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?
First draft of the article is done and my short-story rewrite is on track, so the major project taking up time in the coming week is getting back on track with the occult western.
What’s inspiring me this week?
Between con recovery, pressing deadline, and general malaise it has been a slow week of consuming things, but Penny Dreadful appeared on Stan this week and it is brilliant. Lavish, dark, glorious, with Eva Green’s incredible poise as Venessa Ives holding together some pretty outlandish scenes (I’m looking at you, Seance episode).
What part of my project an I avoiding?
I’ve got some big decisions on the horizon with the associated uncertainty causing some mild stress, and therefore I’m indulging in all my procrastinatory habits. Thus far, I’ve cycled through the writing plan of insanity, the day of manic productivity where I convince myself it’s possible, and the day of sloth that inevitably follows.
So, yeah, making big decisions and developing something akin to a plan so I’ll stop being distracted and actually get back to a regular work schedule.
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
14 Responses
Hello again, I have not dropped off the face of the Earth or anything.
What am I working on this week? Queerish PNR, Chapter TWENTY now. (Also, as a side order, convincing myself that not showing up for a couple of weeks doesn’t mean that I can never show my face again. Helpful brainweasels are helpful.) I’m signed up for Camp Nanowrimo this month, have support from some friends elsenet, and have made wordcount goals both days of April so far! (It just turned into Sunday here in the UK.) The goal is to finish the first draft of this book this month.
What’s inspiring me this week? X Files rewatch still going. Stupid Facebook games are distracting but less distracting than the giant MMO I was playing. Finished the giant fantasy novel and am now reading a sort of middle-of-the-road PNR (quite fun and with a couple of unusual takes on things but doesn’t feel Terribly Groundbreaking to me). KJ Charles requires me to find my Kindle so I can charge the thing…
What part of my project am I avoiding? Not so much avoiding as anxious about as a future thing: I am bashing out a first draft without much regard to research at this point, but there are going to be many parts of my novel that require Serious Research to make them as accurate and convincing as possible. I don’t really know how to do research. (Or at least, I know how to research enough to get an A on an essay topic set by someone else, but I suspect novel research is a rather different beast.) Once I’m finished with this draft, that’s a beast I’m going to have to tackle and I’m not sure where to start yet!
Welcome back.
With research: read through your manuscript and make a list of the things you need, and why.
This often means paying attention to vague feelings about things in the draft (why does this story not feel right? Because it’s set in space and you’ve made no concessions to the surviving in the environment, but it’s not obvious space opera. Time to take a serious look at what life in zero-G is actually right). Look for things that will give you the feeling of being in the era/space: memoirs, travelogues. Look for things that provide a useful analogue (there is very little about life in zero G out there, but plenty about life on submarines…)
Thank you, that sounds like a really helpful approach! [saves]
Congrats on the progress and on April’s word counts! Nano is great for lighting a fire under that first draft. Go get ’em! 😀
Penny Dreadful is the beesssssst. Also I am super curious about your big decisions!
My Sunday Circle is here.
I agree with Peter about the editing!
On a few projects lately, I’ve found the most useful approach to be: read widely (as a general life principle); write; do a first-pass edit fixing big easy things – I don’t do research at this point, I just leave a list of comments such as “is this anachronistic?”, “research iron stoves”, “how many horses pull this”, “research smells for this scene”. Then on the next pass I just bring up the comments and work through them one by one (and because you’re *only* doing research it actually goes faster – there may be half a dozen scattered notes which you can knock over with one piece of research).
That was meant to be a comment to LCM.
That’s an awesome tactic for tackling big-project research. Research can be intimidating for me too, LC. Thanks for asking about this! *makes mental note of research advice for own use*
What am I working on? New things, as I finished editing the Regency and sent it to Karina! I need to choose the next novel project (I want to sit down and work out my writing wishlist this week), finish the first horrible idea-draft of a picture book (“The Bee Bride”). I also have several art commissions to finish. Oh, and uni!
What’s inspiring me? At this very moment, the weather and the view on this balcony. Otherwise, recent impromptu showtune karaoke on Twitter and at Natcon (why this is inspiring? I think it makes me excited because on some level writing is about belting out stories that you love, slightly out of tune, with like-minded people). Also The Enchanted April which apart from being a beautiful, gentle film about joy and negotiating expectations, has the line, “Don’t let’s just say, ‘wouldn’t it be lovely’ and go back to Hampstead and never do anything about it.” I watched that with my dad and tried to watch some more shows when I got back to housesitting with a large tv and sofa, but it turns out I need other people if I’m to watch films alone – left to my own devices for some reason I find Highway Through Hell and Aircrash Investigations more compelling. (Well, I know the reason: physics and people doing practical things, and some platonic combination of 7 Wonders of the Industrial Age and a good old-fashioned mystery).
