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 novel-in-progress is chugging along pretty consistently at the moment, but I’ve picked up a short article that needs to be written on a crazy tight deadline, so it will have my attention all the way up to Wednesday. After that, my non-notebook time gets spent creating a check-list of things that need doing on the novel rewrite, so I can create myself some milestones and tracking tools in the weekly outlines that go into my bullet journal.
What’s inspiring me this week?
This week? Like pretty much every other fantasy writer on my friends list, I’ve been hitting up Kilian Schoenberger’s photography page and pouring over the images, particularly those where he’s trying to evoke a fairytale aesthetic. Incredible stuff, and I am quietly saving up the scratch to pick up a copy of his Sagenhaftes Deutschland book.
If you managed to avoid his work this week, start with this series over on Behance.com which captures why he does incredible stuff.
What part of my project an I avoiding?
So after three weeks of putting something akin to “getting on with editing” here, I’ve recognised that simply saying it will not motivate me to do it. Edits are big and amorphous and I am not good with things that share those two traits. Yesterday, in an effort to clear that process up, I put together an editorial check-list with over 130 separate tasks required to edit/rewrite a novella I produced last year.
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The bulk of those tasks are breaking up the editorial process scene by scene, based on what I’ve been trailing lately – each scene gets one pass where I focus on pulling out the action, one sweep where I catalogue what happens and important information conveyed during the scene, one sweep where I re-read the scene in detail and make a whole bunch of rewrite notes, one where I revamp the action inside the scene without dialogue or description, and then the final sweep-through to flesh out the rewritten scene. 115 total check-points on a 130 check-point list.
It’s slightly terrifying, but it’s similar to the process I use to track page-count every week, so I’m hoping it’ll make it a little easier to fit editing tasks into my schedule when I sit down to do a weekly review.
