Interfictions II

This is my Monday

PETERMBALL Journal , , ,

I hate it when things creep up on me, but I like having a full to-do list that I can work through. On today’s list:

  • Get a big chunk of wordage done on the thesis draft – last week saw things start lagging behind again, and I really shouldn’t let that become a habit.
  • Clean the flat for tomorrow’s rental inspection
  • Go through the copyedit of my Interfictions 2 story and get that sent out.
  • Finish writing up a crit of Angela’s story.
  • Pick up a book they’re holding for me at Pulp Fiction (includes a bonus lunch with the Sleech)
  • Cook at home for the first time in, what, two and a half weeks?
  • Do a revision of a recently-rejected story that I think needs a little more polish before it goes out again.

In short, I’ll be keeping busy. I’ve moved the laptop into the lounge so I can set up a second work-area and flit between computers as I work – I’m not much for writerly superstitions and such, but I am noticing that the thesis is always a little easier to write while camping out with couch with the laptop. I suspect it’s because the living room has more space to spread books out and build a visual representation of my research…

Latest from the wordmines…

PETERMBALL News & Upcoming Events , , ,

Now that the TOC has been made public over on Delia Sherman’s LJ we’ve been told we can go crazy with the blog announcements: I sold my story, Black Dog: A Biography, to Interfictions 2.

The complete Table of Contents looks something like this:

Jeffrey Ford, “The War Between Heaven and Hell Wallpaper”
M. Rickert, “Beautiful Feast”
Will Ludwigsen, “Remembrance is Something Like a House”
Cecil Castelucci, “The Long and the Short of Long-Term Memory”
Alaya Johnson, “The Score”
Ray Vukcevich, “The Two of Me”
Carlos Hernandez, “The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria”
Lavie Tidhar, “Shoes”
B. F. Slattery, “Interviews After the Revolution”
Elizabeth Ziemska, “Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken”
Peter M. Ball, “Black Dog: A Biography”
Camilla Bruce, “Berry Moon”
Amelia Beamer, “Morton Goes to the Hospital”
William Alexander, “After Verona”
Alan DeNiro, “(*_*) ~~~ (-_-): The Warp and the Woof”
Nin Andrews, “The Marriage”
Theodora Goss, “Child-Empress of Mars”
Lionel Davoust, “L’Ile Close” (“The Enclosed Island” or “No-Exit Island” or something else we haven’t thought of yet)
Stephanie Shaw, “Afterbirth”
David J. Schwartz, “The 121”

<Insert a long sequence of joyful stammering and nervous hyperventilating here>

Thursday Linkfest

PETERMBALL Smart Advice from Smart People , , , , , ,
  • Jay Lake says sensible things about writers and psychotic dedication.
  • ASIF has posted their recommended reading list for 2008, with much love thrown in the direction of the ever-awesome Angela Slatter.
  • The 2007 Clarion Blog Nostalgia Extravaganza continues over at Lee Battersby’s site, with entries by clarion peeps Michael Greenhut and Helen Venn.
  • A photo-series on dead Asian themeparks. (snurched from Elizabeth Bear’s livejournal).
  • Gen Con Australia and  my former/sometimes current boss Hooly talks candidly about the 2009 convention (I am, for the record, involved in the con this year, but at a greatly reduced capacity – hence he’s only an intermittent boss these days)
  • If you’re in Brisbane and an aspiring writer-type trying to figure out what happens next, I’d recommend signing up for Marianne de Pierres workshop at Sunnybank library. It’s free and I can say from experience that Marianne’s workshops tend to be both informative and eye-opening.
  • And for the more artistic types – Small Beer Press is holding an open-call to find the cover-image for the next Interfictions anthology.
  • Sean Williams pokes people with a stick regarding the Australian Natcon in Adelaide and the ‘sploding comments thread of doom reminds me of why I’m booking flights to Adelaide regardless (That I’ve been part of a con that had similar public-communications issues and still managed a to hit a level of awesome on the day helps as well;).
  • Jeff Vandermeer talks about the genesis of Shriek: An Afterword complete with scans of annotated manuscript pages; my inner fascination with how other people work kicked in immediately.