My last Sunday Sharing of the year (and potentially ever). I’ve got several other blog posts I’d really like to focus on this month, plus I’m considering a more flexible and interesting approach for next year.
As this is the last, I’ve packed this one full of content more in line with the fifth, sixth and eighth editions of this limited series. I hope you find it worth your while.
If all you’re interested in is the list of 10 things I wanted to share from the week, you can skip to the end.
The penultimate Sunday Sharing of the year before I switch my focus to some end-of-year reflective posts and make plans for what my blog will look like in 2022.
Whilst I have started a new draft for a fiction piece, most of this week’s writing can be viewed on my blog. This includes three poems I wrote and a piece on my relationship with music. My fourth newsletter also went out earlier this week.
For this reason, I’ve decided to just share a list of 10 things I’ve read from around the web this week. And I read quite a number of things, so narrowing down this list to 10 was hard. But here’s what I settled on:
As I mentioned in last week’s Sunday Sharing, this probably won’t be a weekly fixture come next year. My plan is to continue these posts for another two weeks and then call it quits for a while to focus on some end of year posts, such as my favourite books of the year. Then I’ll make my final decision towards the end of December about the direction I wish to take this blog in 2022.
In the meantime, here’s what my week looked like. Like every week, you can find a list of 10 things I read/viewed on the web I wanted to share.
There’s little to share on my end this week. The past seven days were filled with exciting ideas and plans but very little action. However, if those plans develop like I hope they will then I’ll have a wealth of things to write about in the near future.
One idea I’m entertaining is moving these weekly logs to a monthly basis so that the posts are meatier and more consistent in the volume of content. I’m also considering increasing the frequency of my newsletter. A definitive decision probably won’t be made until the new year, so stay tuned.
For now, though, here are 10 things from around the web I read/viewed that I felt were worth sharing…
This week, the end of my day job’s fixed-term contract was brought forward by two weeks, once again leaving me unemployed. I’m okay, though. My future job prospects are positive. However, it does mean that I’ve spent more time working on my CV and attempting to set up a portfolio site, which hasn’t left me much time or energy to be creative.
So here’s what I have to share from my week, including what I have managed to write, read and watch. And then finishing up with a list of 10 things with links to stuff I’ve read/listened to from around the web.
Trying something slightly different for this week’s Sunday Sharing. This post will be longer than October’s lists of 10 things, but if all you want is a list of reading/viewing recommendations then you can skip to the bottom.
Currently, these weekly sharing posts are experiments for me. I want to establish a regular writing habit that has something of value to whoever reads it. I enjoy the lists of 10 format, but I thought I’d revisit the structure of my first newsletter. Whilst I felt it was too long for an email, I figured it might work well for a blog post.
Plus, it would function as a weekly log of my work, which means I’ll actually have to work in order to log it.
As with the last format, it’s subject to change. This is an experiment for me to work out the best way to use this blog. Some might argue it would have been better to work it all out in advance, but I find it’s often difficult to see what’s shit and what’s gold until it’s in front of you. You have to try making something before you can judge if it’s a broken mess.
My last list of 10 things I felt worth sharing over the past week for October.
I’ve quite enjoyed the format and it has been good practice for if I ever start sending out my newsletter out on a weekly basis in the style of Austin Kleon (who moved his newsletter to Substack last week). But I also might try experimenting with a different format.
But that’s a decision for next week. For this week, here are 10 more things I enjoyed reading/viewing that I wanted to share…
Another week, another list of 10 things I felt worth sharing from said week:
These redemption arcs inevitably end with the fathers’ self-sacrifice after spending most of the movie ignoring, neglecting, or abusing the kids under their care. They die, because death is the only way we imagine fatherly failures being forgiven. And we applaud them for it, the writers and the dead dads both. It’s meant to be cathartic. In fact, it is bullshit.
… The children in these movies are only ever an afterthought to someone else’s character development. It’s like the concept of fridging was turned inside-out: the children live and the men die. But men get the spotlight, the good death scene, the redemption. The children get the consequences and the lifelong trauma, but that all happens off-screen. I guess it’s not as compelling.
At least until the end of the month I’m going to continue with these lists of things I enjoyed reading/viewing from the week that I think others might enjoy, too. I can already foresee selecting some highlights for this month’s newsletter will be a challenge.
This week’s 10 things I felt were worth sharing:
In my newsletters, I like to share links to stuff I’ve read/watched. For both August and September, I had a wealth of links worthy of sharing but had to cut down. As an experiment, I thought I’d attempt to compile things I want to share into a weekly post. Then I’ll select some highlights for the newsletter. This may be a regular feature, it might disappear and never resurface. Depends on how much I like the structure.
Also, when I discussed the idea with a friend, she pointed out that this might be useful for myself. It’ll serve as an online record of links to parts of the web I’ve enjoyed reading/viewing that I can look back on and find again if I need to.
I’ve longed for a method of logging what I find online. Unless I find a better way, this will hopefully serve.
John Wesley Stammers 