Ben Francisco

7 Days ’til Worldcon

PETERMBALL Journal , , , , , ,

Man, I’ve been all over the place for the last week. Good stuff happened and bad stuff happened and my emotional state bounced around like one of those 20-cent rubber crazy balls you used buy from the machines out the front of the grocery store, but there was rarely a moment where stuff happened all on its own and demanded no real engagement on my part. Fortunately the last three or four days have trended towards the good rather than the bad, but I suspect any seven day period that starts with your parents ringing from the other side of the world and saying “we were almost killed in a car crash” is going to struggle to come out ahead on points.

Still, among the cool stuff:

– Doing edits and contracts for my short story, L’esprit de L’escalier, which will be coming up at Apex Magazine in the future. Astute readers may put two-and-two together and realise this was the source of much post-acceptance dancing two weeks back.

– Kicked off a whole new round of snoopy dancing, for it appears that I’ve sold a third story for the year. Once again I err on the side of vagueness until details firm up, but suffice to say that this one is rated pretty damn high on the awesomesauce scale.

– Had the yearly rejection count climb to a tantalising 19 rejections, which has spurred me to get back into the wordmines and get some new stories done.

– Picked up the inimitable Ben Francisco from the airport, whereupon there was nattering about writing and the eating of cassoulet and the planning of literary hi-jinx in the lead-up to the con.

In other news I’m still prodding my brain and saying “yo, you ready to acknowledge that there’s a book with our name on it coming out next week” and the brain continues to respond with a surly growl and a denial. I suspect I’m saving my “ZOMG…BOOK!” type squee until there’s a copy in my hands, whereupon nearby dogs will probably register my joy. I also have to figure out what I’m going to read in my reading slot at the con (logically it should be Bleed, but there’s always something a tad iffy about me reading Aster’s interior monologue); I was tempted to go with the aforementioned L’esprit de L’escalier, but then I realised I had no idea how to pronounce the title without mangling the French and thus it was shelved for another time.
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Current Writing Metrics
Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 1
New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30
Rejections in 2010: 19/100
Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August )

Farewell Gen Con Oz 2010

PETERMBALL Gaming , ,

I talked to the inimitable Ben Francisco over the weekend and was immediately reminded of the fact that this doesn’t happen often enough. There is something dreadfully wretched about having people I enjoy talking too spread across the globe, accessible only via chat programs that require one of us to be awake at an ungodly hour. Not that it would change if he were local, because I am inherently lazy and am horrible at catching up with people, but there it is. Fortunately the gist of the conversation was largely worldcon is coming, yay, which means there will be a whole bunch of people I enjoy talking too in the same place at the same time. Including Ben. Which will be awesome.

About ten minutes after this conversation I read the press release informing the world that Gen Con Australia is cancelled in 2010. Needless to say, this cast a pallor over the rest of the weekend. I tried to write posts about this a few times, but there’s a complex knot of baggage tagged to GCOz in my head due to the fact that I worked for them leading into their first show in 2008 (and then broke my vow of never again to run the seminar program last year). During the months prior to a show it’s name was often a by-word for greif and frustration, but the Conventions themselves…man, they were good fun to be at.  Lots of people worth talking too, lots of guests being gracious with their time and experience, and presumably a lot of games going on (I wouldn’t know; I don’t think I ever got the chance to game at Gen Con Oz).

Through a variety of circumstances* I wasn’t involved in organising anything related to Gen Con Oz this year, although I’d planned on volunteering to work the show once I knew for sure I’d be around during the Convention weekend. I was looking forward to catching up with people, particular the core group of volunteers and the regular guests. I was looking forward to maybe playing a game or two, especially if the Indie Games on Demand guys were around this year**, and I’m disappointed I want get the chance to do so.

I suspect I’ll be even more disappointed if there’s no Gen Con Oz in 2011.

*Largely known as “I have a novella getting released in September and house-guests coming prior to Worldcon”.
** Should the show never run again, I can safely say never partaking of the Indie Games on Demand experience will be my biggest dissapointment. These guys were a joy to organise in amid the trials of setting up the 2008 schedule, and I was really happy to see them back in 2009. Plus I dig Indie Games – half the joy of hitting gaming Cons is to experience new systems.

Ben Francisco @ I09

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption , , ,

This week io9’s Weekend Short Story Club is throwing some love in the direction of my friend Ben Francisco and his story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts which originally appeared in Realms of Fantasy last year. This pleases me because, lets face it, Ben is awesome and Tio Gilbertois one of those stories I patiently waited for him to get published since I read the first draft at Clarion back in 2007 (the other peice I’ve been waiting for, This is Not Concrete, appeared in the most recent issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet that arrived on my doorstep on Friday).