News & Upcoming Events

Cool Things

My parents read my blog. I’m still having trouble adjusting to that thought, as evidenced by the impulse to ring them when cool stuff happens since, in days gone by, they’ve remain unconnected to any of my primary methods of disseminating “check it out, cool stuff* happening” type news. These days they get to find out about it with the rest of you: Cool Thing the First: Apex Magazine has announced the line-up for their forthcoming print anthology, Descended from Darkness I’m in it, apparently. Which is pretty cool given that my story hasn’t yet made it up as a part of the magazine yet (I may show up in May, I suspect, given the trading-around of line-edits and bios we’ve been doing). The rambunctious Jason Fischer is included as well, making this the second time we’ve shared a Table of Contents. Cool Thing the Second: Interstitial Arts Foundation Call for Artists Back when the first interfictions anthology was released the IAF had

PeterMBall 23/04/2009
Works in Progress

Claw Update

Claw Draft Projected Total: 25000 Total Words to Date: 12,556 Words Done in Previous 24-hour Period: 2,081 Deadline: April 30th And now there is a Sixth Chapter, although it is currently the roughest chapter since the first and in possession of even more notes about what might need to be done. I predict that the future chapter six will share very little beyond the present chapter six beyond the protagonist and locations. I also have a bit of Chapter Seven sorted, in which I start making myself particularly unpopular with folks who like kittens. I’m a little demoralized by last nights stint, after so many days of letting the story run itself and things coming up okay. Still, it got done, and as long as I don’t give in to my lethargic urges tonight I think everything will sort itself out. I’ve managed seven days of this now and I’m tempted to see how far it can be pushed. Other

PeterMBall 22/04/2009
Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx

I predict that Jason is the sole person who’ll take me up on this, but-

I sat down this morning and thought “Right, post something that has nothing to do with writing, you’re about due.” But you know what? I’m being a little writing obsessive this week. Can’t be helped; I’m in the midst of the first prolonged stretch of writing I’ve had in a long while and I’m still far to excited about that to think of something else to talk about on my own. So consider me a dancing monkey waiting for someone to crank the hurdy-gurdy (aka give me a topic and I’ll attempt to say something meaningful for your amusement. Otherwise I predict the remainder of the week will consist of me showing up with some variation of “look, I’m writing stuff, and it’s an awesome feeling” as my theme…)

PeterMBall 22/04/2009
Works in Progress

Claw Progress

Claw Draft Projected Total: 25000 Total Words to Date: 10,475 Words Done in Previous 24-hour Period: 1,931 Deadline: April 30th Chapter five is done. Which means I’m now settling into a comfortable rhythm of a chapter per night, more or less, with tinkering time and short-story writing occurring in the mornings. In theory, if my plan is to be trusted as a guide (it shouldn’t), I am now halfway through the novella. While I’m running lower than the anticipated wordcount at this point, I’m not too stressed about that – I’m thinking the next draft will see the story balloon out dramatically, requiring a third draft to cut things back. I am freaking out a little about the pacing of things though, since by this point in Horn there had been much death and destruction, while by this point in Claw there is only scratch marks, minor-character death, snark, and romance subplots which are not inherently doomed from the outset.

PeterMBall 21/04/2009
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

Because PIL had it right

I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I am, essentially, a person that wavers between the frivolous and the downright irate (and even the source of my irritation is essentially frivolous, when you get right down to it). I realise this because a week ago I made the decision to stop being lazy, and part of this was making a list of all those things that I keep meaning to blog about without ever getting around too it. It’s a big list, too – over the last couple of years I’ve had a lot of ideas pass through that have captured my imagination and had me thinking “hell, yeah, I really should say something about that.” The net result of this is a half-dozen files on my computer which contain the beginning, and even the middle of posts, but never really catch the feeling of being something I’d put up on the interwebs. So today I’m giving in

PeterMBall 21/04/2009
Works in Progress

Claw Update

Claw Draft Projected Total: 25000 Total Words to Date: 8,544 Words Done in Previous 24-hour Period:2,229 Deadline: April 30th I think I’m settling into a process that works for me here, although it largely involves having an early night (around 8 or so) and taking the laptop to bed in order to write until about midnight. Does a good job of getting words down, but impractical in the long run given that the majority of the world doesn’t run on writer-time and will, eventually, require me to go out. I’m slowly – slowly – starting to feel like I’ve got that deadline in my sights now, which is a long way from what I was thinking this time last week.

