Status

Status: 24 Feb 2023

PETERMBALL Status ,

Every Saturday, I post a new fantasy, science fiction, or horror story to Patreon. These are usually in ARC form—early iterations of the stories that will eventually find their way into the Eclectic Projects magazine series—although the changes between the Patreon version and the published version are minimal outside a few notable exceptions.

I’ve just prepared this week’s story and set it up to go live at 10 AM tomorrow, Queensland Time. It won’t appear in the monthly magazine until October. You can join the Patreon and get the weekly stories for as little as a buck a month (my concession to the fact that everything is awful, and money is tight right now).

I figure the first year of doing this is really just a test to see if I can do it. I don’t think of myself as a fast writer and I’d fallen into the bad habit of leaving things unfinished over the last decade, so I wanted to push myself and create a project where I had to put new writing into the world. I honestly figured I’d make it about three months and fold, but we’re now 36 story posts into the project and even on the worst weeks (like this one) I’ve got an original story done and ready for consumption.

But thirty-six stories means it’s also time to consider the future of the project. I committed myself to a year of stories—and twelve issues of the magazine—in the spirit of truly testing myself, but whether I’ll do another year largely depends on the state of the Patreon subscriptions and sales of the magazines. If you’re inclined to check them out, consider hitting up Patreon or grabbing one of issues below.

ON THE DOCKET

Progressed a bunch of design projects yesterday, then re-thought my approach to projects and time blocking to account for the way my life has changed. I also started my annual re-read of Dan Charnas’ Work Clean, which is very soothing when things get busy.

This morning was all about tomorrow’s Patreon story and prep for today’s mentorship meeting, but this afternoon will be devoted to chores and Brain Jar Work. There’s a contract to be written, page proofs to finish, and two or three books that we’re almost ready to announce if I can just keep them moving forward. Also a print proof to sign off on, and some new print runs to be ordered.

PETER M. BALL INBOX: 45

BRAIN JAR INBOX: 16

BRAIN JAR SUBMISSION QUEUE: 15

Status: 23 Feb 2023

PETERMBALL Status

There’s a work philosophy in Dan Charnas’ Work Clean which boils down to “slow down in order to speed up.” The mistakes you make by trying to get things done fast often end up costing you time in the long run, because things will end up needing to be redone or you’ll have to double-handle things somewhere along the way.

It’s a good philosophy, and one that I’m thinking about a lot as I go back and fix the various mistakes of earlier this week, which include setting up print copies of a book using the wrong type of paper and needing to adjust all the cover layouts once we discovered the mistake.

I’m also thinking about it with regard to rough drafts this week. February through March is typically the stretch of the year where my normal writing process stops working for a bit, since my ramshackle “make it up as I go along” approach tends to rely on having lots of thinking time and writing time to iterate work in various formats and pick up mistakes. I don’t have the spoons for that at present, given the various other stressors that kick in, but it always makes me twitchy about not working fast enough. My anxiety brain keeps pushing me to write all the words right fucking now, so I’m reminding myself that slow doesn’t mean that I’m doing it wrong…

ON THE DOCKET

There are no meetings or mentorship sessions today—a rarity at the moment—so I’m I’m about to knuckle down in the long stretch of uninterrupted time to get some freelance design gigs cleared. Today’s all about interior layouts for a book and mailing off cover samples that have been sitting on my desktop for longer than they should have been.

PETER M. BALL INBOX: 37

BRAIN JAR INBOX: 14

BRAIN JAR SUBMISSION QUEUE: 15

Expect minimal movement on all of these this week.

Status: 22 Feb 2023

PETERMBALL Status

In March, I’m going to be a gust on the Pratchat: The Terry Pratchett Bookclub Podcast hosted by Ben McKenzie and Elizabeth Flux. Here’s some details from their recent announcement:

For our March episode, we’re going where Pratchat has never gone before: into Pratchett’s nonfiction! Author, publisher and roleplayer Peter M. Ball joins us for a collection of Pratchett’s scribblings about genre, fandom and Neil Gaiman. The specific pieces are “Kevins”, “Wyrd Ideas”, “Let There Be Dragons” and “Notes From A Successful Fantasy Author”, plus “Neil Gaiman: Amazing Master Conjuror” and Neil’s foreword to the book in which all of these were collected, 2014’s A Slip of the Keyboard. You’ll find all of those (except the foreword) in the book’s first section, “A Scribbling Intruder”. Send us your questions about them via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com, or on social media using the hashtag #Pratchat65.

From the announcement for this month’s episode

I have a lot of thoughts about this collection, and these entries in particular, as you might expect from someone who started an entire product line dedicated to preserving the writing about writing generated by Australian speculative fiction authors. I’m really intrigued by writers like Gaiman and Pratchett alike, who rarely get positioned as exquisite craftsmen because that’s not the persona they often present to the world, yet actually leave an astonishing amount of great writing advice out there when you start to filter through for the gems. Plus, of course, Pratchett’s a writer who rose to popularity alongside the internet in many ways, which makes for some fascinating reading when you position his non-fiction in a historical context.

Send your questions through to the details in the quote above if you’ve got something you’d like us to talk about!

ON THE TO DO LIST TODAY

Bit of a Schrodinger’s to-do list today, as there’s a coaching session later this afternoon that I might not have confirmed in time to actually run. Currently proceeding as though it will take place, but if it doesn’t go ahead this afternoon will be all about layouts for freelance gigs.

  1. Add 700+ words to my current work in progress
  2. Upload Eclectic Projects 002 to the three remaining distributor sites (you can pre-order copies from my store now).
  3. Edit the essay for Eclectic Projects 003 (holdover from yesterday).
  4. Write up notes for the mentee session this afternoon
  5. Deliver a mentee session this afternoon or progress the layouts on a freelance gig.

PETER M. BALL INBOX: 49

BRAIN JAR INBOX: 17

BRAIN JAR SUBMISSION QUEUE: 15

Will cull, but not answer, emails from the personal inbox today because 49 is definitely too many loose threads for my brain to keep track of.