Category: Works in Progress
Works in Progress

Once more into the breach, dear friends…

We’re fighting the doldrums here in the word-mines this week, trying to bully my work ethic into something resembling its normal state after house-guests, cons and the furious rush of getting a new book into existence. Such lapses are not unexpected, but they are unacceptable, and so I’ve deployed the Spokesbear into his advisory position and sat down with my giant to-do list of doom to work out what needs to be done for the rest of September. And so, September gets declared a win if I achieve the following: – Write the first 25,000 words of Claw, the third Miriam Aster Novella (This is the only non-negotiable thing on my list at the moment, since it has a deadline of November 15th and I want plenty of time to whip it into shape) – Revise the first 25,000 words of Black Candy (I tried to get this finished this book before worldcon, but redrafting led me to realise I’d

PeterMBall 13/09/2010
Works in Progress

A Not Terribly Exciting Update

And lo, I am back. Going to buy groceries, then get some writing done (Note the new project du-jour in the Metrics below). ________________________________________________ Current Writing Metrics Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 0 New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30 Rejections in 2010: 19/100 Claw Word Count (Finish Date: 15th November)

PeterMBall 07/09/2010
Works in Progress

3 Days ’til Worldcon

And last night there was Write-club with the inimitable Angela Slatter and Ben Francisco, whereupon many words were written and we ate our body-weight in sugar. I was also mocked (albeit politely and deservedly) for my insane approach to rewriting, for I have real trouble letting go of a scene when I know that *something is dire and wrong*. Victory was mine, however, for after five weeks of hammering my head against the brick wall I finally found the problem with the opening chapters of Black Candy. It’s involved much deleting and rewriting, but I suspect that this will be the final rewrite I do before launching into the (much easier to write) middle of the book. In other news, I suspect updates will be scarce for the next two weeks (’cause, like, Worldcon, yo!). See everyone on the other side and all.

PeterMBall 30/08/2010
Works in Progress

16 Days ’til Worldcon

And rejection 16 for the year arrived in my inbox this morning, which means there’s an outside chance that I may hit 20 rejections before the end of August.  I like those numbers, . They mean things are starting to pick a bit on the writing front, especially since eleven of this year’s rejections have arrived in the last three months. And, honestly, I was going to do a longer post on rejection and laziness and how nice it is to have the regular stream of people saying “no, not for us,” amid the occasional “yes, we like, we’ll take it”, but I’ve already wasted my hour of blogging time thinking of the right way to say it. Suffice to say that I love my rejections – they make me want to get back on the computer and belt out a new story – and now I have to go and write a bunch of words on the novel *without deleting

PeterMBall 17/08/2010
Works in Progress

Writing Space

And so I have hit the point where I need to tackle that debacle that is my writing desk, which has been looking like this since I got back from my cat-sitting adventure: The irony of this is that I rarely spend much time writing at said desk, even when it is cleared off. I can chug along quite happily for weeks, writing in bed and on the couch and at the computer set up on the computer desk. Cleaning off the desk is a mindset thing more than anything else – having the dedicated space where I can retreat where’s there’s no internet or television or, well, sleeping to be done is a large part of doing more than the bare minimum of writing. ________________________________________________ Current Writing Metrics Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 4 New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30 Rejections in 2010: 15/100 Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August)

PeterMBall 13/08/2010
Works in Progress

The Writing To-Do list for 2010

Yesterday I sat down with the Spokesbear, a bunch of e-mail, my copy of Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife, and a notepad to construct my to-do list for the rest of the year. It’s a habit I fell into a few years back (well, sans the Booklife part, but I suspect I’ll be rereading it often in July’s to come); those who’ve been following the blog for a while might remember the 80-Point-Plant for Awesomeness that resulted from last year’s state-of-the-union style gutcheck. Usually I’m pretty quiet about the results, but after reviewing my issues with last years list I’m going to go public with the writing portion of the process this year. It’s somewhat long. Sorry about that. If you want to skip it, I promise there will be more cat-sitting stories tomorrow. Some thoughts on the list before we kick off:      – There’s a large amount of background work that goes into the decision of  what to do with the

PeterMBall 22/07/2010
Works in Progress

Conversations with Works In Progress

Act One: Yesterday’s Short Story Idea Peter sits at Fritz the Laptop, planning his writing time for the day. WIP: Oooo, I haz a title. Peter: Go away, I’m meant to be working on my novel right now. WIP: “The Unicorns of Suffragette Three” Peter: … Peter: No. I will not be lured. Aroynt. WIP: (sing-song and tempting) I have an op-en-ing par-a-graaaaaph. Peter: You do not. WIP: Yes, actually, I do. Look it’s this. (Whispers in ear) Peter: … WIP: See? Peter: I hate you. WIP: You really don’t. Peter: … Peter: Fine. Lets talk. WIP: Good. Peter: So… WIP: I wish to be long. Peter: How long? I mean, crap, I don’t have time to write something long right now. You can have five thousand words, I think. I’d really like it if you’d fit into five thousand words. Six at the outside. WIP: I want more. Peter: How much more? WIP: I want…ten thousand. Peter: Eight. WIP:

PeterMBall 16/07/2010
Works in Progress

“Unicorns? Unicorns? Tra-la-la?”

