feelings about Rose Lerner’s A Lily Among Thorns, like “I am incredibly here for a sex worker turned crime boss turned inn owner who is going to protect her people no matter what.” https://t.co/R648fChQSH

— Susan (@Spindilly) September 19, 2019

It’s one of those books where my own review would start with “It feels a little like Heyer,” except that it’s not much like Heyer at all beyond a general feeling of incredibly-smart-black-sheep-with-specialised-interests-being-dumb-about-their-feelings and the regency setting.

And that fascinates me, because it brings home that there is something going on in a lot of Heyer novels that I really like and isolates it in a way I can lift and apply to other genres/settings.

What action do I need to take?

I am working without a plan at the moment, and that’s not the best state for me. It makes it too easy to get stuck into work that isn’t essential, and too hard to fix priorities in my mind. Little things slip through the cracks, but they’re little things that have the potential to throw off timelines.

I need to devote a half day or so to rebuilding to-do lists and upcoming commitments, plus establishing the broad areas of focus that govern my writing time and waypoints that keep things on track.