The Sunday Circle: What Are You Working On This Week?

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 holiday season is upon us and fitting work around the other commitments is getting harder and harder. I’ve got a metric butt-ton of thesis drafting that needs to be done this week, including some catch-up for work that didn’t get done in the last seven days, but I’ll mostly be working to keep to good writing habits as best I can during the season of catch-ups and feasting.

What’s inspiring me this week?

This week has been spent on a deep dive through various Marvel comics storylines over the last decade, courtesy of a Marvel Unlimited subscription and a particular interest in how many of the long, long-term narratives of comic books shape the writing process. The absolute best of them that I’ve come across has been Dan Slott’s run on Spider-Man, starting from the point where he rebuilt the main character’s life by putting the fact he’s a genius front-and-centre, through to the storyline where Doctor Octopus becomes The Superior Spiderman, and then the character’s re-launch. It’s an incredible masterpiece of serialised storytelling, with plot elements quietly being laid a year or more before they pay off, and getting to read them all in the compressed timeframe really shows off how well-crafted they are.

What action do I need to take?

I’m largely working from home at the moment, with the end-of-year shenanigans seeing a lot of my regular going-out-and-engaging-with-people activities put on hold while people are away. This has resulted in long stretches inside the house and very little engagement with the outside world, which tends to have a negative effect on my overall mental health. I really, really need to make sure I’m getting out of the house once a day, for a period of at least a half-hour, and preferably in a place where I need to interact with people.