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?
This week I start the drafting process on Wail. I kinda hesitate to mention this one–I’ve got all sorts of superstitions about working on a third Miriam Aster novella given the difficulties I’ve had in the past, but the upside of doing the PhD has been the opportunity to sit down and think about why I had so much trouble using Horn as the basis for a series.
What’s inspiring me this week?
John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story. A lot of books on story tend to fall back on the three-act structure and its variations, and Truby touches upon that here, but he’s less interested in the nuts and bots of who does what and more interested in tracking story as means of exploring a problem of morality. He takes a close look at what it means to build towards the moral choices that are made a the climax of a story, and how to build a narrative that will support it.
What action do I need to take?
I really need to sit down and re-read the second Aster book, Bleed, which I wrote approximately a decade ago and remember far less than I do Horn. Currently I’ve been flicking through the pick up certain points–character names, double-checking locations–but there’s all sorts of minutia in there I need to check for the Wail draft with very little idea of where, exactly, it might be.
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
7 Responses
Peter: I’m neck deep in Anatomy of Story as well, and loving it! It’s a hard slog for me, but I agree on the precision with which he details the inter-related parts of the story. I hope that drafting on Wail treats you well, if for nothing else than the selfish desire to read another one of those excellent books!
That idea of it being to do with morality sounds very relevant to certain big projects I’m for some reason applying to do…
I’M BACK!
I’m post-long-stretch-of-chaos now, and last week was completely absorbed in my own stuff. I’m still on my R&D stretch this week, but have a little more time for popping in here.
What am I working on this week?
This week is a deep dive on narrative structure (working through Anatomy of Story) along with some lead generation work, working on content generation around streaming, and some house-keeping around general practices and stored info (eg. going back through Evernote to clean out the cruft) I’d HOPED to get through both Anatomy of Story and Self-Management For Actors over a fortnight, but I’ve found that difficult, in part because they’re both mentally demanding books. I’m slowly building muscles here and making this quarter’s R&D stretch better than last quarter’s by adding an additional hour each day. It’s proven very easy to get distracted by tinkering with video content creation.
What’s inspiring me this week?
I’m still completely gripped by the Expanse series in a way no fiction has done for years. I can’t put my finger on why it’s doing that, but I love it. I’m also loving Taboo – the performances are exquisite, and I’m keen to see where the story goes. The fact that it deals with the intersection of corporate influence, colonialism and a romantic, almost mythic outsider, is a wonderful trifecta.
What action do I really need to take?
I need to start planning lead generation work this week in order to start spinning up the financial wheels for the remainder of the year.
What could I use some help with?
I’m currently looking for serious alternatives to Gmail as a mid-to-long term project, as its spam filter is all but useless now, and it’s such a staid product that it seems there must be a killer alternative out there somewhere. Recommendations more than welcome for something that offers a productive web interface, and a supporting iOS app.
I’m curious as to how you stop yourself tinkering — there’s a tension between efficiency and quality which I’d like to say I’m exploring, but I spend too long finishing many projects.
I wanted to leave a giant apology for not responding to this comment, too! I had a large reply on the go on the iPad a day or two after you wrote this, but I got interrupted and the rest of the week ran away with me.
In terms of stopping the tinkering, it’s a definite trap. But I try to start any enhancement with a clear goal, responding to a clear problem, and letting that set the boundaries of what I’m doing. So the tinkering does become an ongoing, sporadic thing, but it’s small stretches of tinkering. I absolutely hear you on the tension between efficiency and quality, too. I personally find it easy to finish anything that’s a commercial project, but agonizing when working on something myself. The one big reason I allow myself time to create video content is that it’s one area where I’m comfortable embracing imperfection.
I too am back! I was finishing the dissertation, and then I went to England. Hello again!
What am I working on this week?
I suppose all the deadlines should just be background radiation now. So, those aside:
– Two uni lectures, one on my experiences in the industry (for which I’m hoping to partially repurpose a career talk) and one on illustration in the industry with a tutorial on visuals and writing (I’ve given this one before but need to update slides). I also have to lay the groundwork for two workshops I’m giving in Hervey Bay in September. The illustration one I’ve given before but needs a lot of physical pre. The narrative visuals workshop needs to be evolved from previous attempts.
– Drafting a PhD application hahahahahsob.
– Planning when to get editing and writing on several projects done, and how, and in what order.
What’s inspiring me this week?
– I’m impressed by Set It Up‘s commitment to using cliches and just giving them a little twist, and how endearing that is.
– I read The Little White Horse which wobbles wildly on the line between Gothic and fantasy, and is a reminder to just go with the story and maybe give it an extra push sometimes.
– Rereading Tansy Rayner Roberts’s Creature Court novels and being impressed by how she does sexy urban fantasy but romanpunk but jazz bars and makes it work, and I am completely unsurprised that the first covers were a struggle, because how do you say that? Stay tuned to find out.
There’s something in all of these about expectations and just not caring, which fits rather nicely with Cold Comfort Farm approach to such things. One day I might learn a lesson from it, and I think that lesson will be that this is a job where it is completely legitimate to just make things up.
What action do I need to take?
I’ve been tracking my hours a la the bad old billable hours days, and it’s been helpful. I’ve worked out how many I can do, how many more I can do if I schedule a day off, how many I want to do, what rate I’d need to charge to live on that, etc.
Now I want to refine that approach by splitting time into:
– “billable” (commissions, Patreon, talks, casual work, anything that has money directly attached to it),
– “on spec” (most writing at the moment, personal projects which might directly or indirectly turn into something, courtship projects which might turn into future collaborations, etc), and
– support work (admin, unpaid interviews, most process work, Things That Need To Be Done etc).
The aim is to be able to strike a useful balance and downgear billables as spec work pays off, and vice versa.
If anyone has any resources on managing that sort of approach, I’m definitely interested!
Again, thank you for being so generous with your responses while getting crickets in return!
I’d definitely recommend checking out Work Clean – you don’t want the whole book, but there are snippets in there that might be useful for what you’re thinking through currently. (for example, starting the day with an hour of work focused around unlocking work by other people on your behalf) and the general approach to planning the day.
I’m not sure if you’ve read Accidental Creative before, but given that you’re a long-time regular, you’ve likely had it recommended before. Balancing the immediate commercial work versus the work that lets you spread your wings and grow is absolutely the meat of what that book discusses.