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?
Working on the same short story as last week, and finishig off uni assessment for the semester.
What’s inspiring me this week?
No Middle Name, the collection of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher stories and novellas. It’s been a useful collection to look at in light of the PhD topic, and Reaxgee’s status as an iconic rather than a dramatic character.
What part of my project am I avoiding?
Still getting in the get swing of working during regular work hours, rather than being free to work at all hours.
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
10 Responses
@Peter: Hope all goes well adjusting to the schedule this week! Always seems to take a while to get the gears to catch on a new routine.
My Sunday Circle is here!
If you’ve got any control over the start of the day, I can’t recommend a short burst of cleaning enough for mindset. My jam is pretty much every day doing some dishes while listening either to audiobooks or podcasts for either work or pleasure.
Hope you’re feeling better this week!
Definitely think there’s something to this! Bug usually watches a cartoon in the AM, so often I’ve got a few minutes while making coffee and getting settled in for the day. I should just get in the habit of tidying up a few little areas to start chipping away at the clutter. 🙂 Thanks!
Good luck with adjusting the schedule and the short story!
My Sunday Circle is here.
How’d you find the EWF last week, Sophie?
Good luck on the drafts – those stories both sound awesome! Boxing circles and boxing gyms are such fascinating microcosms – saw a documentary at a short film festival some years back looking at the social structure of a small gym with an old crusty trainer almost carved solid out of the cliché, who was a de facto father figure to a lot of the regulars.
What am I working on this week?
Work continues on the film project. Slowly progressing research work with Adobe Premiere and After Effects for video series. This week sees a lot of meetings and catchups with people, managing a recording session for a client project, as well as heading along to pitching sessions at Webfest as research for the tentpole project.
What’s inspiring me this week?
A few things. I’m still really enjoying Tidal by Fiona Apple and how evocative it is of the joys and pitfalls of early 20s relationships. I spent a little time last week trying to quieten fear about the political climate by chewing through the audiobook of On Tyranny, which I found really helpful, as well as watching an episode of The Rubin Report with Mark Duplass, which was hard going, but worth it for moving a little outside of the bubble.
Was also reminded of how amazing this scene is in Heat. The work. OHMY.
OH, also bodyweight exercises – falling down a rabbit hole there and hopefully connecting with a locally recommended trainer to put together a regimen to build all-over strength without bulk to support performance capture work.
What part of my project am I avoiding?
Promotional work (newsletters and whatnot) and following up cold leads, at the moment. There’s a point where that’s going to become the biggest thing on fire, as I haven’t been doing it for a while.
Have fun catching up with folks! As for the cold leads, do they each require the same amount of effort/work to follow up on (i.e. sending an email, making a call, submitting info)? If so, would it help to set a small goal of following up three or five in a day help to start getting back into it before it becomes too urgent?
Peter: this might be a completely left-field suggestion, but one tool a game dev friend used to success to signal the set routine parts of his day (without external rails to guide him) was a Philips Hue bulb, or similar (I’d have one in the office myself but for cost at the moment)
Using colour and intensity to signal different modes of the day (work versus play) might be a subtle indicator that could help? (I’ve been using music to help with context shifting, but from memory you tend to listen to music depending on what you’re writing…
That’s kinda tempting, but probably a more complex solution than I need. White board tracking and switching of workstations seems to be doing the trick, once I’m *conscious* of needing to do stuff.
Better late than never, right? Here’s my Sunday Circle