This phrase has been running through my head for two days now, often borrowing David Bowie’s voice and intonation from a bit in Labyrinth where he says something very similar. It just sits there, repeated over and over, refusing to go away. This doesn’t become dangerous until I start listening to Suffragette City and pondering what happens when I mash Unicorns and the Goblin King Jared and space stations named after David Bowie songs together. It may be congealing into a story. I thought I was done with unicorns. Alas, I am not that lucky. People are going to start thinking that me and unicorns have a thing (I swear to god we’re just good friends). Wait, ‘scuse me a sec, I have to go chase a chicken out of the kitchen. Peter disappears to chase a chicken away from the cat food. Chicken leaves kitchen with cries of Attica! Attica! The chickens really do get a raw deal, what

PeterMBall 15/07/2010
Works in Progress

Unleash the Frowns

The tenth rejection of the year came in this morning. After doing some quick research and resending the story, I went in to update my submission tracker (hint number one for writers: always update your submission tracker. Yes, right now). Then I spent about an hour making this face at the computer: Afterwards I went and sang Creep at the top of my lungs in the shower. It helped, although I suspect the neighbours now regard my off-key crooning of the line “I wish I was special” over and over as evidence that I may, in fact, be exactly that*. Now, to be explicitly clear, the frowny-face of doom wasn’t actually directed at my rejection (me, I love my rejections; it means I’m doing my job ). No, the frown was directed at the visual evidence that I’ve been letting things slide on the writing front for over a year, and it really was time to start picking up my game

PeterMBall 12/07/2010
Works in Progress

One day I’ll make things easy on myself…

Today I’m having a running conversation with my brain where I say “time to work now, buddy” and the brain says “dude, you’ve taken industrial strength antihistamines, why don’t you just sod off and let me sleep, yeah?” Fortunately I once spent three or four years living with a girlfriend who had cats, so I know exactly how well I can work while living on industrial strength antihistamines. The brain gets no free passes, there will be work. The real problem, of course, has nothing to do with the brain-clouding chemicals that are currently allowing me to cohabitate with two felines without, you know, dying. No, the real problem is that rewriting the opening of Black Candyis hard, and that I’ve made a hash of it several times prior to this. Part of it is the world-building, since I’m trying to jam together a bunch of concepts that don’t quite fit together, and the rest is a familiar problem. One

PeterMBall 06/07/2010
Works in Progress

July Plans

And lo, the edits are sent back to the editor and the novella once titled Cold Cases is going through the various transmogrifications it goes through to become a book titled Bleed instead. Various things contribute to the feeling of done-ness – seeing concept sketches for the cover art, finally settling on the new title, hearing that the ISBN-type stuff is being put into motion. There will still be work to go, presumably edits and proofs, but this book has officially evacuated the portion of my brain that requires tinkering and subconscious thought. It’s no longer a project. Which means it’s time to get started on what comes next: rewriting Black Candy. And since I’m house-sitting this month, taking care of the cats and chickens that belong to some friends who have dissappeared into the wilds of Europe, I’m going to try and pack the bulk of the rewrite into July. Once more into the breach and all that.

PeterMBall 05/07/2010
Works in Progress

Almost Done

I’ve been writing a sequel to Horn, one way or another, since February 6 of 2009. I suspect I’d started even earlier than that with ideas scribbled down in notebooks and such, but Feb 6 is the first time it migrated to a computer file that’s usually the start of my writing process. Since then I’ve voluntarily scrapped an entire novella draft, rewritten the plan for how I thought a series of Miriam Aster books should progress, and written a second novella to fit the new concept that was about 75% longer than projected. Some days I dispaired that I’d ever actually see the end of the process – what started as twenty-thousand words about Aster and a talking cat ended up in a very different place. Trying to get there scared the shit out of me more than once; I have a comfort zone as a writer, and this was well outside it. But it appears it’s very close to

PeterMBall 01/07/2010