Journal

If you need me today, I’ll be (quietly) freaking the fuck out

7:20 on a Thursday morning and I’m set up in the cafe at the State Library, killing time before I head upstairs to go and kick the dayjob into gear. It’s a dreary kind of morning with drizzling rain and grey skies and people clutching at umbrellas, although some people choose to job bare-chested through it all and some people forgot their umbrellas. I know you can’t actually see the rain in the photograph, but trust me, it’s there. A gentlemen who just walked past who is the very definition of dapper. I have no idea who he is, but he’s easily on the far side of fifty and he’s totally rocking his chosen look. I haven’t had much sleep. There’s nothing particular unusual about this. Not having much sleep is something of my natural state, although this time around the sleep debt is entirely intentional. I went to bed after midnight last night, I woke up around 5:00, which

PeterMBall 31/01/2013
Works in Progress

Coming Up

From what I’m hearing, my story for Eclipse Online is going to go live in February some time. I’ll post a link here when that happens, but right now I’m just looking at that sentence and thinking, yeah, motherfuckers, I can still do this. I can still write stories that get published. My interior monologue has a particular foul mouth. I’m usually all man of steel about my stories when in public. They get written, they get sent out, they get published and I get paid. In my ideal world that’s the way things happen and I’m already chasing the next thing by the time you’re reading. It’s easy to be like that once the story is out there, when it’s going to be read whether you like it or not. It’s the waiting before the story comes out that gets to me. The moments when you know a publication date is coming and you can pretend there’s still the

PeterMBall 30/01/2013
Journal

Rain

It’s a bit wet in Brisbane right now. There are parts of the city where that’s proving to be a problem, prompting flood warnings and a twitter feed full of alerts notifying folks of their local sandbag locations. We’re still a bit twitchy about rain around these parts, given the big floods of a few years back, and I’ve had a couple of conversations with people from other states who were understandably concerned by the news. Fortunately, all is well. I’ve spent the better part of the weekend away from the computer, so I wasn’t really aware there was flooding going on until the text messages started coming through and I started logging onto twitter. In contrast to some other parts of the city, my weekend has been very idle. I’ve watched a bunch of movies and read a bunch of books and occasionally sat down at the computer and written things, be they fiction or non-fiction or the occasional

PeterMBall 27/01/2013
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Unicorns from Hell

Once upon a time I was obligated to know all things unicorn the moment they appeared on the internet. These days, not so much, but occasionally the world points me towards things that are truly deserving of being shared. Like this. Oh, dear god, like this. BEST UNICORN THING EVER IN THE HISTORY OF UNICORN THINGS.

PeterMBall 24/01/2013
Journal

Sunday in Brisbane

My weekend, lo, it’s been a lazy one. Today I try and redeem that a little, through the virtue of writing lots of things prior to 7:00 PM, when I shall gather with The Flatmate and the Downstairs Neighbor and we shall watch John Carter (which, it must be said, I didn’t see at the cinemas purely because I always want to add “Of Mars” to the end of the title). The Flatmate claims John Carter is a good, watchable movie. On one hand, he was entirely correct when he used that claim to lure me into watching Battleship last weekend, which is a perfectly watchable big dumb movie. On the other hand, he’s also the man who talked me into watching Starcrash, Zardoz, and Ice Planet, all of which are not perfectly watchable big, dumb movies. Either way, I’ll report back on the morrow. Before that happens, though, I’ve got an article to write and some page-proofs to finish and at some point I’m going

PeterMBall 20/01/2013
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Wuthering Heights

Sometimes, my brain, I tell you. No, wait, none of that actually makes sense when it’s written as a sentence. Let me try that again. So on the way out of the house this morning, I passed my CD rack and thought to myself, you know what I feel like listening to right now? Fucking Bombtrack. It’s been ages. So I pulled the first Rage Against the Machine disc out of my collection and took it out to the car and rocked the fuck out on my entire drive to work. It was awesome. I mean, even the pub with its motorized esky races and its double-exclamation points on pretty much anything they’re trying to advertise didn’t bother me today. I was listening to some old school RatM and I was at peace with the fucking world. Then I got to work and I parked the car and I started whistling as I walked upstairs to the QWC office where I’d

