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

PeterMBall 03/06/2018
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

PeterMBall 27/05/2018
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

PeterMBall 23/05/2018
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

PeterMBall 21/05/2018
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

PeterMBall 20/05/2018
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

PeterMBall 13/05/2018
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

PeterMBall 06/05/2018
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 got a couple of

PeterMBall 29/04/2018
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

By The Numbers

I plan my year thirteen weeks a time, marking out the quarter and setting goals based upon pre-existing commitments and what needs to be done. It seems like an endless expanse of hours, when you sit down to start logging everything you’d like to do, but the speed with which time vanishes is startling to watch. Thirteen weeks, five work days a week. Four hundred and eighty-seven hours. Except one day a week will be lost to admin, teaching, and similar activities. That’s ninety eight hours gone. The four days a week that are left get divided between three major projects: thesis; novel draft; story drafts. One hundred and twenty-nine hours a piece, spread across thirteen weeks. To finish the first novel draft in that time assumes I’ll write 620 words, on average, across the 129 hours allocated to the task. To get a finished draft means working faster, packing in more words. To devote time to planning means working

PeterMBall 24/04/2018
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’m down to the final

PeterMBall 22/04/2018
Smart Advice from Smart People

Friends Only

In Winifred Gallagher’s Rapt, she talks about focus as a means of overcoming our instinctual fear. We read books and plug into phones on public transport to tamp down on the fear that we’re travelling alongside strangers, a source of physical danger and possible contamination as flu season begins. We set aside places like bathrooms and kitchens where unclean tasks are attended too, allowing us to set aside the fears of and rituals to prevent contamination unless we’re in that room. Then someone using the public restroom forgets to flush their floater. The ritual of the bathroom is broken, and your attention is drawn to all those fears you’re subconsciously setting aside. You are reminded that the room is a place of pollution, for all that we try to keep it clean and wash our hands before leaving. Social spaces used to have conventions that help us set aside our fear of other people. We behaved professionally in the work

PeterMBall 20/04/2018
Big Thoughts

Fake Beards

“You should write a blog post about the health benefits of beards,” my boss said. He meant it as a kind of joke, but I was finishing up my contract and my replacement was already in place. I had a few hours to kill on my way out so I did the preliminary research, hitting google with the obvious search term and checking the information already out there. Dear god, there was a lot. And if you listen to the internet, beards did have health benefits that were worth paying attention too. There were blog posts. There were newspaper articles. Beards were big business on the internet at that point, the epitome of hipster cool, and everyone had a listicle or informative article out there. Beards were good for your health, motherfucker. The fix was fucking in. 8 Health Benefits of Growing a Beard. 14 Ways A Beard is Good For Your Health.  Because I’m me and I dislike taking

PeterMBall 19/04/2018