Smart Advice from Smart People

Thursday Linkfest

Another week where the list is far less complete than I’d like, but such is life these days… Okay, did you know Angela Slatter has a blog now? No? Well, now you do. Do yourself a favour and go read it, for Angela is a phenomenal writer and a sayer of useful things – I recommend starting with her posts on dialogue or the Clarion South experience. So Friday of last week I put forth some ideas about SF and Gender in response to debates that’ve raged across the Australian SF community of late. Most of the discussion seemed to occur over in the comments of my livejournal, but it also spawned a response from Ben Payne (which generates some interesting discussion on its own). Scienceagogo on Biodeversity Regions as Hotspots for War (Courtesy of Chris Green) Chris Green takes my standard screed on the awesomeness of being rejected and turns it into a yearly writing goal. The Conjecture website has been updates after

PeterMBall 05/03/2009
Journal

The Catch-up Post

My brain is full of much-ness today. As in there is much I want to blog about, but little time and space in which to achieve this, so things kind of bump up against each other and nothing gets written. As always, I blame the thesis – in some ways it feels like I’ve been talking about it for so long that the opportunity to talk about something else triggers this rush of “oh, and that…” (I shall stop that train of thought there, I think, lest I start rambling; rambling is the symptom of a brain full of much-ness). Okay, lets focus on the news in short form: On the writing front, some good news – I sold a story, Clockwork, Patchwork and Raven, to Apex Online. This was the source of much huzzah around the writing the desk, as one might imagine. Also on the writing front – the Black Dragon, White Dragon anthology is available now. It’s one

PeterMBall 04/03/2009
Big Thoughts

SF and Gender

There’s been a bunch of debates about Gender and SF of late, all of which seem to end up with someone defending themselves with a variation of “I filled all the spots on project X with men because I was choosing on the basis of quality, not gender.” This answer flummoxes me every time it’s trotted out; not because the people who use it are not bad people or knowing oppressors, but just because it often reveals itself as a blind-spot in the approach of someone whose work I’d otherwise respect. And, to be honest, I just don’t get how people can’t question that statement, since SF itself has often been denigrated and ignored using the same excuse. Think about that moment that all SF fans seem to share – that moment where you’re talking to someone who doesn’t read the genre, and you reveal that you do, and their response is a muted “oh” followed by a look that

PeterMBall 27/02/2009
Works in Progress

The Thesis March, an update

Yesterday was the last full day I’d get to spend on the thesis for over a week, and by the time I collapsed into my bed in the wee hours of morning I remember feeling upset by how little I’d achieved. Today I feel pretty good about it; frustrated, to be sure, but object enough to recognise that yesterday’s wordcount was actually pretty good by my standards. The reason I stalled out around three AM is because I realised that while I could identify the function genre plays in the process of editing work, I wasn’t yet doing anything with the realisation except pointing out that it’s there – it’s an example in need of practical application and I’m not yet sure how to do so without actively editing a piece within the exegesis itself (and, I’ll be honest, I’ve already played that trick in the preface when addressing the genre of the exegesis). While I’m not quite at a

PeterMBall 25/02/2009
Works in Progress

Thesis Update

Just dropping in with the following reports: The official wordcount (aka words actually in draft documents, rather than random notes) just topped 10k. I have, for the first time since I started the damn thing, actually finished a chapter. I have, for the first time since I started the damn thing, actually got a plan for proceeding that seems workable. This, of course, just means I have to get 20,000 words written between now and Wednesday evening. That’s a far worse thing than it sounds, incidently; I could probably get 5000 words a day done in a pinch, but I’ll be utterly useless for anything else afterwards and that’s not a luxury I’m going to get anytime soon. I suspect there will be some measure of begging for mercy in my near future.

PeterMBall 23/02/2009
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Friday Youtubery

I went looking for a decent live version of the Mountain Goat’s Lovecraft in Brooklyn, which is easily the song I love with a deep and fierce devotion off Heretic Pride. Unfortunately most of the live videos posted on youtube tend to drown out the vocals, so I’m kind of limited in options. Fortunately there is no real shortage of good Mountain Goats songs : Updated June, 2013: Seems the original song I’d linked to is no longer accessible,  so I’ve added a link to an interesting photo-montage video of Lovecraft in Brooklyn instead.