PeterMBall 17/01/2013
Works in Progress

Process Notes

ONE I am, slowly but surely, learning how to write again. TWO 2012 was the year I set myself the task of learning to write while working a day-job. It took me the better part of the year to figure that out, but I got there. Get up early, write a handful of words, let all the big goals and word-counts I used to set myself when writing was a more significant part of my yearly income disappear into the background. In 2012 I wasn’t a writer, I was just a guy who wrote. I reset all my expectations and rebuilt up my process from scratch. I didn’t push myself to build a career, I just focused on getting something done. It’s the first time I’d done that since I was…shit, twenty? Maybe twenty-one? I don’t regret it, not being a writer for a stretch. 2012 was a pretty fucking awesome year and the novelty of regular paycheque that was more than

PeterMBall 16/01/2013
Journal

So there’s this pub…

There’s this pub I drive past on the way to work that’s advertising motorized esky races to celebrate Australia Day. And you know, if I’m honest, I see that sign and my first thought is, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with this country. Except there’s nothing wrong with this country, not in the way I’m meaning it. It’s not that I dislike the idea of a motorized esky – there’s a pro-wrestler, James Storm, who used one for his ring entrance for the better part of a year, and I largely found it hilarious. I don’t like the idea of motorized esky races ’cause I don’t like the idea of the people who think that’s acceptable way to celebrate….well, anything. ‘Cause I’m a snob, in a lot of ways, and ’cause it’s easier to dislike people than it is to try and understand them. And ’cause the same pub, years ago, was a dingy little hole that used to have a Goth night

PeterMBall 15/01/2013
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Doll Parts

I’ve been listening to this a lot today. Back in the nineties, when grunge was still a thing, I listed to a lot more Hole than I did Nirvana. Sharing it here ’cause I’m in a retro kind of mood, and ’cause I’ve apparently never seen the clip.

PeterMBall 10/01/2013
Journal

The Long Run

Ask most people who know me, and they’ll probably tell you I’m one pessimistic mother-fucker. Mostly, near as I can tell, this is ’cause I have opinions on things, and ’cause most folks aren’t willing to accept that “being critical of something” and “not liking something” aren’t the same thing. It’s also ’cause I’d rather watch something that’s poorly made, but ambitious than technically accomplished, but soulless. I like to see flaws. I like to see people trying, stretching themselves, aiming higher than they usually would. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: every story is a mission statement; every climax is a world-view. But then, I’m me. I would think things like that. Truth is, like most pessimists, I’m actually fairly optimistic. I like to believe the world can change, even if it doesn’t. I like to believe that I can change it, even if it’s just a little at a time; blog post by blog post, story by

PeterMBall 09/01/2013
Journal

Reasons to Love the Dayjob

Went back to work at the day-job today. Discovered that the Queensland Writers Center has been dubbed one of the best arts organisations to work at in 2013, which is utterly true, but not for the reasons that are listed in the article. It cites the vast scope of QWCs partnerships and the sprawling Queensland lifestyle as the key reasons for wanting a job there. And, you know, fair enough. But QWC isn’t my first ride of the pony when it comes to having a day-job that looks idyllic from the outside. It is, however, the first time I’ve enjoyed working a day-job as much as I expected to enjoy it when I started. That’s got nothing to do with the Queensland heat and the cozy Queensland arts scene. What matters to me, what makes it a fucking kick-ass place to work, is this: 1) The work matters. I can look at what we do, see how benefits people, and it’s something I care

PeterMBall 08/01/2013
News & Upcoming Events

Top Five of 2012

So I was checking out some of the site stats last night – something I rarely do here on my personal site – and spent some quality time looking at the data. Since I’m off at write-club today, trying to catch up after a slow weekend of writing, I’m going to take advantage of the data and the changing-of-the-year feel to showcase the most visited posts here on Petermball.com in 2012. Number One: 13 Things Learned About Superhero Games After Running 30 Sessions of Mutants and Masterminds Number Two: Why I Have Problems With the Big Bang Theory I have to admit, the order of these two surprises me. I know a lot of people found their way here when I posted about my M&M campaign for the first time, largely courtesy of the link showing up on a bunch of gaming message boards. It represented probably the single-biggest spike in traffic I’ve ever had, and under any normal circumstances, I probably

PeterMBall 07/01/2013