Peter M. Ball

The TL/DR is this: the Eclectic Projects Patreon is going on a payment hiatus in January while I figure out what it’ll look like in 2022, and give folks a chance to decide whether they’d like to keep supporting the new model. 

More details in a few weeks, once I’m more confident of the new direction, but I suspect it’ll involve pulling back on the idea that “I’ll do some stuff” and focus on a more concrete deliverable. 

I’m currently testing the idea of doing a small 60-page magazine every month, featuring a mix of longer fiction, short vignettes, and a non-fiction essay. Approximately 10,000 words per month, which based upon my tracking for the last few months, is approximately the word count I can reliably produce every month while working a demanding day job that’s prone to unexpected bouts of required and non-negotiable overtime.

I’m still hedging my bets about what the pivot will be because a) I’m not committing until I’m a few issues ahead, and currently I’ve got a lot of issues drafted but not ready to release, and b) I’m quietly, slowly searching for a new job that’s more compatible with my goals and vision for life, because it’s become clear the current gig is a bit of a mismatch despite being near perfect on paper. I expect it won’t hit full steam until May, when the festival actually runs, but I’m very much trying to avoid being there long-term and searching for jobs takes time. 

That said, I’m mentioning it because it’s probable this will be the focus next year, even if I switch the Patreon over to “per project” rather than monthly.

The tracking calendar for December, which isn’t looking too bad given a) I had a major allergic reaction to something around Dec 8th, b) I’d been freaking about the RWA presentation on the 10th, and c) BWF has been demanding a lot of overtime, including a weekend, a twelve hour day, and multiple days where I don’t get out of the office until 7.

What intrigues me is the breakdown – I can normally make progress on two of the three areas I’m tracking (writing, platform, publishing), but rarely am I theee for three. If I can’t figure out a way to bridge that gap, there’s going to need another big rethink around what’s feasible as a workload.

I’m staring down the barrel of an eleven hour workday at the Festival this morning, which I’m approaching with all the enthusiasm you’d imagine of someone who has required to do a lot of unpaid overtime in the last few weeks. 

I’ve been digging into advice for writers about getting things done when your time-poor and (more importantly) burnt out/exhausted, and one of the big suggestions has been that maybe it’s time to start leaning into planning things instead of doing the time-intensive pantsing approach to writing.  

Doing a test-run with a short story, following a more detailed version of the Mary Robinette Kowal approach laid out in this blog post. The vision is a nice little six-scene story, taking one of the goofier ideas in my “stories I want to write” notebook, which was basically “Mechs + Curling + Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift.”

The finished version will be very much not that, although I suspect you’ll see the echoes. There are still giant mechs sliding across ice, and some form of race. There’s no logistical world-building sense for that combination — mechs are, by their nature, impractical forms of transport, particularly in a world that’s 90% snow and ice — but I figure if you’re a fan of people piloting giant robots you’re just going to ignore that and if you’re not a fan of giant robots you aren’t reading this story anyway. 

It took exactly six sentences for me to stray from the outline, with the main character becoming Maya and DeeCee becoming the nickname for the clunky mech she’s trying to repair, but I will allow the plan makes it relatively easy to sit down and start writing on days like today. 

Meanwhile, I finished a draft of my first index card story on the commute home yesterday. Not quite a flash-fiction a week pace, but there’s been very little commuting over the last seven days thanks to overtime, allergic reactions, and conferences.