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?

My major goal this week is landing the second chapter of my exegesis draft and officially hitting the 50% done phase of the critical side of my thesis. It’s slowed me down a little because it’s a gear-change part of the chapter–l’ve got to take the arguments I’ve been setting up and apply it to actual series works. This is the bit that I find tricky about theory–I can apply it to my own work easily enough, but always feel dicey about using it to critique other people’s creative products.

What’s inspiring me this week?

I’m going to split this answer in two this week. On the creative side of things, I finally sat down and watched Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse this week, and verily, it’s a damned awesome film that gets better the more I poke at it and explore how it was made. For me, it’s one of those films that really brings home the power of having a unified theme–everyone’s motivations in the film, whether hero or villain, seems to revolve around the idea of family and loss, and the contrasting ways they react to that is part of the appeal. 

On the more practical side, Tobias Buckell’s post about intentionally dropping his daily wordcount goal down to 500 is a great, though-provoking post about what productivity really looks like. Incredibly well-timed, too, given that my brain is starting to whir into a faster-faster-faster-catch-up-catch-up-catch-up mode after all the recent disruptions to my process. 

What action do I need to take?

I did my monthly checkpoint for November and outlined ten major projects that hold my attention this month, ranging from writing goals (finish the exegesis draft, write a novella dubbed Project Thug), work goals (marking lands tomorrow), and household tasks. 

Interestingly, a good chunk of those don’t have clear definitions and hard edges–I don’t really know what success looks like, how I’m going to achieve them, or what concerns impact upon my ability to work on them. Part of my goal for the week will be sitting down and doing a firm playbook for the coming months–clear project definitions, rough plans, breakdowns of prep that needs to take place.