PeterMBall 20/02/2009
Works in Progress

The Day-to-Day Glamour of writing…

I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours in a line-edit quandary: should the word Frisbee be capitalised? Theoretically it probably should – Frisbee is a registered trademark of Wham-O toys – but I’m pretty sure that I’m not actually using Frisbee to refer to an actual Frisbee, instead using it as a common term for what should technically be called a flying disc (I didn’t even know it was a trademarked term prior to this, but there you go – apparently there’s even been a bit of a barney between Wham-O and other folks about this). Since I really do need to be making a call on sending this back sometime soon, I’ve just spent the last hour capitalising and de-capitalising the F’s when they appear in the story. Consider this a desperate plea for help if you want to weigh in on either side of the argument.

PeterMBall 19/02/2009
Smart Advice from Smart People

Thursday Linkfest

Over-tired, very busy, and generally lazy this week. This is not so much a weeks worth of interesting links (which I’ve started doing as I go along) as stuff I remembered with half-hearted accuracy sometime this morning. Via the ever-entertaining villainous_mog – photographs of Japanese Factories at night (as VM puts it: they look straight out of Final Fantasy 7.) Tansy Raynor Roberts on writing time, with much on the notion of draft-speed. Clarion peep Ben Francisco has posted his latest article at Fantasy, grading last years big comic-book company crossovers. (In the interest of self-confession, I must admit that my primary response was “thank god I don’t read comics” anymore, even though that’s something of a misnomer – it was big crossovers that drove me towards the discreet stories of the graphic-novel format). Speaking of Clarion Peeps, both Lyn Battersby and Daniel Braum have posted their thoughts on the 2007 experience at tutor Lee Battersby’s blog. Kate Eltham has

PeterMBall 19/02/2009
Works in Progress

Because this is all my brain is up for today…

The good thing about trying to hit a deadline and being behind: you start to figure out ways to fix stories and ideas that are broken, potentially unsaleable and not on deadline. Yesterday I took an hour away from the books to write up a plan of what I could do to transform all my second-person-present-tense-vaguely-cyberpunk vignettes into a solid-ish mosiac novella. I just spent the last half-hour writing notes about the way to expand and fix the problems on the zombie novella I wrote as part of the AHWA mentorship in 2007. It’s all distraction to draw me away from the work that really needs doing, but at least the notes will be waiting for me once I get the thesis draft down.

PeterMBall 18/02/2009
Works in Progress

The theory of relativity as it applies to writing

The difference between a good days work and a bad days work can depend entirely on how close you are to meeting a deadline. Or, in other words, 1500 words of thesis draftage today. A month ago this would have been cause for celebration; today it is met with the soul-crushing knowledge  that I haven’t yet done enough to earn myself a few hours sleep 🙂

PeterMBall 17/02/2009
Journal

This is my Monday

I hate it when things creep up on me, but I like having a full to-do list that I can work through. On today’s list: Get a big chunk of wordage done on the thesis draft – last week saw things start lagging behind again, and I really shouldn’t let that become a habit. Clean the flat for tomorrow’s rental inspection Go through the copyedit of my Interfictions 2 story and get that sent out. Finish writing up a crit of Angela’s story. Pick up a book they’re holding for me at Pulp Fiction (includes a bonus lunch with the Sleech) Cook at home for the first time in, what, two and a half weeks? Do a revision of a recently-rejected story that I think needs a little more polish before it goes out again. In short, I’ll be keeping busy. I’ve moved the laptop into the lounge so I can set up a second work-area and flit between computers

PeterMBall 16/02/2009
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Friday Youtubery

Because I can’t help myself, and wish to share the awesome – The Dresden Doll’s Amanda Palmer doing a cover of the Sesame Street version of Feist’s 1-2-3-4: -sigh- Apparently Palmer hits Brisbane on the first of March. I can afford neither ticket nor the time to head along, but I’m tempted to go anyway. Anyone interested in coming along?

PeterMBall 13/02/2009