ECLECTIC PROJECTS BLOG
Journal

The Day After Movie Night

I woke late this morning, allowing myself a sleep in after binge watching teen movies with my partner overnight. It didn’t start that way. We’d kicked off with Gods of Egypt, Alex Proyas’ take on the sword-and-sandal epic fantasy, which felt an awful lot like someone’s Dungeons and Dragons game rendered on screen. The D&D player in me can usually take enjoyment from that even if the film isn’t good–God knows I have an affection for Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films for much the same reason–but things dragged as the film went on and effects budget took over from the narrative. I also think Proyas did himself a disservice with the casting. Not just in the whitewashing, but in actors like Brian Brown and Geoffrey Rush who felt out of place. Rush can do genre—I’m a fan of his turn in Pirates of the Caribbean—but he just feels off-kilter as Ra, and disappears beneath the effects. Brian Brown is so recognisably Brian Brown that I couldn’t tell you which god he played in the film and found myself dreaming of a sword-and-sorcery remake of Breaker Morant or F/X. This kinda ruined us for an SF movie binge, so we went teen movie instead. We re-watched Ella Enchanted, discovered an unexpected delight in Radio Rebel, and I followed it up with the Netflix’s F—The Prom, all of which were perfectly suited to the evening and took us through to the wee hours of the morning I went to write club and wrote

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13/06/2018 No Comments
Journal

Mountains, The Social Internet, and Characters Who Are Not Monkeys

I wanted to start this entry with I have just come back from a weekend in the mountains, but we returned from the mountain on Sunday and the fact that it’s now Tuesday renders the opening inaccurate. Instead, today’s the day when my brain returned from the mountains, kicking back into gear after three days away to celebrate my beloved’s birthday. It was pretty, up in the mountains. We woke to a sea of mist every morning, broken by occasional islands where peaks rose through the white. There were cows, and whip-poor-will, and access to a store selling a vast array of flavoured liquors and whiskeys. I drank far more than is usual for me, slept far less, and didn’t think about writing for several days in a row. A post shared by Peter M Ball (@petermball) on Jun 8, 2018 at 2:44pm PDT Now my beloved is in the next room, watching Kobo and the Two Strings on my recommendation. She is increasingly unimpressed by their insistence on calling one character Monkey when they are patently not a monkey, and the plot is not engrossing her. Which is, admittedly, something I’d been irritated with myself back when I watched it, but I have blocked that out and remembered the gorgeous design work that went into the villains of the piece. Pizza has been ordered for lunch, and I’m set up in our bedroom working on a short story titled The Black Glove Widow of Helios Ridge that will probably not end up

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12/06/2018 No Comments
Sunday Circle

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 I’m just back from a weekend in the mountains to celebrate my partner’s birthday, so this week will be fairly short one. What am I working on this week? I’ve been kicking around a short story under the working title The Black Glove Widow of Helios Ridge, which is just starting to arrange itself in my head after several months of lying fallow. The current draft is about 6,000 words and maybe a quarter of what I’m thinking, so it could well end up stretching out to something longer.  What’s inspiring me this week? American Hippo is the compiled edition of Sarah Gailey’s Tor.com

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10/06/2018 3 Comments
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

9:55 in the Food Court

Some days it sucks you in, the magic of this writing gig, even when you sit and work in a place patently unsuited to magic. Right now, I’m in the small food court underneath the Queens Plaza mall. It’s not yet ten o’clock and the vendors are still warming up for the day. The girl behind the Red Rooster counter looks bored when I order a coke. The woman at the noodle stand isn’t even at her counter. The whole room is an oval, vendors arrayed around the edge, brightly lit to encourage a swift move through as you circle, looking for something to eat. There’s two young people the next table over, engaged in an animated discussion about language and syllables and people who do not articulate well. They war Doc Martins, hoodies, glasses. Backpacks in army camouflage colours, trading laughter in a way that makes me wonder if they’re flirting. Or, perhaps, not-yet-flirting, just the nervous feeling-out process where they wonder if there’s something there. It’s not just the laughter that makes me think this: it’s the leaning, the smiles, the eagerness. There’s other people working here: a young woman in a nylon sweater, headphones plugged into her laptop; an older guy in glasses and a greying goatee, sipping tea from a cardboard cup as he ponders the screen of his laptop; a woman in black, hair in a bun, writing notes as she flips through pages on her phone and frowns with an intensity. I write to

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07/06/2018 1 Comment
News & Upcoming Events

Not Quite the End Of the World Just Yet: Short Stories & Strange Futures – OUT NOW!

So my latest book, Not Quite The End Of the World Just Yet: Short Stories & Strange Futures, is out now. Use this link to get your copy at the ebook retailer of your choice The twelve stories in this collection touch upon science fiction, horror, and fantasy, but all see people brush against the sublime and discover who they truly are. In “One Saturday Night, With Angel,” a young man staffing a convenience store frets as angels hunt his customers. In “Say Zucchini, and Mean It,” the world is overrun by a plague that robs us of three very important words. In “Clockwork, Patchwork, and Raven,” a clockwork man dreams of a fairy-tale ending while trying to protect those he loves from a dangerous gang of genetically engineered crow boys. In “Dying Young,” the psychic son of a lawman must re-evaluate the deals he makes in order to keep his town safe from cybernetic marauders and a dragon seeking justice. Mimes, aliens, and kaiju that only fifty percent of the population can see. Invaders from beyond the stars, empaths on the run, and Astronomer’s Royal of England. These are just some of the characters you’ll meet in the strange futures presented in this collection, but always grounded in the very human strengths and frailties. This is the second collection of short stories I’ve put out via Brain Jar Press. It brings together ten years of science fiction, slipstream, and weird tales using futuristic themes, and collects together some of

