Category: Writing Advice – Business & the Writing Life
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

The Sleep Thing, Blogging, And Writing Without a Net

The sleep thing. The apnea. The bad habit my body has developed of asphyxiating me a couple of dozen times an hour, while my body drifts into a REM state. I’ve called it all sorts of things over the last nine months, but it always opens up a quiet moment of panic inside me. It lies at the heart of a very specific debate I have, regarding social media and being a writer. Because I do not know where the line is, when it comes to discussing it. It came up a few times, over the weekend, and figuring out when I’d crossed over into the territory where I’d become the guy banging on about something everyone else was done with got difficult even when the non-verbal queues were present. I do, after all, have a tendency to bang on about things when I’m trying to figure them out. Usually, long after everyone else is wishing I’d shut up. And

PeterMBall 17/11/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Here In Melbourne

I am in another city. Theoretically, on holidays, but in practice not so much. I’ll be spending today with Kevin Powe discussing the stuff that needs doing on the Altered project. We’ll spend a bunch of time talking shop, ’cause that’s what tends to happen when Kevin and I get together. He’s spent the past few years building up a great reputation as a Voice Actor, and it’s always fascinating to hear about the way things have progressed for him. I’ll spend the rest of my time hanging out with my friend Allan, who moved to Melbourne and quickly swapped careers from carpentry to producing high-end props for cosplayers and fans of all things geek. And again, I imagine we’ll talk shop at some point. I can’t even begin to conceptualise how Allan does what he does – my relationship with tools is rather like my relationship with being handed a live snake – but I can recognise the feelings associated with making

PeterMBall 13/11/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Focus on the Mountain, Not the Map

So Neil Gaiman has this speech, a keynote address he delivered in 2012. You may be familiar with it – almost everyone is, at this stage of the internet, ‘cause that shit has been linked to and reprinted more times than the goddamn bible at this stage of its career. Peeps will repeat the words Make Good Art like a goddamn mantra. I don’t mind that. As mantra goes, make good art is pretty bloody aces. But for my money, the most valuable part of the speech isn’t the bits that get repeated over and over. It’s not the catchy phrases about making good art when your cat dies or your wife leaves you It’s not the sequence where he lays out his beliefs that there are no rules in art, which creative types lap up like the fun-loving anarchist spirits we all want to be. The most valuable part of the speech is this: Sometimes the way to do

PeterMBall 10/11/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

GenreCon, Thank-yous, and Networking Redux

Yesterday’s post was written pre-conference. Today, I’m writing from the other end, at home, on my couch, half-asleep and vaguely unsettled because my nerves are still dancing the GenreCon fandango. I’m tempted to be all false modesty here, but every indication from twitter comments and in-person discussions seems to indicate that the conference was great. We’ll send out feedback forms to all the attendees in a few days and we’ll no-doubt learn about the things we didn’t do so well, but the vast majority of the people seemed to have gotten a lot out of the conference. The comments on the program have been great, with guests and panellists just knocking it out of the park in session after session. I sent out a lot of thanks in the closing ceremony of the conference. I’d like to do so again here, in shorter form: I get an awful lot of love for running GenreCon, largely because I’m the name at

PeterMBall 02/11/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Transmissions from Conference Land: Let’s Talk About Facebook

Peeps, we need to talk about Facebook. Specifically, this trend that I’ve noticed with this year’s GenreCon where people have eschewed email and started sending me important queries about the conference via the Facebook PM system. Don’t do this. For the love of all the Gods in all the Heavens, don’t do this. Carve these words into your heart and cleave to them for the rest of your writing career: Facebook is not the place for any kind of one-to-one professional communication.  I’m not talking about the quick, easy stuff – it’s not like the messenger/chat system on Facebook is entirely broken. I use it for all sorts of things: asking the important questions about whether we’re good for write club and whether we need donuts; asking quick questions of friends that have an easy response; the occasional chat with old friends who moved away. It’s great for that, it really is. But it’s pants for anything important. I get the impulse to

PeterMBall 29/10/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Don’t Hide the Brush Strokes

My friend Kathleen posted this to facebook yesterday and it’s one of those articles where I find myself reading and nodding enthusiastically. Artists frequently hide the steps that lead to their masterpieces. They want their work and their career to be shrouded in the mystery that it all came out at once. It’s called hiding the brushstrokes, and those who do it are doing a disservice to people who admire their work and seek to emulate them. If you don’t get to see the notes, the rewrites, and the steps, it’s easy to look at a finished product and be under the illusion that it just came pouring out of someone’s head like that. People who are young, or still struggling, can get easily discouraged, because they can’t do it like they thought it was done. An artwork is a finished product, and it should be, but I always swore to myself that I would not hide my brushstrokes. “MAD

