It’s the three-year anniversary of the Sunday Circle this week, which I almost missed amid the chaos of the last seven days. Big thanks to all past and present circle posters–I appreciate you dropping in and sharing your weekly goals with us.
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?
In approximate order:
There are six scenes left to redraft and flesh out in Warhol Sleeping at present, although I expect this will be two weeks work rather than one due to the sparse writing I was using as I rushed to the end. The bulk of this week will be focusing on revamping the two chapters that take place at a weird-ass cyberpunk art commune, working hard to really nail down the futuristic punk overload feel.
My paperwork came back for conference funding all approved, which means I need to start ramping up on the writing of the paper this week. I’ve got a rough structure in place, but I tend not to be 100% confident of such things until I start trying to flesh it out (this week’s goal–really laying into the lit review).
With the first two Short Fiction Labs all loaded (and about twenty-four hours left to pick up your copy of Winged, With Sharp Teeth for free), this week’s short story time will be spent tinkering with a pair of old ghost stories that I wrote over a decade ago (before I realised that one of them was a ghost story). There will be some research this week, nailing down what makes a good ghost story work, then some redrafting.
What’s inspiring me this week?
Research reading has been particularly inspiring this week, courtesy of Seriality and Texts for Young People: The Compulsion to Repeat, which made the really interesting point in its introduction about how repetition is valued in various forms of writing–while the repetition of patterns and tropes is often used to devalue serialised fiction, the repetition of language and rhythms in poetry is part of what we value about the form.
It’s a useful comparison given my background, and became a really useful thing to hinge an entire thesis chapter around in the next few months.
What action do I need to take?
I let day-to-day planning slide a whole lot over the last ten days, and it was already pretty sketchy for two weeks before that. I really need to sit down and do a proper review and refocus of all the projects in my Omnifocus listing, updating it with the new stuff that’s cropped up over the last month, and do some hard assessments on how and when certain things get done.
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
8 Responses
Peter: It sounds like you’ve got your research all done regarding the cyberpunk story, but I was wondering – regarding the commune, have you looked at the vibe/social structure around hacker spaces preparing for that? Wonder if there might be something useful in there for you…
Part of the early research, although not quite what I’m aiming for with these folks. They’re more the muddle-headed fringe types that tended to form raver communities in the nineties.
Ah, OK. So all intent and no efficacy then? 🙂
Or, at least, efficacy secondary to ideology.
What am I working on this week?
Finalising my quarterly review and planning for the next two and a bit months, as well as getting some high priority voice over gigs done and out the door. Similar to your comments about daily planning Peter, I’m getting back to daily red line activities that are critical for the next quarter. I’ve almost converted all of my plans and goals into tangible information in Omnifocus, so I’m looking forward to freezing that and being diligent about not taking anything else on board until March.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I’m in a bit of a between phase media-wise at the moment. Music has been the big thing that’s been hooking me – apparently Nordic artists specifically, tickling that Bjork-ish feel. This song by Röyksopp has been really moving me, along with listening to Aurora.
Things have been a little hectic for study time over the last couple of weeks, but I’m looking forward to getting back to Robert McKee’s Story.
What action do I really need to take?
For this week, the key things to get done are completing tax return preparation, and getting those time-sensitive gigs out the door.
How are you organising the new projects that show up after lock-off date, so you know what’s on deck after March?
Good question! This is the first quarter that I’m shooting for some real diligence around those boundaries, so adding them to my list of incubating projects to be reviewed at the start of the next quarter. I need to get really good about being proactive rather than reactive with the work I’m doing now before I look to lining things up a quarter in advance.
How do you manage that sort of thing, particularly when unexpected (but welcome) incoming work interrupts your schedule?
It depends a bit on the type of project. I’ll generally try to keep new creative projects out of the day-to-day tracking systems of omnifocus and bullet journal altogether. Instead, I’ve got an active projects folder on my shared drive, and sub-folders where the unfinished projects are archived by type (short story, novel, etc). New ideas get thrown in there so it’s easy to find them when there’s time, but the daily workspace is limited to the things that I need to be working on.
That said, I try to keep a block of time set aside every week for reactive projects, just to control my anxiety about them. If I can’t get something done in that block, then it’s usually big enough that I need to re-do the quarterly plan anyway.