Search Results for “sleep” – Page 21

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

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

Works in Progress

Things Worth Reading: The Innocent Mage

There’s always something a bit oogly-boogly about blogging your responses to fiction written by people you know (especially if you don’t necessarily know well them well), but today I’m going to bite the bullet and recommend Karen Miller‘s The Innocent Mage as one of those books that folks interested in writing fantasy should really pick up and take a look at in order to understand its narrative tricks. I’m kind of envious of writers who can write big, doorstopper-sized fantasy novels at the best of times but this one manages to go somewhere interesting in its avoidance of standard genre tropes. I mean, The Innocent Mage feels like a traditional fantasy novel – you can run through the check-list of elements needed for a big doorstopper fantasy and they’re all there: Ancient enemy from the distant past? A young lad of simple beginnings heading out into the wised world? A prophecy ordaining a great battle between good and evil? The deeds of

PeterMBall 12/08/2009

News & Upcoming Events

Another Fly-By Post

1) More Hornspotting today, this time courtesy of a review over at Horrorscope by Craig Bezant. 2) Apex Publishing are offering pre-orders on Descended from Darkness, the anthology that brings together a years worth of stories (including my story Clockwork, Patchwork, and Ravens) from Apex Magazine. 3) Last night there was write-club, and I wrote up a storm on the Black Candy draft between chatting with Angela Slatter and exchanging texts with Jason Fischeras he had his own write-a-thon in Adelaide. Then, because my sleep patterns are horribly messed up and 1 AM seems like a really appropriate time to be doing things, I came home and wrote even more. Net result was about six and a half thousand words:

PeterMBall 28/06/2009

Journal

Home Again

I am back in Brisvegas after a long, eventful and very rewarding Natcon. Horn is officially launched, meaning it’s now out in the world being read. Now I’m going to bed and sleep for a few weeks. See you all when I recover.

PeterMBall 09/06/2009

Adventures in Lifestyle Hacking

In which I overcomplicate the notion of furniture.

Allow me to introduce you to the great redundancy in my flat: The redundancy, for the curious, comes in couch form (and possibly the desk in the lower foreground since I’ve already got two others, but the desk is awesome and thus excused from such considerations). My lounge room can seat six or seven people, yet it’s rare that I’ll ever have that many people in my place. I’m a little weird about letting people into my space at the best of times, and I’ve filled all three couches only twice in a two-year period (and that was for gaming purposes, the one exception to my I don’t invite people around weirdness). Therefore the primary purpose of having three couches is so I can do horrible things to my back while falling asleep in front of the TV – swapping between the two-seat couch and the three-seat couch on a daily basis keeps the kinks from settling in one part.

PeterMBall 16/03/2009

Works in Progress

The Thesis March, an update

Yesterday was the last full day I’d get to spend on the thesis for over a week, and by the time I collapsed into my bed in the wee hours of morning I remember feeling upset by how little I’d achieved. Today I feel pretty good about it; frustrated, to be sure, but object enough to recognise that yesterday’s wordcount was actually pretty good by my standards. The reason I stalled out around three AM is because I realised that while I could identify the function genre plays in the process of editing work, I wasn’t yet doing anything with the realisation except pointing out that it’s there – it’s an example in need of practical application and I’m not yet sure how to do so without actively editing a piece within the exegesis itself (and, I’ll be honest, I’ve already played that trick in the preface when addressing the genre of the exegesis). While I’m not quite at a

PeterMBall 25/02/2009

Works in Progress

The theory of relativity as it applies to writing

The difference between a good days work and a bad days work can depend entirely on how close you are to meeting a deadline. Or, in other words, 1500 words of thesis draftage today. A month ago this would have been cause for celebration; today it is met with the soul-crushing knowledge that I haven’t yet done enough to earn myself a few hours sleep 🙂

PeterMBall 17/02/2009

Works in Progress

On diving well and failing to swim

So Chris Lynch has posted a more-or-less up-to-date bibliography of things achieved by our Clarion South class since the 2007 workshop. He’s put this together, along with some thoughts, because the two of us are scheduled to go have a chat with the current crop of Clarion South participants about what it’s like to finish the workshop and go back to the real world. I have to admit that my first response to Chris’s bibliography was a panicked that can’t be right, but it is. The only thing he’s missed is the 100 word story I had in Brimstone Press’s Black Box e-anthology, although I start to feel a little better when I factor in the three forthcoming stories that don’t appear on Chris’s summary. Even taking into account the kind of low-key achievements that occurred around the publications, it seems like so little for two years of work once it’s listed like that, and its started me thinking about the

PeterMBall 10/02/2009

Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx

Interview Meme, part three

Another round of questions, this time from the ever-stylin’ Ben Francisco. He starts with a big genre question that’s very close to the thesis that’s rattling around my head, then asks a bunch of tricky questions to follow up, so I’m going to be long-winded for this one. Consider yourself warned: 1. You were once somewhat active with the Goth community, and your stories are still often influenced by Gothic tropes (and noir tropes) just as much as they are by spec fic tropes. What is it about these other, darker genres that attracts you? Is it just the make-up and sexy black outfits, or is it something deeper? I think the phrase you’re looking for is “just barely active within the goth community” -I was a goth lurker, for the most part. At the time I was living on the Gold Coast, which is one of those places that’s fairly isolating if you’re young and you don’t have a

PeterMBall 29/01/2009

Smart Advice from Smart People

Thursday Linkfest

Yesterday was busy and thus thesis-less, plus I got very little sleep thanks to some very unfomfortable shoulder pain, so odds are I’ll be saying little of interest today. Instead, I’ll entertain you with links to stuff that I’ve found interesting over the last week (or so): My good friend Chris Slee reflects on the Edisonade (aka the pre-history of Science Fiction) and what was the best thing *before* sliced bread. The ever-stylish Ben Francisco cherry-picks the SFnal highlights of the authors@google youtube series and gathers them together in a single handy post (although he’s missing Neil Gaiman in the line-up). If you’ve not seen these, particularly the John Scalzi, I recommend going and taking a look. The Aurealis Awards are announced and the results posted on their website. Cat Sparks has posted photographs of the night, in which a bunch of writer-types have scrubbed up pretty well (and I show up looking marginally less shabby than usual in the vast flicker

PeterMBall 29/01/2009

Journal

Waiting on the rain.

We’re waiting on rain here in Brisbane, which means the humidity today was high enough that even running the air-conditioner did little to diminish the raging temperatures of my study. I officially gave up on being productive about two hours ago when I started leaving sweaty fingerprints on any book I found. Now my plan’s to just lie on the floor, drink plenty of fluids, and nap sleep until I hear rain on the roof.

PeterMBall 22/01/2009

Search Results for: sleep – Page 21

Home Again

Oh, the Glamour

Things Worth Reading: The Innocent Mage

Another Fly-By Post

Home Again

In which I overcomplicate the notion of furniture.

The Thesis March, an update

The theory of relativity as it applies to writing

On diving well and failing to swim

Interview Meme, part three

Thursday Linkfest

Waiting on the rain.

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