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?
Back on Median Survival Time this week, as I’m working towards an end-of-July point where I need to swap back to the theoretical side of the thesis. I pulled the entire thing apart over the last week and started looking for ways to tighten the action, cutting some of the filler that is currently padding the story out and leaving the scenes that are lean muscle.
What’s inspiring me this week?
Sy Montogmery’s The Soul of an Octopus, which is a kind of book-length personal essay about octopuses that weaves between scientific fact and personal experience. Much heavier on the latter by the end of the book – and there are points when things slow because of it – but I spent large chunks of the book making notes for aspects of marine biology I’m going to steal for other things in writing. As Montgomery argues, Octopuses are the closest things to aliens on planet earth; this makes them great fodder for SF writers.
What action do I need to take?
The last scene of Pixie Dust, with Whisky Chaser, continues to elude me, which means the ending I’ve got in mind probably continues to be wrong.I should go through the earlier scenes and look at what I’m building towards, then brainstorm a couple of
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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Writing is such a lonely experience – this site makes it less so, although standing up to take my place as a writer takes its own emotional toll; it is both draining and uplifting.
What are you working on:
This week I went back to a few of the first sentence essays I want to write, and trying to plug back into them so long after I’d written them down was like drinking flat cola – the urgency, the freshness wasn’t there. This tells me that when I have a first sentence I’m going to have to write out a complete first draft. or at least more of it than a sentence. I’m still in the “is writing wasting time that could be better spent working faze.” Fuck. Also, I’m having feelings, questions, of when is too soon to write an emotional, personal essay. And the family issue of telling the truth of experiences. Jesus, I feel so wet behind the ears.
What is inspiring you at the moment:
Longread’s personal essays as usual, but also online rags that take submissions like Guernica, and Narratively. I’m not yet ready to jump fully into Medium – I don’t want to sign up for it until I have one polished essay to submit. I did shut down my WordPress blog though, so that points me in the direction of new platforms. Also, the one essay I’ve developed past a first sentence and so had to do some online research for was really fun. I’d always thought of research as a chore but happily I had a blast doing the research, and the small steps of integrating that research into my essay,
What action do you really need to take:
Same as last week: work toward finishing an as good as it can be essay, and publishing it. And, the action I really need to take is to stop working a job that leaves me in crippling pain, but also gives me grist for the mill. I don’t thing I will ever be able to quit working, for both financial and social reasons. My plan is to drop like a bag of rocks, end of story, because finding a balance between the two will probably evade me forever. I’ve already come to peace knowing that regarding picking “the language or the kiss, ” to quote the Indigo Girls, I’ll always pick the language. As an introvert I can live with that.
Welcome back, Susan! It seems like there’s a lot going before you can get to the page at the moment – it’s great to hear that you enjoyed that run of research though!
Have you looked at framing your writing work in terms of the actions you perform (eg. time spent at the desk) rather than an expectation of results? I wonder if that might help you lower expectations around your output and get into a rhythm that works for you
Also, is there anything you can do to mitigate the pain that comes from the job, to improve how you feel when you’re off the clock?
Thank you, Kevin! I’m so happy to be here among professionals. I feel like the proverbial fly on the wall.
I’ve noticed you and Peter plan your goals/achievements as far out as quarterly. Do you also plan your goals as far out as five years, then break them down to one year, and then quarterly? I used to do that, fell away from it, but will restart.
Thanks for the suggestion of reframing my work in terms of concrete actions I perform, rather than results. I immediately saw the value in that, and felt excitement and relief.
Working the job less hours per day, but more days per week is a fix for back aggravation.
Will I someday feel less star-struck being here (it’s sort of like getting advice from Stephen King)? Did either you or Perter ever go through that? I’m so happy to being here, inhaling your experiences, and the working details, big and small, including the metadata. I earned my BA by double-majoring in creative writing and psychology, but Jesus, even now I occasionally cycle through twinges of regret. I’m grateful the twinges are tiny, and only momentary.
I don’t have 5 year goals – it’s too long a horizon to focus on and too hard to predict. I do have general lifegoals (and business plans) that give context to the quarterly planning and analysis of incoming opportunities, and they generally serve the same purpose.
Apologies for taking so long to respond to this, Susan!
Quarterly is as far as I go myself – I’m finding that exploring themes or topics each quarter is really working well to tie things together. Similar to Peter’s answer, I have longer-term strategic goals, but I’d doubt the utility of breaking down necessary steps to achieve them past a three month horizon – it’s too difficult to anticipate the results of actions along the way. (and to be honest, most of the “planned” actions for a quarter get triaged due to time constraints.
Regarding feeling star-struck, I understand what you mean. I’ve done a lot of work with coaches to get to a point mentally where I recognise the benefits of the work I’ve done along the way, and to feel like I own my place in the room. Personally it took a long time to get there, and imposter syndrome is a thing that everyone deals with, always. I don’t think anyone feels like they really ‘belong’ where their work gets them. This thread popped up on my Twitter feed a few days ago, and it’s a really great way to deal with that feeling – pedal like mad underwater to feel like you’ve earned whatever’s come your way.
For what it’s worth, I’m hugely jealous of *your* degree. I did a Bachelors of Information Technology, and it took a looooong time to realise that wasn’t my core passion. Everyone has their own journey, and I think everyone feels like they’re playing catchup.
I hope you’re having a great week, and look forward to your next check-in.
Peter: One thing I was curious about – how do you identify what is filler in a story? Do you look at the mechanics of what each scene is achieving, and work from there? What does a scene need to do to justify its place in the story?
What am I working on this week?
This week is working on the long-form narration gig, much-needed work on lead generation (especially as the narration gig is going to have me tied up for the next month) and also launching streaming on Twitch this weekend.
What’s inspiring me at the moment?
There’s a few themes that define the current quarter that I’m looking forward to digging into more, but right now it’s a couple of things – I’m at the close of The Corporation That Changed the World, and utterly fascinated. I’d heard about the Treaty of Nanjing before, but I had no idea that poisoning China with opium was paid for by looting Bengal. England’s history is terrible.
We’re also watching through Luke Cage, and I’ve been blown away by the current season. Really enjoying the arcs that they’re putting characters through, and how they’re using their cast of characters to work through those arcs. It’s highlighting some of the mechanical stuff that I’ve been reading through in Anatomy of Story, which I’m going to put down for a week or two to revise and go through some practical exercises for.
What action do I really need to take?
At the moment, it’s inching the sleep schedule back to a 5:30 start again. I’ve had a few late nights doing research/testing for streaming, and this is always the first thing that comes unstuck as a result.