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04/06/2018 1 Comment
Sunday Circle

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? There was a little less creative work than normal last week as I got the latest collection ready for release, but this week will see me back onto the thesis novella and some other rewrites that have stacked up over the last few months. I’ve reworked the plan for the final act considerably over the last two weeks, figuring out how to play with various metaphors and call-backs, and I’ve got a much better handle on how to make the protagonist a series character rather than a one-off dramatic character. The trick now is making

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03/06/2018 4 Comments
Stuff

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 reworking the back end of my first PhD novella this week, taking a new approach based on the research and trying to lock down the protagonist as an iconic character rather than a dramatic one. It presents an interesting challenge – I’ve got to fight my own instincts as a writer and figure out ways to not resolve the protagonist’s inner conflict at the ed of the story. What’s inspiring me this week? I’ve been continuing on the Game of Thrones read-through, and making all sorts of notes about the smart things that are

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27/05/2018 8 Comments
Big Thoughts

A Very Long Post Thinking Through Literary Events, Genre, #SelfPubIsHere, and Exchanges of Capital Within The Publishing Industry

TL/DR VERSION: There’s a recurring discussion that occurs year after year about the types of writers who get excluded from literary festivals (the latest iteration being the self-publishers behind #SelfPubIsHere). As a writer, former conference organiser, and current PhD student/cultural theory wonk I put together a bunch of thoughts about the types of publishing capital in play. THE LONG VERSION Every year, when the literary festival season comes around, I see the same iteration of the same argument: why don’t Australian literary festivals feature more fantasy writers/romance writers/things-that-aren’t-lit-fic writers. Every year, people offer up solutions that aren’t really solutions because there’s a fundamental disconnect between the way they think festivals work and the way they’re actually being put together. This year, a bunch of self-published authors have started a campaign to try and rectify the lack of self-published authors on festival programs and award slates. Slightly new take, but I have exactly same doubts about its success. Now, I first self-published back in 2005. I’ve got a new self-published book coming out at the end of the month (which you can totally pre-order). I tend to believe that every writer working today, regardless of how they’re building their career, should at least understand how to self-publish and ebook and how people build their careers. They may build the bulk of their career around traditional publishing, but there’s something to be said for using self-publishing for less commercial works or reverted rights. On the other hand, self-publishing isn’t all I’ve done in

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23/05/2018 No Comments
Writing Advice - Craft & Process

Experimenting with a New Writing Routine

I’m bedding in some new routines at the moment, trying to figure out ways to work smarter rather than harder. This is a response to the way current life-events are affecting my perspective around my projects, asking me to redefine what can be construed as a success outcome for a project or “a good day’s progress” when I’m writing. This is always a danger when part of your income is predicated on freelance, contract, or irregular income: as you look to the future and see lean weeks on the horizon, it’s tempting to start thinking bigger, doing more, and figuring you can work faster. I can often tell when I’m tipping into outright anxiety because I start planning huge projects that are designed to fit around my already packed-out schedule. I’ve felt myself doing it over the last couple of weeks. Little whispers like it’s time to start blogging daily again and hey, lets try and write a six-part novella series in the space of two months. There are definite advantages to embracing both those projects, but they’re also a response to the fact that my partner is leaving her job and dealing with a pinched nerve, while I’m finishing up a teaching contract and preparing to release a new short story collection. In short, I’m twitchy about money and putting more pressure on my writing to make up the shortfall. And since writing only tends to pay off when your’e finishing something and selling it, I’m looking to produce

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21/05/2018 1 Comment
Sunday Circle

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? This week is book prep week, setting up everything that needs to be finalised before Not Quite The End Of the World Just Yet drops at the end of the month. This means final proofs, double-checking everything is set up okay, making sure I get everything in before the pre-order cut-off, and setting up the various blog posts and social stuff. With all the chaos of the last few weeks – and the chaos to come in the next few – it’s increasingly tempting to let all this slide while I focus on other things,

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20/05/2018 No Comments
Sunday Circle

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’ve done a pivot on all my plans at the moment, on account of an ongoing medical thing with my partner that means my schedule is all topsy-turvy. This means less first drafting and more rewriting, which is easier to get done in shorter blocks of time. This week my goal is to finish redrafting the second sequence of Bad Dog: Origins, which has been kicking around my redraft queue for a while now. What’s inspiring me this week? We’ve been teaching A Game of Thrones in classes this week, which has meant taking a close

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13/05/2018 5 Comments
Sunday Circle

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? Incredibly busy week, with some family medical stuff on top, so I’m looking to lock down as much planning as I can until the schedule opens up a bit. I’ll be laying out a couple of short story ideas to noodle with, and working through the next sequence for the WIP. What’s inspiring me this week? I did not mean to watch The Sapphires, but my partner has been laid up with a pinched nerve and it was her sick-day viewing of choice.  This is a film that’s working through a well-trod formula a band-trying-to-make-it

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06/05/2018 2 Comments

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