Category: Works in Progress
Works in Progress

2010 Rejection Count: 5

It’s been 36 dayssince I clocked up my first rejection of the year, but as the submissions start going out more regularly things are picking up. 5 rejections done, 95 rejections to go in order to hit my 100 for the year. Of course, I’m being completely pantsed by my friend Chris Green whose already doubled my total, but that’s because Chris is made of awesome while my primary composition is slackness. Mind you, I’m going to catch up. I just have to remember how to write a short story, since I seem to have fogotten (yes, again)

PeterMBall 16/05/2010
Works in Progress

State of Play

Last night I braved the outside world and joined Trent Jamieson and Chris Lynch to talk about SF as part of the QUT Informational Professionals Alumni Chapter’s Bookclub, which was an enormous amount of fun given the books we were discussing (the fact that I’m a nerdy bibliophile who rather enjoys chatting about books didn’t hurt, nor did the fact that Trent and Chris are lovely blokes to share a panel with). Today I started tackling May’s to-do list from hell. It’s a long list, and its terrible, and there were at least two things on there with a deadline of “May 31st”. The first of these is done (short story submission, although given the length my stories are when I’m finishing them these days they may not deserve the title short); the second of these is daunting (going through the fourth rewrite of Cold Cases in preparation for May 31st, when I hand it back to TPP). The rest of the list has a little more

PeterMBall 11/05/2010
Works in Progress

Deathmarch, Day Ten

And lo, what a difference a few days makes. Today I have run out of steam on the deathmarch. My eyes hurt, my brain hurts, I’m altogether skittish about going near the keyboard. The very act of writing a blogpost seems daunting, since it’s the thing between me and getting back to work. If I don’t blog, I don’t march. If I don’t march, I don’t have to face the fact that the next stage of rewriting is upon us. If that happens, I don’t have to solve the next plot-problem. This death march is all about solving plot problems, figuring out how to make the novella work on a really basic level. It’s not one of my strong points. It makes me stubborn. I hate having to figure out what needs to be done next. The only upside is that I’ve finally realised that this is what I’m doing when I find myself flailing about, so I can at

PeterMBall 28/04/2010
Works in Progress

Novella Deathmarch, Day Four

Today the novella did good things. Less of the Death side of the equation and more of the March. The sub-conscious writing muscles have remembered how to work and the story starts chugging along under its own steam. I can look of the current draft and see the shape of the book it’s going to be when it’s done, which is something I hadn’t managed prior to starting the deathmarch. The voice started settling down. I remembered how to take stuff out of a rewrite, especially when it belongs in another scene. All is well with the world. The real measure that the Deathmarch is working, though, comes when I can look forward to the next writing project without immediately running off to work on it instead. When I’m avoiding a project, I’m all about the distraction. Today I’m all about the focus, and hopefully I can start transitioning to normal sleeping patterns instead of maintaining the manic manic working-to-five-in-the-morning approach

PeterMBall 22/04/2010
Works in Progress

Deathmarch, Day 2

I’ve been at it for six hours today, and I’m about halfway through the second chapter of the novella. I’m okay with that. The first half of the second chapter was actually the hard bit, given the amount of damage I’ve been doing to the plot. The second half is mostly rewriting a scene to fit it into a new location, which should be relatively easy to do. All in all, I’m digging the deathmarch as a way of getting this done. I always forget how happy I am when focusing on a story like this. It starts off feeling like a drag, this whole sense of OMG-there-is-so-much-to-do, but once I’m underway it all settles into a comfortable routine and things get done. I like it when things get done. I like it even more when I can spend two hours on the couch, staring into space while I try to figure out how I get between two points in

PeterMBall 20/04/2010
Works in Progress

Novella Death March: Day One

About ten hours ago I parked myself in front of the laptop and started rewriting Cold Cases. I came up for air a few times, primarily to check e-mail and eat cake, but otherwise I’ve had a pretty consistent day at the keyboard working on the novella. I’ve made a terrible mess of the story. Possibly seven or eight terrible messes, given the plethora of drafts littering my computer. This is the way rewriting goes in my neck of the woods. I fiddle with things. I break them and see what’s wrong. I look at a scene and wonder what the hell I was thinking, then hammer away at it until it starts to look a little better. Also, rewrote the first chapter. Like, heavy rewriting of the first chapter. And for the first time, I actually like the way it ends. The 2010 rejection count has hit 2. That means there’s just 98 rejections to go

