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 two projects occupying my attention for the next seven days will be providing feedback on a friend’s novel and writing the presentation that I’ll be taking to Gladstone on Thursday, talking about blogging and author platforms.
What’s inspiring me this week?
The Adelaide Fringe festival was utterly fantastic, even with the bad luck of coming down with the flu halfway through the trip. By far the most inspiring shows of the week were Puddles Pity Party, a cabaret featuring a singing clown who is silent outside of his songs. Watching hi hold the audiences attention without saying a word, building up to each song, was fascinating.
The other inspiring show was Jennifer Kingwell’s The Lotus Eaters – brilliant cabaret featuring covers and new songs, using the Odysseyy as a framework to hold things together. Easily the best show of the bits of the Fringe I saw, and it continues Adelaide great run of venues.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
Technically, I’m still on holidays at this point, and the coming week is basically a mess of travel and commitments. I’ve been seriously putting off doing anything, amid the chaos.
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
22 Responses
The Lotus Eaters sounds pretty amazing!
And my Sunday Circle is here
Are you able to talk at all about the writer’s attachment to a production stuff you’re doing this week? Is that a theatre production, or film/TV? Would love to hear more about what that entails…
It’s great to hear that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend actually deals with the mental illness with some nuance, too. I cringed a little watching the trailer for it a while back, thinking that it had the potential to go really sideways.
Absolutely! I finish the attachment in mid-April and am planning on writing a post on it over on my blog. It’s been a really interesting experience.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is actually terrific. It’s a very sharp series that constantly reverts tropes and doesn’t feel the need to make characters likable but they’re still incredibly easy to connect with.
I think a lot of writers would be deeply interested in what you can share about the writer’s side of production as this is relatively rare and therefore probably lonely. One of my CPs has had a number of meetings with producers etc to get a TV series for her work off the ground and it’s a tough gig, not to mention the mental shift from writing novels to screenplays.
What am I working on this week? Queerish PNR, chapter 14(!). Today is the first day I haven’t written all week which I think is pretty good (but tbh, it’s now after midnight, probably not going to get any words in). I started a tiny spreadsheet to track my daily wordcount yesterday, and there is a part of my brain wondering if that has anything to do with my lack of words today. I want metrics but there is a part of my brain that Really Doesn’t Like Them and (even when they’re just about tracking and not about am I meeting a goal or not) feels like they are Pressure. So, pondering that particular conundrum.
What’s inspiring me this week? I have read a bit more of the fantasy novel I started a couple of weeks ago, but given my lack of reading time this week, I guess it’s not really inspiring me. There’s a new KJ Charles sitting on my Kindle waiting to be read, I am really tempted to forsake the fantasy novel for that instead… Otherwise, it’s been language learning, a bit of maths for variety, and a few games.
What part of my project am I avoiding? Today: writing, and I’m halfway through writing a rambling post for my tiny writing filter on Dreamwidth, and a bit stalled there too because I want to tell my friends what’s going on with the novel but not quite sure what I want to say! Helpful, right? Oh, and there’s also the part where I opened a new WordPress account under my planned pen name, many weeks ago, and I was going to actually make that into a blog, but… somehow I have to figure out what I want to put there.
Sounds like part of your brain has already decided on the KJ Charles over the fantasy novel – might be worth pushing the fantasy novel back in the queue and seeing how you go? Also, what are you playing games-wise at the moment?
I completely relate on the blog front, too – I have a blog on my main v/o website, but writing content for it, along with website updates, have fallen by the wayside somewhat.
With regards to sharing news of your novel – is it what’s happening with the process of writing that you want to share, or details of the story itself, or is that part of the puzzle that you’re working out at the moment?
I’ve found it useful, when caught between writing and reading and not doing enough (or any) of one, to set a timer and say I will read/write for 10 minutes, and that way at least I haven’t missed out completely.
What am I working on this week?
Clearing out the rest of the editing backlog, which will put me current on work for clients. Also doing some serious investigation on some issues that have cropped up in the signal chain for recording. Seriously, moving house has seriously monkey-wrenched my recording somehow. Ugh. Also, a project meeting, some social catchups, and some homework for coaching. (wrapping my head more firmly around Iago)
What’s inspiring me this week?
The benefits that come from study time. After making efforts to put that back on the regular schedule, the tips and tricks I’ve learnt for audio editing have paid off almost immediately in terms of productivity boosts.
That, and the idea of making stuff just for giggles. My voice got wrecked but good this week thanks to a cold I picked up courtesy of my daughter, so I couldn’t record anything for clients (or auditions) but I did put down a take on a ridiculously-grizzled-80s-action-hero-Care-Bear-monologue that’ll become about a 15 second soundscape when I get the chance, letting me flex muscles I don’t normally use.
Ooh! Also, finding that I’m far less curious than I think, and the beautiful things that come from pushing that a little further. I discovered The Moth while researching storytelling formats, and thanks to Lois Spangler’s quick digging, I’m heading to a live event Monday night in Melbourne to check it out! http://themoth.org/events?category=51
What part of my project am I avoiding?
Sitting down with the problem in my signal chain to figure that out once and for all, because it involves a large amount of unknowns.
I’m glad you were able to make stuff for fun! And to turn the cold to advantage.
I’m still amazed that you managed to pick up the actual flu at the festival, Peter.
