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?

I’m a little bit hit and miss on last week’s goals, at this point. Working my way through the planning questionnaire for Float went great and I have about thirty handwritten pages of notes on the first act. Revising the crocodile story didn’t really happen at all, so I’m still struggling to find the balance between planning, actual writing, and rewriting in my practice.

I’m going to try being really specific, this week, because of that: write 500 new words a day, on average; map out three scenes in the first act of Float using all the details I worked out over the last few weeks; and spend at least 20 minutes a day working on story rewrites.

What’s inspiring me this week?

I picked up Dan Charnas Work Clean: The Life-Changing Power of Mise-en-Place to Organise Your Life, Work, and Mind earlier this week and immediately fell for it. It’s an incredible piece of productivity-porn, in that you feel more virtuous and productive simply be reading the book, but it also hits all my sweet spots in terms of looking at a set of behaviours/techniques in one context and extrapolating outwards. Given my habit of drawing writing advice from wrestling, guitar tutors, and any number of non-writer locations, I totally adore that.

I suspect there is a lot of useful stuff in the system Charnas is advocating – I’ve already got the book flagged for a re-read with an eye towards some serious note-taking, but this time through I’m mostly just enjoying Charnas’ ability to draw me in with framing stories that demonstrate the system and its value. He’s got a great eye for story, with the ability to make you feel as though you’re getting a glimpse into the secret world of how chefs work, and it’s hard to explain how seductive that combination is.

There’s a great interview with Charnas on Forbes that originally sold me on the book’s concept, and it’s worth checking out.

What part of my project an I avoiding?

Apart from the writing/rewriting/planning split mentioned above, the major thing I’ve been dragging me heels on is addressing this bit of the Sunday Circle. A few weeks back I read Todd Henry’s latest book about finding your voice, and there was a moment when he revisited the three questions to ask at any creative circle. Except this third question was phrased differently than the way it appeared in The Accidental Creative, and it struck me as potentially more useful.

Except, naturally, I was reading the book while on a plane and now I can’t remember what the question actually was or where it is in the book, so I’ve been using that as an excuse to keep from searching out the new questions and figuring out whether it is useful enough to warrant disrupting the Sunday Circle routine.

I also got 90% of the way through re-arranging my flat to make it more writing- and visitor-friendly, but haven’t yet pulled it together to finish taking out all the trash and finding places to store the last 50 or so books that no longer have a permanent shelf.