Category: Journal
Journal

And now we are thirty-three

I’ve never really known what to do with my birthday. The realities of being haphazardly employed mean going out and celebrating are off the agenda and I’m pretty sure the last time I tried was back in 2006 or so. The idea of celebrating my birthday has always seems kinda awkward anyway. Existing for a year isn’t necessarily an achievement, you know? This year I seem to have settled upon ordering a cheese pizza and re-reading the introduction to Haruki Murakami’s Birthday Stories anthology, which will inevitably lead to the rereading of the anthology itself in days to come. Later on I’ll regret the fact that medication means I can’t drink a glass of wine with dinner, then bugger off to play DnD with friends. Given that I’m still tired and sluggish from the medication, I may even have a nap before I go. Really, this is business as usual for a Thursday. So I took a photograph, just to mark

PeterMBall 18/03/2010
Journal

Feelin’ just a little bit sleepy

The short answer to where I’ve been for the last week: sleeping. The slightly longer answer goes something like this: Last week there was the return of the tooth pain and the right-hand side of my face swelled up like I was using my cheek as a storage pocket for a golf ball. Bugger, says I, that’s not really normal, and so I hie myself off to the dentist in order to do something about it.  The dentist takes one look and agrees with me – definitely not normal. Turned out I had myself an acute dental abscess – which largely translates as cavity infection that has spread into other nerves. His first impulse is to pull the infected tooth out, but since I take moderately good care of my teeth (despite what this post may suggest) the decision is made to try and save it, and so I get my first-ever root canal. Oddly, this wasn’t the bad part.

PeterMBall 16/03/2010
Journal

Bleh

February has become the month we do not talk about, so I won’t. Embrace the mystery. What I will point out, somewhat belatedly, is the impressive scale of the recent Australian SF Snapshot which collected 90 or so interviews from members of the Australian Spec Fic scene (my interview would be over yonder). Now I’m going to go clean the house, answer two weeks of e-mail, and do my best to rejoin the rest of the human race by some point late this evening.

PeterMBall 26/02/2010
Journal

Only Thursday

‘Tis a Thursday, today. Somehow this fact managed to elude me until I rocked up for the Friday launch of my friend Chris Lynch’s Tangled Bank anthology, which wasn’t on for obvious reason. I really shouldn’t be trusted to run my own schedule. That said, the momentary mortification hasn’t really done much to dilute the fact that this is a week of awesomeness among my friends. There’s Chris’s launch tomorrow, the official announcement that Angela Slatter will be doing a short-story anthology with Ticonderoga Publications, due for release at Wordcon in September, and we’re counting down the days until Jason Fischer’s zombie novella After the World: Gravesend hits newsagents on Monday. On top of this there was discounted ginger marmalade on sale at the grocery story today (score!), my laptop repaired and came in towards the lower end of the projected costs (double-score!), and I’ve managed to start watching a  TV series on DVD without spiraling into the twenty-four episode

PeterMBall 11/02/2010
Journal

Rumors of my absence may have been exagerated

It turns out that spending two-to-three weeks writing by hand just wasn’t on the list of things I was willing to do. Fortunately this roughly coincided with the realisation that I could pick up a very cheap desktop (to replace the machine that died last September) and write it off as a business expense. It’s not as ideal as no computer problems at all – I’ve spent the last two days uploading the various programs and back-up files onto the new machine rather than working – but it has fringe benefits (hello, photoshop. I’ve missed you). It’s a stinking hot, evil day outside my office so I’ve retreated into the air-conditioning with a pile of Primus CD and a large vat of coffee. The coffee because my sleep patterns are shot right now (going to bed at eleven, getting to sleep around 4 am). The Primus because I watched a lot of Robot Chicken in a row and it’s Les

PeterMBall 05/02/2010
Journal

QWC Blog Tour of Queensland

And lo, I have finished the long march from empty page to submitted manuscript and a copy of Cold Cases is now winging its way to the publishers via the miracle of the internets. And well-timed it is, all things considered, since it gives me a few free moments to take part in the QWC Blog Tour of Queensland and answer some quick questions from the fine folks at the Queensland Writers Centre Where do your words come from? I borrow most of them from the dictionary. For some reason this whole writing lark works better when other people recognise the words you’re using and understand what they mean. Of course, my dictionary’s kind of old, so it’s missing words like D’oh and jiggy. Those I borrow from television shows and trust readers keep up. Where did you grow up and where do you live now? My parents were teachers, so I spent my childhood moving. We basically went between northern Queensland

