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

Lo, it is Sunday. The day of rest. The beginning of the week, even though we all pretend that’s really Monday. The day we can set aside to ponder the seven days to come, think about the challenges that lie ahead, and how we can meet them.

With that in mind, it’s time for:

For those playing along at home, 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?

The first half of the week will be devoted to marking and all the administrative stuff that comes with getting it finalised. I am so ready to have this all done, because it takes up time and headspace that I’d rather be putting towards getting my first PhD novella, Median Survival Time, locked down and redrafted.

What’s inspiring me this week?

Charlotte Wood’s The Writer’s Room, which collects together a bunch of long-form interviews with Australian and NZ Authors done in the long-form, Paris Review style. The upside of this format is getting a bunch of writers to talk about their craft and intent in a lot more detail, allowing for greater nuance and complexity than typically appears in a short-form interview on craft.

The downside, of course, lies in the relatively narrow band in which Wood selects interviewees–this came out of a project with a strong focus on the literary field. I find myself dearly wishing we could get something like this up and running for genre authors – I would kill for a two-hour, in depth interview in this vein with someone like Romance author Anne Gracie, SF Authors like Sean Williams, or thriller authors like Matthew Reilly.

What action do I need to take?

Give myself a firm set of guidelines for taking time off – and resuming work – after marking. More importantly, I need to be conscious of what marking actually meant and why I need to take a break.

I’ve been critiquing and grading 15,000 to 18,000 word a day for a week and a half now and I’ve only taken one day off in that time. My brain doesn’t register that as a big deal, but it’s mentally exhausting and sucks up enormous amounts of time. At the same time, my anxiety is berating me for taking two weeks away from “real” work and not factoring in the time to get fiction writing and research done, because I’ve not kept those numbers in the forefront of my mind.

Right now, I’m so frustrated with not-working that I’ll attempt to dive straight into my work the moment I’m done simply to relieve the pressure and growing anxiety about letting the other aspects of my life lie fallow. My fear, if I do that, is that I’m going to burn out fast. 

This means I want a firm plan – time spent on break, what I’m doing when it’s time to restart work – rather than playing things by ear.