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 have a week off

PeterMBall 24/07/2016
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

In your face, Shakespeare, Joyce and Cervantes!

This appeared on my twitter stream this morning and, naturally, I retweeted it on account of it being awesome. But twitter is a temporary medium, and this is one of those things which deserves a bit more permanence in the this is good, go read it stakes. So…over on Letters of Note, there’s a copy of a letter Alan Moore wrote in response to a very young 8-year-old comics fan, which is perhaps one of the most beautiful bits of fan engagement I’ve seen in a very long time. If you’re a fan of Moore – or of seeing how good writers engage with their fans – I’d encourage you to go read it.

PeterMBall 21/07/2016
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? Short story rewrites for the

PeterMBall 17/07/2016
Journal

Finished Draft

I spent the weekend finishing a story draft. Mostly, it should be said, to prove to myself that I still had the ability to write a story, ’cause the last few months have battered my process to the point where it’s unrecognisable. So my goal, in writing the story, was largely getting something written. It’s short, it’s probably quite half-baked, but it’s been months since I wrote something and reached a point where I type THE END. By the time you read this, I will be redrafting. Figuring out what the story is really about, so I can take out the bits that no longer fit and adding in bits that do. Poking every sentence to make sure it’s doing what it’s meant to be doing. Trying to clean up the obvious mistakes. Eking out a little space to be a writer, amid the chaos of work and dodgy brain-chemistry and day-to-day life.  

PeterMBall 11/07/2016
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 finally chained together a

PeterMBall 10/07/2016
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Not Hung-Over, But…

I don’t get hangovers anymore, on account of avoiding alcohol in the name of not making the sleep apnea worse than it needs to be. But there are days when I miss alcohol, and there are days when I definitely miss that mild morning-after feeling where you’re slightly seedy and aware of it and things can be made better by the application of good music and prodigious amounts of bacon. Today I feel hung-over. Not because I drank, but because my brain just unloaded a whole bunch of crazy on me last night and it resulted in an evening of adrenaline and sleeplessness. And a morning where I slept through my alarms – all fucking five of them – and had started to get that shaky feeling that comes from taking the anti-depressants late. So I have cooked a pile of bacon. And applied good music. And maybe, quietly, dispaired at the idea that I will never actually create something as

PeterMBall 05/07/2016
Journal

Slow Progress

Started with a new antidepressant over the weekend, on account of the original meds giving me uncontrolled teeth chattering for about five days straight as one of its side effects. This is irritating, because I’d more-or-less got to the point where the original meds weren’t making me restless and unable to focus, and now…well. Starting over. A new round of antidepressants means a new round of side-effects, which seems to include insomnia, a tendency towards listlessness, and some truly horrific dry-mouth. All of which is still better than having your jaw vibrate at high speed for 120 hours straight. And, presumably, better than whatever horror-show was going on in my head two weeks ago. It’s Monday. I want to be writing things. Doing so is frustratingly slow at the moment, full of moments where I have to step away from the computer. I have tried going with the notebooks, which usually helps in these situations, but even then my concentration tends to

PeterMBall 04/07/2016
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? Sat down and did my

PeterMBall 03/07/2016
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? Still eking my way forward

PeterMBall 26/06/2016
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Talking Writing and the Alex Caine series with Alan Baxter

There is a short-list of people with whom I will always take the opportunity to sit down and shoot the breeze about writing. Alan Baxter is pretty damn high on that list, despite the fact that we very rarely agree and this occasionally results in me taking on crazy-ass projects to prove a point. He’s also the first guy I turn to when I need someone to talk to new writers about putting together action scenes, and his Write the Fight Write workshop at last year’s GenreCon was basically packed to the rafters, and the wait-list of people wanting to get a spot was basically long enough that we could have run another packed workshop without breaking a sweat. You can find out more about Alan at his AlanBaxterOnline.com, and he’s frequently on the twitters @AlanBaxter, but for now I’ve grabbed the opportunity to ask him a few questions about the writing, the zombie apocalypse, and the Alex Caine trilogy

PeterMBall 23/06/2016
Journal

Eleven Days

Eleven days ago, when first I posted about being sad, my parents called and asked whether I needed to see a doctor. No, I said. I’m fine. I’m just sad. My mum pointed out that she’d feel a whole lot better if I went to a doctor. No, I’m really fine. It will pass, and I will cope, I said. Then I removed my parents from the Facebook list I used to talk about stuff I’d only mention around close friends, so they wouldn’t worry when I posted there about the occasional crying jag or frustration with the world. I figured that was easier. Things did not pass. I did not start coping better. # Yesterday, I burst into tears at work when our office manager tried to have a conversation about taking leave and managing my stress levels. I’d been trying to point out that work was just one of many things stressing me out, and I just…couldn’t. By nine-thirty in the morning, I

PeterMBall 22/06/2016
Journal

Broken

Awake at 6 AM, sitting at the computer. Getting ready to write something, to put new content on the blog. One of those routines in my life that I’ve been ignoring for weeks now, but it’s time to get back to it. My body seems to have decided that 4 AM is the optimal time to wake up, so I may as well embrace that and use it to my advantage. The last six weeks broke me, but that happens. I am breakable. Everyone is breakable, when life finds the right cracks and works upon them, and I have plenty of cracks that I’ve been ignoring for years. And so this week is all about the small victories. Did I write a blog post today? Did I open the document for my work in progress? Have I eaten real food, instead of microwaving something and calling it done? Incremental improvement, rather than running at top speed.   Picking up the pieces of who I

PeterMBall 21/06/2016