PeterMBall 19/11/2009
Journal

A message from the Spokesbear

As the duly appointed taskmaster and primary source of daily conversation you’re regular blogger has on any given day, I thought I’d drop past and deliver an important warning: expect nothing of substance from Peter in the near future. He’s boring me with his “novella novella novella” and “Ooh, a short story idea” and “check it out, I’m writing *words*” like it’s something special, so I figured I’d spare us all another hamfistedattempt to say something meaningful while his brain is all muddled up with plot. Jeez, you’ve never met a guy who is so astonished by the fact that he’s actually writing when he’s supposed to be. Makes my life a misery, I tell ya, trying to keep him focused on the things he’s meant to be doing. If you’re looking for interesting reading try this post. I promise you Peter won’t mind. At this point he’s lucky to realise that he should stop and eat lunch rather than

PeterMBall 28/10/2009
Journal

Your regular transmission is interrupted with this breaking bulletin:

Jason Fischer – Clarion Peep, Awesome Dude, and purveyor of zombie stories – has won the second quarter of the Writers of the Future competition and a trip to LA. The Fisch has been chasing this dream for about three years now, often coming tantalisingly close to earning a spot, and there are no words for how happy I am that he’s finally picked up the victory. Honestly, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke. By all rights I should be kneeling in the rain, shirt torn, playing air-guitar to November Rain in honor of this achievement (ask Jason why and maybe he’ll explain). Instead I’m blinking, bleary-eyed, into the dust-cloud of doom that seems to have enveloped Brisbane (and Sydney), and somehow it just doesn’t have the same effect.

PeterMBall 23/09/2009
Journal

Home Again

The title’s actually a misnomer, since I’ve been operating out of my house for all four days of this year’s Gen Con Oz, but when you’re basically coming home to lapse into five hours of sleep before rising and returning to a convention it starts to feel a little like you’re living in a hotel room anyway. I’d given myself a break from the online world until Wednesday while I recovered, but once again I found myself having to link to something that’s far too cool to let it slide by. So today has been spent catching up on sleep, e-mail, and cool stuff I missed while at the con – and among the coolest stuff that happened in my absence is the review of Horn on Joy 94.9’s Outland Institute radio show. I missed out on streaming the show live due to the con, but I’m thankfully about to listen in courtesy of the fact that you can download the podcast (look

PeterMBall 21/09/2009
Journal

See you in ten days

Gen Con Australia kicks off on Thursday. It ends on Sunday afternoon. I’ll be working there, so drop past and say high if you’re around. That said, I have a mountain of work to get done in preperation and I’m behind *again* (courtesy of computer trouble again – word stopped working on the laptop. That’s two sets of computer problems in a month. I wasn’t at all manly about it, and if if this keeps up I think I’ll be writing the next novella on google-docs using my mobile phone). So I’ll see you all next Wednesday, folks, cause I’m kicking off the radio silence right about…now.

PeterMBall 14/09/2009
Journal

Oh, the Glamour

Ever wondered what I look like after pulling an all-nighter? I’m not sure why you would, but through the magic of built-in laptop cameras and my own hazy logic this morning you’re going to get it anyway. Current stimulants: coffee, panic, a bowl of port wine jelly, three short bursts of sleep (45 minutes or less). If you need me, I’ll the guy who thinks he’s a hummingbird.

PeterMBall 31/08/2009
Journal

Links, Reviews and Dancing

I’ve been all words, words, words this week, resulting in big long posts both here and elsewhere, so today I’m aiming for short and brief. Lots of getting in, doing the pimpery, and getting out. And this time it’s not all about me, just like, two thirds about me. You know how it is. Cool Stuff: The Outlandish Voices Podcast A project set up by Laura E. Goodin, a friend from Clarion and fellow believer in the power of the middle initial, to deliver readings by Illawarra’s established and emerging science fiction, horror, and fantasy authors. Laura is one of those folks whose not content to be contained as far as her creative ambitions, so she’s managing this while simultaneously picking up momentum as a short story writer and playwright (with, I suspect, a host of novels getting written as well). I get tired just reading her blog and trying to keep up with her various projects, especially given her propensity for making them

PeterMBall 07/08/2009