Out of curiosity, do you find much time for reading amidst travel chaos, or is the upheaval to schedule and space too jarring?
Be sure to let us know next week how the presentation went, too!
What am I working on this week?
Having done the synopsis to the sequel-I-should-not-be working on, I found it such a useful exercise, I went and started another synopsis for the first contemporary story (no paranormal) I’ve wanted to write in about 20 years. Three pages into that and I had to start on the story – couldn’t keep it in! Next thing I know, I’ve 2,500 words on the page in one day and they are words that won’t need much editing.
What’s inspiring me this week?
Apart from synopses; DEADLINES. Gotta love an external deadline. I have until the end of March for my new WIP and I have to keep up the momentum or it won’t be ready. Also, I’ve read three novellas this week. They’ve been great by I have the minor beef that I didn’t realise they were novellas when purchasing them and got quite the surprise when all but one ended just as I was really falling for the characters. (The latter went the distance all the way through.)
What part of my project am I avoiding?
It’s taken a bit to find my male hero’s voice. The course on deep PoV really helped here but the challenge has been to make him heroic and not bitter. Finding writing time this week will be a challenge – husband and I will be ‘on tour’ trying to drum up workaday business.
KEVIN – if you want someone to kick Iago idea’s around with, my husband acts, and, having played Iago to great effect, has plenty of opinions that are beyond the Cliff Notes interpretations. If you’re interested let me know and I’ll get you two in contact.
PETER – Your piece on Conventions for (Emerging) Writers should be in every convention handbook as required reading. Wish I’d read that a few years ago! (I had someone hold my hand for my first convention but not everyone is so lucky.)
Awesome to hear that following your curiosity/passion has given those kind of creative dividends! That’s fantastic!
And I’d love to be put in touch with your husband if that’s OK with you both! Best contact point for me is mailto:kevinpowe@voiceoverartist.com.au
Oops. No HTML in replies apparently. 🙂
Amazing how inspiring deadlines can be 🙂
Makes sense to leave things aside until back home. Other than the stuff needing attention of course. Enjoy the holiday away-from-office time.
My week ahead.
What am I working on?
After a lot of blah-ness and trying to wrangle the current wip, going with a new strategy (at least for March aka until Contact is done and dusted and our house is normal again). My priority is to get my writing process back, the regularity of words on page. So using my “time sheet” (instead of word count or page counts, it’s time amounts) on any of the 3 wips I have boiling. Has worked a bit last week, so going to continue this strategy.
What is inspiring me?
I am hopeful to be well enough to get to 3 sessions of the World Science Festival – dark matter & dark energy fascinates me as does the deep oceans – looking forward to having brain borked in a good way.
What am I avoiding?
Getting back to my uni routines. After a horrendous semester end of last year (I’m external so eg of horrendous is lecturer refusing to record her lectures), getting back into listening to lecture, doing readings and realising 1st assignment is due same day as start of Contact (aka Good Friday) has had a case of the avoidance.
Oh, I want to get to the science festival! I left it too late to book for the session of the play I wanted to see, but I’ve got to sit down tomorrow and see if there’s anything which will lend itself to sketching at, as I also need to break open a new sketchbook. Which sessions are you planning on?
Had to wait until today to get tickets (stoopid health issues) which means I’ve missed out on getting to the session about the deep ocean (Discovering the Deep) at GoMA Thurs night *sigh*. But that would have been awesome to hear blue whale whalesong *double sigh*.
But have tickets to two sessions on Friday – both about dark matter/dark energy (To Infinity and Beyond: The Accelerating Universe & Shining New Light on Dark Matter).
Preparing for my brain to be borked. But probably not that much of a stretch to the dinner conversations had with progeny LOL 🙂
There were other things on every day but budget and energy levels won’t allow for much else *grumble*. Look forward to seeing your sketches of the event (especially if you check out the dinosaur trail or the taxidermy birds).
What am I working on? I finished the first-pass edits on the Regency (huzzah!) and now am working through the comments I left for myself, doing the research. I also have to learn some new techniques for a picture book project, and prepare rough sketches for proposed chapter illustrations for another book. Helpfully I’ve already read that manuscript and made sketch notes in the margins and of course I’m still doing other things.
What is inspiring me? A book of Peter de Sève‘s art. He said, “An artist’s drawing is a catalogue of the shapes that he loves. When I’m drawing something, I’m trying to find the shapes that please me. I believe that’s what makes up what people refer to as a style.” I think that holds true for writing too. Also his art is so funny and shapely and looks both effortless and as if of course it should exist in the world, didn’t it always?
What am I avoiding? Doing a proper outline for a major rewrite project. I did manage to just sit down and make up a numbered list of cool chapter titles today, and then put in where each would start and end. It… might have legs, but there’ll still be some pushing involved in getting it together.
I love that quote about shapes. I’ve been thinking a lot in the same sense as a writer about words. There are certain words that I know I overuse but I just love the way they feel and sound, in my head and on my tongue.
OHHELLYES.
I find the same thing with voice work. There are some words that become your favourite children because they just feel so good rolling off the tongue.
Interesting quote about shapes and as Kevin and Sophie mention words, I also find the shapes in words too (especially when playing with calligraphy). I suspect all forms of creative outlets have this (knitters or quilters with patterns and colours and textures or musicians with note progressions come to mind).
Hehehe re list of cool chapter titles.