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’ve just come off a very quiet week – the replacement CPAP machine had some problems with its power cord, which meant every goal outside of the day-job was a write-off until I got the replacement cord on Friday (I swear, the universe is giving me these little glimpses of what my life used to be like just so I’ll never go back there).
So this week, CPAP and depression meds willing, I will actually finish the crocodile story and get the first act of Float started. I’m also firing up the pomodoro technique on the four days of the week when I’m not at the day-job, in order to give my writing days a little more structure and focus.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I mainlined the first two seasons of UnReal this week. I think someone recommended it in their Circle posts earlier in the year, which is what actually got me to sit down and watch it – whoever that was, THANK YOU.
If ever there was a show that really broke down the difference between empathy and sympathy in writing, UnReal is it. *Everyone* in this show is a reprehensible human being, particularly during the first season, and yet you care about everyone and get deeply invested in their drama. Constance Zimmer and Shiri Appleby are both brilliant, and I am deeply happy to see Craig Bierko teamed with Zimmer again after their fantastic run in Boston Legal a few years back.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
I’ve been working on the first sequence for Float and it keeps giving me an uneasy feeling. Partially it comes from playing with the genre I’m playing with – doing the John Wick-esque story means setting up stakes really efficiently, usually by setting up a character who is important to the protagonist and killing them off incredibly quickly. I’m trying to do this inside of five scenes, and it’s not going well.
And so I’ve fallen into the trap of worrying at it, trying to figure out how to do it better, rather than just getting the rhythm of those scenes down and moving on with the next sequence of the story.
Which, again, I’m avoiding because I haven’t put as much thought into it, and it involves a series of relatively daunting scenes that I should probably sit down and sketch out before I write them…