What am I avoiding? I’ve had difficulties getting started on a series of illustrations – the thumbnail sketches and test styles have been approved and I spent a day forcing a picture out onto paper and of course it ended up overworked (rather nice, but far from the loose style I wanted). And what I should have done was just call it a test piece, deliberately overwork it to make sure everything was where it needed to be, and have left time at the end to do the much faster final piece. Drafts! Studies! They are our friends in more ways than one. I’m also still avoiding a certain novella, but I’m just going to ask to be given a clear deadline on that one.
Can I just say, the title “The Bee Bride” sounds really cool? I have no idea what the story’s like, but I would *totally* pick it up to find out! ^_^ (I *love* shows like Highway Through Hell–I’ve watched a bunch of the Ice Road Truckers and beyond just the trucking, I love Deadliest Catch, and that sort of thing too. Fascinating stuff.)
Deadlines can definitely help with getting things focused on a difficult project. Is this the one the love has waned on?
Dropping in super quickly after getting back from a flight.
What am I working on?
Recording session this Friday for an exciting interactive project, homework from coaching, full GTD sweep.
What’s inspiring me?
Made it to the APT8 exhibition at GOMA today, and experienced an incredible space by Lawrence English (https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/apt8/artists/lawrence-english) where moving through the area between two giant parabolic dishes gave gradually different experiences of sound, sometimes quite painful. Hard to describe while batteries are low.
Also inspired by 1 1/2 days of productive and exciting meetings/workshopping for a tentpole project.
What am I avoiding?
Schedule changes this weekend meant a stretch of four hours I was going to use for a GTD sweep disappeared. Hoping to do that this friday.
Have still held off on fixing signal chain issues (due in part to busyness, in part to avoidance) This week!
The Lawrence English installation sounds *amazing*. I love art that plays with sound in unexpected ways. And hooray for inspiration garnered from working with like-minds! Run with it! 😀
What am I working on? Continuing to plunge ahead on the summary rewrite draft which has revealed some fun new angles I could explore in the second half. I really, really, really need to wrap this by the end of the week. My personal deadline for the prose-rewrite is end of June, but a family trip around that time means I really need it done by mid-June, and I’m feeling the time crunch. That said, I’ve been delighted with the short story rough drafts I’ve managed to bang out recently, so there’s that.
What’s inspiring me this week? Poly-reading. I’ve almost always read more than one book at a time, and in the past have felt rather guilty about that because it does mean it takes a lot longer to finish anything. But I’ve decided to just embrace it whole-heartedly. Partly, it’s useful for a mom to have multiple platforms for reading (easy-to-single-hand-hold soft covers, e-books on a phone, audiobooks, etc.), but it’s also because I like being able to change my reading mood. And so long as I cap myself at a dozen, I can usually get things finished before too terribly long. 🙂
Also just finished the audiobook of Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer which I *totally* loved. The weirdness, the sense of dislocation, the mystery, the permeating eeriness. Fantastic. I adored the skin-crawling Psychologist, and that the entire central story is about four women. And the landscape! Yeah, no, I loved the hell out of it. I just had lunch with a friend who hated it, but I adored the vaguely Lovecraftian existential horror of it (even without loving Lovecraft myself).
What am I avoiding?As much as I *know* I need this summary draft finished, I know I’m dreading the prose work on the other side, mostly due to its magnitude. There’s just *so much* to do and the time crunch is freaking me out a little. But on the other hand, I want to make sure I’m thinking through the changes I’m making, since I raced through the rough draft and left a lot of gaps in my wake. But I also really, really want this done by EoJune, because there are other things I want to jump into after that, and I don’t want this thing haunting me in tatters/To-Be-Finished. I’ll feel a lot better once I’m making progress on the prose, though. Time to apply some elbow grease…
Hallo and apologies for the delay – one of my young children required birthday cake and the company of friends this weekend. They didn’t eat any fairybread. Reluctant to even try it. I was devastated.
What am I working on?
Um. I need a goal for this week. Actually, I do have one. I’m planning on writing highly emotive end chapter of Fun Flimsy. It came to me post-birthday party and if I can capture half the edge-of-tears feeling I had thinking about it, it should be a cracker. Also, need to finish a CP’s novel I’m reading AND get cracking on Kathleen’s Regency.
What’s inspiring me this week?
Well I rather hope the two latter works will be… Otherwise, I’ve been listening in on my children playing of late and there’s something in the way they use language and actions and roleplaying which is very free-flowing and yet carries an inherent logic. I found myself reminded that art is really playing for adults, much of the time.
What am I avoiding?
Re-editing. Unlike others, I enjoy editing a little too much. If I’m to do any, I must ensure I have my New Work progressing first, or else I’ll be rewriting the same two stories for the next twenty years. I’d like to be >25% into the new piece first before stepping out again.