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 started writing again last week, doing my best to get at least a paragraph written every day on a novella project and a short story project.
This week I’m stacking a little more on: a redraft of the short story that I’ve got sitting there, waiting for me to flesh out its verbs and voices; tightening up the first quarter of the story draft I’ve just written; progressing the novella to the end of the first act in its current draft; writing an opening sequence for a thesis chapter.
The bigger challenge is actually writing myself a plan for doing all that and sticking to it.
What’s inspiring me this week?
The second season of The Thrilling Adventures of Sabrina arrived on Netflix this week, and I remain utterly enthralled by the implications of this series and the changing state of TV narrative.
It remains, as the first season did, a fascinating study in what can happen when you disconnect advertising revenue from the creative process–you cannot tell me that a high-quality drama about the inner workings of a Satanic church would have survived in an environment where revenue was driven by advertising dollars.
And the characters remain outstanding, both in terms of casting and the arcs they’re pulling everyone through.
What action do I need to take?
So many of these at the moment, because Dad’s death and my sister’s illness through March, and the little coda of getting a cold last week, means that I feel like I’m behind on everything right now. However, since I can only fire up on thing at a time, I really need to look at the design of this site. I had a crash way back at the start of March, and the design for the site reverted to the look I was using back in 2010. I need to set aside a little time to rebuild, and freshen things up around the .com.
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
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Made it this week! https://charlienash.net/2019/04/07/sunday-circle-12/
Those anthologies sound fantastic, Charlotte! Is there a difference in how much gets to you depending on where I pick them up?
Also, in case it helps, on the note of nutritious food I’ve been making these energy balls my regular snack and with cocoa nibs replacing most of the dark chocolate, they’re pretty low calorie, and healthy.
I’m back from getting married in South Africa. Starting to put my writer and author hats back on. Not going full-scale yet as there are some things playing out in other parts of my life and I want to have capacity to deal with them.
What am I working on this week?
I wrapped up a little urban fantasy side project the other day. Toying with the idea of chucking it up on Amazon, but it’s essentially the reader magnet for a series I haven’t written and won’t any time soon. Maybe I shouldn’t.
I’m now taking a look at the novella that I plan to use as my new reader magnet for the Hawthorn House series, since The Clock Strikes didn’t quite fit the bill.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I spent at least a couple of hours yesterday on Pinterest. I find art very inspiring and Pinterest is exactly the sort of repository I wish had always existed. My “Dark Splendour”, “Dark Lords” and “Cosmic” boards got a number of additions yesterday.
What action do I need to take?
Getting new covers for my books is well underway. Book 2 took a strange turn when one of the options had a different model for one character, but assuming that gets sorted out quickly the task is nearly complete. I’m getting Book 2 professionally proofed and need to send Book 3 out to a friend for the same thing. Each is a small thing to keep rolling.
My big thing is, like you Pete, my website. I expected this to be an easy thing last year, then ended up hacking something vaguely suitable together and parking it until the wedding was done with. It’s the first big thing on the SPF101 course and I need to address it.
Which means finding a suitable WordPress template. Somehow this is more painful than I would have thought.
The idea of a ‘reader magnet’ is a really interesting one – could you expand on that a little Sean?
Also, if you’re at the point of building your website from scratch, I’d recommend at least considering Squarespace. I’m at a point personally where my five year old website (which has, admittedly, served me well) is dying, my commercial WordPress theme is no longer supported, and my contact form is a daily source of spam. Would definitely recommend considering non-Wordpress options, although admittedly there’s more cost involved.
A reader magnet is a small piece of your writing that you give away for free for signing up to your mailing list.
I’ll take a look at Squarespace. I don’t need anything particularly fancy, since I hardly have time to blog. Just a basic web presence will do it.
What am I working on this week?
E-learning audio, week two of a six week marketing course, and planning out the next quarter. The marketing course is proving to be a pretty significant time investment averaging about two hours work per day for 10 a week, but marketing is my focus for the next quarter (as a traditional weak spot) so it’s too good a fit to pass up. Sadly, narrative work and a lot of other stuff is being triaged for the first half of this quarter.
What’s inspiring me at the moment?
I’ve been slowly playing through Prey off-stream for myself, and I’ve been loving its slow-burn narrative and interesting systems. A lot of video games reduce themselves down to exposed systems and choices in the late game, but the world of the game still feels vivid, real and tactile. I’ve also started a listen through of the full Pirate History podcast (taking notes along the way)
I’ve not had much time otherwise to consciously consume media, save for floating blissfully in Neko Case’s back-catalogue after catching her in Melbourne recently.
I’m planning a re-watch of the Expanse series listening to The Churn as a companion, but need the time and brain-space for this.
What action do I need to take?
I want and need to get Omnifocus locked down with a reliable representation of what I want to get down with this quarter, so I can mentally leave that work behind and start using Omnifocus as a way of ticking things off my list. That’s second fiddle behind the work for the marketing course though – absolutely need to keep that effort consistent throughout.
What could I use help with?
Pete: you mentioned a course you did some time back around ideal practices for maintaining an email mailing list – am I remembering correctly, or do I have my wires crossed? I’d love to add that to my to-do list post-current-course if you have a link handy.
You’re remembering correctly, but imperfectly–it was a module in Mark Dawson’s Ads for Authors course, which comes with a pretty hefty pricetag and a strong self-publishing focus.
That said, you can get the vast majority of the newsletter-specific advice out of Tammy Labrecque’s Newsletter Ninja, which builds around the same principles.
Pete: please let me know if there’s anything I can help with website-wise. I’ve done a bit of WordPress exporting, tweaking and re-importing with clients over the last year or so. Would love to make life easier if I can.
@Peter Your theme change appears to have a similar problem (or feature) to mine. Comments and the ability to do so are invisible from the main post listing. You have to click into the post itself.
I shifted my post list to /blog over the weekend and the same thing has happened to mine.
Weird coincidence.