PeterMBall 19/04/2010
Works in Progress

Chaos, Chili-Carrot Cake, & The Twelve Day Deathmarch

On Friday I sat in the middle of messy apartment, contemplating the messy state of affairs, thinking a series of messy thoughts. And after a while I thought, well, enough of that then, it’s kind of a drag, and instituted a plan to cut through the chaos and get stuff done. I spent Saturday and today cleaning rooms, ordering bookshelves, and taking care of long-neglected tasks. Not enough that I’ve instituted order across the flat, but enough to give me a foothold. That was phase one. Phase two requires me to finish the rewrites on Cold Cases*. I have twelve days. That’s a chapter’s worth of rewrites per day, about two-and-half to three thousand words. If I succeed, I will allow myself to have a guilt-free weekend of not-writing in May**. I’ve prepared for this task by making a weeks worth of meals in advance, stocking up on coffee, and dancing around the house to Goldfrapp***. To aid me in

PeterMBall 18/04/2010
Works in Progress

2010 Rejection Count: 1

Man, it’s been one of those weeks. You know the ones – you make a mistake early one, a really dumb one that was easily preventable if you’d had half-a-brain, and by Friday afternoon you’re at the bottom of a tailspin from hell where the world is a single chaotic mess and you get deep into the groove of wallowing in your own angst. Of course, by you I mean I. There’s a reason I avoid the internet on those weeks. History teaches us that no good comes from posting while engaging in massive acts of self-recrimination. Of course, history also teaches me that I have a habit of letting one mistake cascade into several in the same manner that this week did, so it’s not like I’m terribly good at learning things. Then I got a rejection letter today, which snapped me right out of it and got me focused.  There are a bunch of people who are going to

PeterMBall 10/04/2010
Works in Progress

Chairman of the Bored

My process, an overview: start a new story; write eight hundred words; start another new story; write three hundred words; think “fuck, I really do need to finish a novel”; make revision notes for Black Candy; realise Black Candy is horribly flawed and wonder if starting a new novel will be easier; write a hundred words; hate them; write another hundred words; hate them too; pick up a finished novel and read the opening paragraph; think “the new novel I’m writing is complete pants. I’ll start a new one.”; write 100 words; delete one hundred words; work on black Candy; start a blog post about Whip It;  delete it; start a blog post about how much I hate writing; delete it; work on the second short-story I started; work on the first short-story I started; work on Black Candy; start a new novel; research boredom on Wikipedia; find the following quite comforting and accurate – Boredom has been defined by C.

PeterMBall 03/03/2010
Works in Progress

This Weeks Project

It took me most of February to get there, but I finally climbed back on the submission horse and sent out short stories last night. Night quite the February I’d planned for back at the beginning, but given the distractions of dead computers, illness, parental birthdays and toothaches I’m settling for getting 25% of the way towards my submission goal and carrying the rest over to the month of March. This week I’m getting even more basic and going for straight wordcount goals. Between now and the 7th of March I’m aiming at the following: In other news, the most excellent peep Jason Fischer is co-editing an upcoming issue of Midnight Echo and he’s looking for cross-genre SF/Horror works. And I’m almost out of coffee, so that’s it for me this morning.

PeterMBall 01/03/2010
Works in Progress

Don’t look at me, I didn’t buy him the eyeliner…

So last week I started working on a story about a man with a birdcage full or sparrows instead in of a heart and the question of what happens when you swap out the sparrows for something else. It ends badly (because it’s one of my stories and they almost always end badly), and there is heartbreak (’cause, again, I’m writing it…), and last night I finally hit the end of the draft and said “oh, well, that’s done.” It’s not a terribly good story yet, and may never be, but there is rewriting to correct that problem should I decide it has the seed of a good story in there. The important thing is that it’s done, because that’s how The Fear is combated – you crush it beneath the weight of endlessly finished drafts until it gives up and goes away. And because I was the model of writerly virtue yesterday, I’m going to go collect mail this morning.

PeterMBall 09/02/2010
Works in Progress

Spirit: willing

I got the writing moving again over the weekend. Not full, productive workdays where I get my 1,000 words down, but enough to feel like I’m actually doing something. Today’s list of things to do consists of words: words; e-mail; tracking down groceries. I will achieve all of these. Everything else is superfluous. This will not, of course, prevent me from wasting time on the internets. Current Project: Getting Back to Basics Number of Stories Submitted in February: 0 of 8 Rejections Accrued in 2010: 0 Consecutive Productive Writing Days: 0 Days without coke and other soft-drinks: 2 Days without chocolate: 5 Today the Spokesbear is: sleeping in.

PeterMBall 08/02/2010