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’m kicking around a new story draft about boxing, crime-lords, and French colonies on a Burroughs-esque mars around 1920 or so. I’ve already got the first few scenes down and just started winding my way towards the real meat of the story, which means it’s probably going to be on the long side.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I spent a good chunk of Saturday inhaling Caitlin Kiernan’s Agents of Dreamland novella, which is fricken’ incredible in the way that about 99% of Kiernan’s short fiction work tends to be. It’s basically Lovecraft filtered through layers of conspiracy and espionage paranoia, but that sort of description never really does Kiernan’s work justice. It’s less about what the story is about, and more about the mood that’s being evoked.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
I really need to do a final sweep of the short-story rewrite I did last week and get it into submission shape. . I’ve had the final print-out sitting on my desk, needing to be proofed, for about two or three days but just keep scheduling other things ahead of it.
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
18 Responses
@Peter: Best of luck with the new story! It sounds like an intriguing mashup. As for the edit, would it be helpful/funnoying to tape or place the story draft on top of the computer/other projects that have been distracting you, as kind of a gentle reminder that it’s waiting for attention?
My Sunday Circle is here!
Sat down with it this morning, after doing today’s post. Turns out the problem isn’t that it needs attention, but that it needed a different kind of attention than just a quick editorial pass and procrastination was my subconscious’s way of telling me there was a more work needed :).
And I’m totally with you on the post-Kondo closet. I didn’t quite get to the mass throw-out of items that she suggested, but it did make my wardrobe a far easier place to navigate.
Ah! Darn that subconscious always knowing what really needs to be done. And yes! Just being able to see better what we have is massively helpful in the day-to-day.
A barrage of questions around reading – what are the contexts you tend to read in? Is there a time of day/week that suits best for finding quiet time to read?
Definitely agree on the benefits of culling, although I’ve not gone and read Kondo’s work – every time I’ve cut down stuff (particularly anything I’m keeping for nebulous ‘sentimental’ reasons) it’s lifted a load off my mind.
You might be familiar with it already, but Japanese T-shirt folding changed my life! (well, my closet)
Reading questions-wise: It does tend to be the last thing I do at the end of an already pretty packed day. (Kiddo goes down ~8-8:30, clean up kitchen/hubby hang-out before his notes until about 9-9:30, writing for about an hour or so, and *then* usually around 10:30/11pm I either read or watch TV (and I’ll be the first to admit that the TV has won out in the last few weeks, because I can do that and knit), and *sometimes* if I’m being good, I might then pick up a book for twenty minutes or so after watching something to unwind (which obviously isn’t all that effective for making time). I used to read a lot more while the kiddo watched a show or two in the afternoon, because he likes me to be near him, but most of the shows are ones I’ve seen a dozen times, so could therefore tune-out enough to read. That works great for non-fiction/news, but when it comes to fiction, I want to focus, so don’t tend to read those books then.
What I really need to do is probably assign certain days when I let myself zone out on TV after writing, and certain days I don’t, so I can focus on reading most of the time. Mrs. Dalloway is helping me overcome that hangup a bit, though!
The short story sounds intriguing Peter. I love the way you take so many disparate elements and mash them all together.
Here’s my Sunday Circle.
I do love a good rejection, but I’m so deeply embedded in Heinlein’s-rules-of-submitting that I read your rework-after-rejection process and broke out in a cold sweat 🙂
Rewriting after rejection is pretty much my writing process. My short stories take a long time to develop, often 2 or 3 years, sometimes longer. Almost without exception they get better after each round of rejection-rewrite. People often see really interesting things in my stories that I never notice on my own.
Out of curiosity, how do you differentiate between shifting a story’s core to fit feedback, versus a change that helps realise what you were aiming for with the story to begin with?
A big high five for pomodoro, too! I’ve gone back to it over the last week while dragging my feet on audio editing, and it’s made a huge difference!
A good question Kevin! Usually it’s not the core that needs changing but rather elements of the story that need to be strengthened. It’s sort of hard to describe but the essential story is fixed (that is, the story I want to tell) but editors might say,for example, a character is too thin so I’ll look at how I can add in more nuance. Although I have changed endings of stories more than once – and each time I’ve been much happier with the later version. I’m lucky to have been given some great feedback over the years that has pushed me to always do better.
That short story sounds super great! I’ll have to check out Agents of Dreamland too. It sounds awesome and totally up my alley.
My Sunday Circle is here.
Have you ever read Susan Faludi’s Stiffed? It’s probably very dated at this point, but it was a mid-nineties look at feminisim and masculinity that basically tracked the early seeds that bloomed into the Lost Boys of the Alt-Right.
I haven’t! It definitely sounds super relevant though. Ordering it now. 🙂
I’d HIGHLY recommend reading Game Changers by Leena van Deventer and Dan Golding as a way of scoping out that territory, particularly as pertains to GamerGate.
Also, this thread on Twitter crossed my path and really blew my hair back, and might be a useful part of the landscape. Maybe.
Look forward to hearing more about what the story becomes!
That book looks great and that Twitter thread is super, super relevant! Thanks so much. 🙂
What am I working on this week?
Well, I’m living in interesting times, so excitingly this month is full time on voice over. This week I’m working on the final scraps of the long-form narration gig, a video game gig, an ADR performance for a lead character for a 90 minute sci-fi film, re-proofing the pitch bible for the animated series, and the commercial demo is DEFINITELY getting traction this week. Also rejigging the daily practice to make sure I’m working on the fundamentals
All eminently do-able.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I’m excited about getting to go see Logan this week, and starting to dig into The Expanse S2 with the girl this weekend coming. The common thread there I’d say being genre entertainment dealing fundamentally with evocative human issues. I also frickin’ adored the new Deadpool teaser trailer (seriously – that thing is so dense with detail!)
What part of my project am I avoiding?
There’s some website updates that are being pushed back in terms of priority for this week, but it doesn’t feel like avoidance. The priority list at the moment is 1) Current work 2) Lead generation 3) Marketing stuff like that. We’ll see next week.
Wow! Busy, awesome week. Best of luck streamlining everything that needs to be done (and having fun doing it)! I seriously need to start The Expanse–I’ve been waiting for the hubby to have time, because I think he’ll really enjoy it, too (base on the first fifteen minutes I watched a few weeks ago while knitting and promptly realized I am not yet able to truly watch something AND knit, and I could tell I wanted to just WATCH this).
Sounds like you’ve got a good grip on your priorities this week, so trust your gut and get crackin’! ^_^
Temporarily switched to survival mode after realisation of extreme but predictable overcommitment. Regular transmissions will resume soon.