Adventures on the Kurilpa Bridge

Stories told, Stories Consumed, and a link to Cats Sleeping

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption , , , ,

There was no story unlocked when I walked across the Kurilpa bridge this morning, which is a matter of some sorrow to me. I was counting on that moment today, since I’m looking askance at the second chapter of Claw and trying to figure out what’s going to go in there. I know some things, yes: corpses, cheerfully gloomy coroners, a modicum of angst. It’s just the details that go around that I’m struggling with at the moment, writing a paragraph or two before thinking, no, that’s not right, and going back to the well for a new idea. I’m sure there’s something coming, sooner or later, but it isn’t quite there yet. Everything that’s been written thus far is weighed down by the burden of history, calling back to Horn and Bleed, and the thing that made me happy about the draft of chapter one is how much less of that it does than the last time I tried to write this story.

I’m not sure blogging will help solve the problem, but I can’t see how it’ll hurt, either.

Apropos of nothing, I’m going to take this opportunity to direct your attention towards the new ABC comedy, Outland (now avialable on iview).

There are very few television programs that actually make me wish I still owned a television that actually got TV reception these days, and short of someone reviving The West Wing, The Gilmore Girls, or the WWE being broadcast on free to air TV, I rather doubt there’s going to be one that’ll lure be back into the fold. I’ve been one of those curmudgeonly TV-less types for a few years now, absorbing my sequentially broadcast entertainment in one fell swoop courtesy of DVD boxed sets to the point where I now prefer it.

But Outland…well, Outland comes damn close to luring me back, and probably would have if the ABC hadn’t chosen to add it to their online viewer so fast. It’s a very sweet, geekishly joyful series about a Queer group of SF fans. It’s not a perfect show, not by a long shot, but it’s funny and there’s potential there and its a goddamn TV show portraying geek culture (and queer geeks) without being horribly mean about it.

In a world where the nearest analogue to this show is the highly problematic Big Bang Theory, that’s something to be celebrated and encouraged. And should Outland not float your boat, then I’ll just link to this blog full of the 25 most awkward feline sleeping positions and encourage you to make gooey noises at the litany of cute kitties so you won’t hear me talking about how wrong and lacking in taste you are.

The Umbrella Does Nothing

PETERMBALL Journal, Works in Progress ,

I spend a lot of time walking across this bridge these days:

Twice a day, four days a week, in fact. It’s on the path between the train station and work, and avoiding it means traversing a somewhat less pleasant bridge that qualifies as the long way around, so its really a no-brainer to take the Kurilpa Bridge even before I made my startling discovery that the bridge had secret, magical, powers of plot development. In seven of the last eight mornings where I’ve walked across the bridge, I’ve reached the other end with a new scene in my head, typically one that will fix a story I’ve been working on for a while, or advance a novel I plan on writing in a way I’m not really expecting. It’s magical and kind of awesome and usually results in my tapping frantic notes into my phone at the far end so I can email them home when I actually have writing time.

On the eighth morning I crossed the bridge it was raining, and I learned a very different lesson: you do not walk across the Kulilpa Bridge while its raining. There’s no cover and the wind encourages the rain to hit the bridge in a rather horizontal fashion, and you’ll spend the enter walk wailing “The umbrella does nothing” in your best McBain impression. And afterwards you’ll spend the day at work in wet socks and wet pants, and your toes will shrivel into raisins.

It’s distracting to try and work while your toes are shrivelling into raisins.

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Every year I forget what January is really like.

Not the sweltering heat of the month when you’re in Brisbane – that I remember all to well, and I thank god that my new dwelling isn’t an asbestos sweat-box with an interior temperature averaging ten degrees higher than usual for the city. No, what I forget is the little things that come up and eat away at one’s time. January is the month of Birthdays in my neck of the woods, full to the brim of people I know and like getting older and wishing to celebrate the fact, and it’s rivalled only by October in my yearly calendar as the month where finding time is a struggle.

Except January is worse because I always think it’ll be an opportunity to *catch up* after the chaos of the Holidays, except it never is. February is the catch-up month, January is perpetually full.