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?

The goal this week is to finish parts 4 and 5 of the current novelette draft, in which a working class thug drives around a post-apocalyptic Brisbane with his nanotech cyborg ex girlfriend and a probably untrustworthy partner, trying to track down a crew of thieves who have ripped off a floating city.

The goal with the story is to pack as much crazy, wahoo-style SF tropes in as I can before it falls over, underpinning it with a solid narrative backbone so that it packs some emotional weight at the end. Basically, experimenting with where the complexity of the story lies, and where it needs to be simple to give the readers something to hold onto.

What’s inspiring me this week?

The WWE network recently uploaded the first year of ECW’s Hardcore TV from 1993 and I spent a good chunk of my week indulging in them. It’s hard to explain why these are so inspiring without knowing the history of wrestling or being immersed in the intricacies of the sport, but think it’s kinda like the plucky-band-of-misfits-making-good sports movie narrative playing out in real life.

The company starts off mimicking the cartoonish approach used by the well-known brands at the time (WWF, WCW), except their stars aren’t as good and their audience is limited. Then they get a new writer/booker coming in who excels at seeing the story that can be told between two wrestlers, finding ways to set up that story in innovative ways, and ways of getting the fans involved in innovative ways that break a lot of the conventional rules. 

When you know the specifics of what they’re doing–and where they end up a few years later–the television run between ’93 and ’94 is something of a master class in building a collective narrative around a brand.

What action do I need to take?

Last week ended up being a lot of busywork and very little actual progress on projects, which is usually a sign that I’m stuck on something or subconsciously fixating on something on the horizon and feeling like I can’t do create work until it’s under control.

Smart money is on the latter–I had a conference paper accepted for January and I don’t currently have a framework for understanding how much work’s entailed in putting it together and doing the necessary uni paperwork. 

Part of my goal for the coming week will be doing the step-by-step breakdown of everything that needs to be done so I’ve got a map of where I’m going