PeterMBall 20/04/2009
Journal

Probably one of those things I shouldn’t admit publically…

Living in a culture of music sampling does very strange things to your head. I cannot, for example, help but get disappointed when the opening strains of Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man *aren’t*, in fact, going to lead into Cyprus Hill’s Hits from the Bong. It used to drive me absolutely crazy the year Pulp Fiction came out and the Springfield song made a comeback. That’s nothing compared to today’s realisation, which is liable to get me lynched: The baseline for Under Pressure totally belongs to Ice, Ice, Baby in my head. Even when I’ve just spent twenty minutes listening to David Bowie beforehand and I know it’s coming, I just sit there waiting for the white-boy rap to start…

PeterMBall 20/04/2009
Works in Progress

Claw Update

Claw Draft Projected Total: 25000 Total Words to Date: 6315 Words Done in Previous 24-hour Period:1,673 Deadline: April 30th Last night made for an awesome burst of writing – finished chapter three, worked out some more things that were bugging me about the first two chapters*, and promptly took the daylight hours of Sunday off in the name of cleaning, playing a few hours of D&D, and preparing to go back to work tomorrow. Fortunately the part of me that’s damn happy about doing a minimum of 2000 words a day for the last four days albeit not all on this project) is making noises about how it’d be nice to keep that going. *to whit: when writing a hard-bitten character, or at least when writing this particular protagonist, having them start off in the dark trying to work out what’s happening is the wrong choice. Having an investigator start with an idea of whats going on, then subverting it in a way

PeterMBall 19/04/2009
Works in Progress

Claw Update

Claw Draft Projected Total: 25000 Total Words to Date: 4642 Words Done in Previous 24-hour Period: 879 (Was all prepared to angst about this, then realised it’s nine more words than yesterday) Deadline: April 30th Reasons to Squee: Chapter Two is done. Chapter three introduces a character I hadn’t planned for, but is proving to be fun. Made many notes on fixing the awkward bits of Chapter two as well. Reasons to Wail: You know what? Not much today. All is well in my writing world. Non-Novella Writing: Wrote about four-thousand words of short-story draftage last night (yet another reason not to angst over today’s wordcount), and finally finished the draft of my post-apocalyptic-dragon-cyberpunk-western story. Given this is one of those ideas that I’ve been throwing around for a year or two now without ever finalising it, I find myself very happy. Things worth checking out: Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Freelancer’s Guide (In progress and published on-line as it goes along).

PeterMBall 18/04/2009
Works in Progress

Claw Update

Claw Draft Projected Total: 25000 Total Words to Date: 3763 Words Done in Prior 24-hour Period: 870 (Ach) Deadline: April 30th Reasons to Squee: Today, very few. Chapter two, thus far, is a big ol’ mess of revisions waiting to happen. It is, however, almost done and will likely be over some time tonight. Reasons to Wail: Apparently I’ve decided to follow a car chase with a bi ol’ lot of exposition in which the primary action is a possessed cat eating a hamburger. On the Plus Side: I’ve more-or-less finished off all the crits I owe; I got some very nice rejection letters; and I got said stories out again fast. On the Down Side: I lost my groove when it came to putting in time at the keyboard today, choosing to do things like shopping instead. Must rectify this, and soon.

PeterMBall 17/04/2009
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

This is why I’m not a reviewer

I have two moderately hard-and-fast rules when it comes picking movies: no musicals, and no spoofs. I’ve developed these rules after years of being a miserable git who complains about things, and they’re usually followed for the safety of everyone involved. I’m just not geared to enjoy either of those genres, so it’s safer to avoid them. Last Friday, while visiting the local video store, I broke said rules three times. The first to pick up Cabaret and The Producers, the second to pick up Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. To their credit, none of those films was the worst thing I watched this week (that was a film called Blue State, which made me profoundly irritated and left me wondering if a film that was theoretically about being part of the American left was perhaps funded by conservatives gleefully trying to make lefties look idiotic and redundant); yet all three reminded me that I really shouldn’t watch musicals

PeterMBall 17/04/2009
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Friday Youtubery

I’d kinda made a promise to myself that I’d stop posting Amanda Palmer/Dresden Dolls clips on Fridays, since I’m aware that I do it quite a bit. It isn’t really intentional so much as a reflection of my tendency to be very focused on one band for a few years – there’s a period in my late teens where I had the same kind of thing going with REM and the Cure, a time in my early twenties where there was ungodly amounts of Primus and Korn*, and now I seem to have caught the Dresden Doll’s bug (although it may yet turn into a long-term obsession, in much the same way that I never quite lost my obsessive fanboyishness of Nick Cave). Anyway, yes, I keep telling myself to hold back on the Amanda Palmer clips. I think, by now, you’ve all more-or-less caught onto the fact that I regard the band as awesome wrapped in greatness and delivered

PeterMBall 17/04/2009