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 hit with a nasty cold on Monday of last week and didn’t bounce back until Friday, so this week is largely a copy of last week’s goals: writing the first “race trails” sequence for Hell Track and doing some light revision on the opening to start bringing it in line with the story in my head.

On the thesis front, I’ll be hashing out a partial chapter plan based on the little aside in Raymond Chandler’s The Goldfish, where he says: 

The last time I had been in the Gray Lake district I had helped a D.A.’s man named Bernie Ohls shoot a gunman named Poke Andrews. But that was higher up the hill, farther away from the lake.

This kind of intertextual reference to another story is rare in Chandler’s work, so I’m taking a closer look at it and running through some of the narrative functions it’s serving compared to series recaps in other works.

lWhat’s inspiring me this week?

I read Helen Sword’s Stylish Academic Writing with the goal of fleshing out the skills I need fo my thesis, but there were a half-dozen times where I found myself putting the book down and making notes that are more applicable to the craft (and ideas) at work in some creative stuff I’ve got going on. It’s the kind of book that gets me excited about writing because it’s pulling apart the mechanical side of things in a really specific and focused way, rather than hitting the general advice that gets replayed over and over.

Also, my god, the reading list that this book generated as it cruised through examples of people who write academically and well. So much interesting stuff that I’m eager to go read now…

What action do I need to take?

I’ve been running without a clear weekly plan for a few weeks now, so this question is starting to get a little dicey – I’m not sufficiently sure of what should be on my radar that isn’t to really be confident of my answer. Fortunately, this means I probably need to revisit my planning documents and actually do a detailed weekly checkpoint for this week and a proper Monthly check-in before April kicks off.