PeterMBall 22/05/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Your Stories Are Not Sacred God Poop

I’m hopped up on a combination of cold and flu tablets and the first full night’s sleep I’ve had in about five years, courtesy of the CPAP machine, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m feeling a little punchy today. There’s this “How to Survive a Relationship With a Writer” meme going around on Facebook at the moment – hopefully the link above will take you too it, but Facebook is always hit and miss on such things. Said meme is full of 10 points designed to  make living with your writers SO easier and, like most such memes, is basically played for laughs. But it’s appeared in my feed three or four times now, and every time I lose my shit when I hit point ten: 10. Leave your writers a lone when a rejection letter arrives. After the deadly silence, screaming, crying, moaning, and muttering have subsided, offer your writer a cup of coffee or tea. And a

PeterMBall 12/05/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

5 Reasons Rejection Letters are Actually Awesome

Okay, so I’m aware that I’ve been a serious downer for the last two days. ‘Tis the curse of not blogging for a time – all the serious, angsty things bounce around my head and come out in a burst, instead of getting nicely spaced out between more palatable topics. Today we’re going to talk about something fun: REJECTION. It’s been on my mind a bit this week, ‘cause I’ve been finishing short stories and sending them out blind for the first time in…well, shit, about four years. As part of this process, I’m getting back into the swing of checking markets, putting together submission lists, tracking submission details, and all that shit. That means, in the very near future, I’m going to start getting all kinds of rejection letters, and I am fucking PSYCHED. And,yeah, yeah, I know, writers aren’t supposed to be excited by rejection. A lot of writer-types love the Sturm und Drang that comes when a

PeterMBall 09/04/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

You Do Not Need To Consumed By art

We like the idea of an artist destroyed by their talent. It’s part of the cultural myth we build up around art and writing, designed to move the conversation away from it being work one expects to be compensated for, much like conversations about muses and inspiration and creativity as a powerful force. It leads too all sorts of bad habits. The biggest of which is the decision that a artists needs to be a artists twenty-four-seven. To stop producing, for whatever reason, is a sign that you’re not truly talented and instead just engaging in hack work. This is why the YOU MUST WRITE EVERY DAY crowd are so loud and so prevalent among writing advice. I’m thinking about this today, after reading Laura Vanderkam’s post about the writing life and playing the long game (two topics pretty near and dear to my heart): As for making money while writing books, I have never believed that book writing needs to be all-consuming.

PeterMBall 09/03/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Creating Art Absolutely Involves Privilege

It’s been interesting to follow the Stacey Jay Kickstarter controversy around the internet this week, ’cause it’s one of those moments where we’re reminded that the public perception of how the arts should be valued is a) batshit crazy and b) still based on theories of creative genius that requires no work. If you haven’t followed the internet storm and don’t intend to follow the links, the short version goes like this: 1) a YA author turns to kickstarter to fund the production of the second book in her series, as self-publishing requires far fewer readers to be successful than going through a big publishing house; 2) said kickstarter is poorly executed in all sorts of ways, but it’s biggest sin is suggesting that a sizable percentage of the funds would be spent on the author’s living expenses while writing; 3) internet explodes, as only the internet can. Said author apologizes, closes down her kickstarter, and withdraws from the internet for

PeterMBall 09/01/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Some Words of Advice for a Young Writer

TheTruthGirl recently dropped by the comments and asked the following question: Writing is my dream, and all that I have ever wanted to do. The idea of a day job is odious, but a necessary evil. I guess, what I’m trying to say is, would you have any writing advice for someone in my position? At which point, regular readers are probably chuckling a little, ’cause this is one of those topics I can rabbit on about for a while. Turns out, I’ve waxed lyrical about all manner of writing advice in the last couple of years – a lot of it conveniently located under the craft/process and the business/writing life categories here on the blog – and I actually a post about things I wish I’d known as a young writer after I did a talk at a high-school last year. I’m also gearing up to spend a whole year writing blog posts about writing and publishing over at the Australian Writers

PeterMBall 07/01/2015
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Why I’m Taking My Process Back to Basics This Week

I’m going back to basics this week, focusing on my routine and getting back into the habit of getting shit done. This means being in bed by ten o’clock each night. It means getting by 6:15 every morning, making sure I’m at the keyboard and working before 7:00. It means easing back my words-per-day goal to something easily achievable, probably about 750 words, then scaling things up as the week progresses. It means taking a few minutes to back-up my work and settle my thoughts before leaving the house, rather than going to work with a head full of story. It means making my damn bed every morning. ROUTINES MATTER There are writers who can work without routines. I’ve known a couple of them. I’ve pretended to be one myself, from time to time, but I’ve discovered that only works when I’ve been working a dayjob one or two days a week. For me, not having a routine is a luxury

PeterMBall 11/08/2014