On the Finding Of Photographs of My Former Loves

On the…

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , , , , , , ,

A few years ago I wrote a story titled On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves, which eventually found its way into Fantasy Magazine in 2008. About a year after that I wrote On the Destruction of Copenhagen by the War Machines of the Merfolk, which showed up in Strange Horizons in 2009 and then went on to be reprinted in a years best collection and pod-casted and other such things.

I didn’t write an On The… story in 2010, despite my best intentions to do so. This makes me a little sad, ’cause it’s one of those things that I meant to do and simply didn’t find the time for.  In my head they’re part of an ongoing series, albeit a rather slow-moving one, and there’s a file on my computer where I put notes regarding possible titles. Every now and then I’d open the file, pick a title, and start writing, and somehow the story would always mutate and become something other than an On The… story.

I know this, because the series has unspoken rules. First person narration, for starters. Non-linear or fragmented narrative arcs.  Stories about odd relationships, particularly once they’re over. Male protagonists who wish they were more heartbroken than they really are, ’cause really the entire series is me having a conversation with the concept of masculinity, and the interpersonal seems to be the site where rite-of-passage masculinity stories take place these days.

When I story doesn’t work out, I usually blame it on the title. The titles, after all, are the tricky bits.

Today I’m coming up with titles, trying to find something new that’ll work. On the Final Appearance of the Laundromat Fey. On the Week of Bad Dreams that Followed the Arrival of the Yeti. On the Arrival of Doctor Sabretooth in my Parents Downstair’s Flat. On the Discover of Certain Books in the Back of the Hallway Bookshelf. Thus far, none of them are working, but I’ll get there. All I have to do is keep verbing nouns until something sticks.

January is almost done

PETERMBALL Journal , , , , ,

Congratulations to Elena Gleason, whose story Erased picked up the chocolate in Fantasy Magazine’s  best story of 2008 reader poll. Congrats also to my Clarion South peep Michael Greenhut, whose story Watermark finished in the top-five, and thanks also to everyone who put in a vote for On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves – to my surprise, it snuck into the top five as well.

The temperature seems to have dropped to reasonable levels here in Brisbane – today I walked into my office and saw the temperature was below 30 degrees for the first time in weeks. That probably explains why the last twenty-four hours have been more productive than usual, although that could also be because I’m now loaded up with projects again after giving up January to the thesis exclusively (I suspect I’m just not built for the singular focus approach, especially not when I’m fretting about the things I’m not doing. There is still thesis work to do, quite a bit of it, but I’ve hit the point where I can’t put off other stuff anymore. There is rent to pay, if nothing else, and one can only put that off for so long).

With that, I return to work, but before I go I’m going to suggest heading over to SF Signal’s recent Mind Meld featuring Advice for Writers if you haven’t seen it already. It’s a solid read, chock-full of useful things to know.

28 Days of Thesis Updates: Day Twelve

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Minimal writing yesterday (50 or so words), but that was intentional. While I’m still behind, I now feel like a rational human being who lives in a nice flat in which things are clean, rather than an angst-written PhD student who lives in a hovel in which dishes pile up in the sink.

Some random stuff, not really thesis-related, from the last few days:

–  New review of Dreaming Again in Locus (Jan ’09), courtesy of Gardner Dozois; I actually scored a short mention among the discussion: Straightforward fantasy (as opposed to horror, although sometimes the line is hard to draw) is best represented by “Twilight in Caeli-Amur” by Rjurik Davidson, “The Last Great House of Isla Tortuga” by Peter A. Ball (another zombie story, but a considerably more subtle and elegant one), and “Manannan’s Children” By Russel Blackford…

–  The Fantasy Magazine best story of 2008 poll/comment contest is still running – have you voted yet? They’ve named the top five stories in the lead after a week of voting, which includes the remarkable Watermark by Clarion peep Michael Greenhut. (On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves isn’t, but it’s such a strange and introspective little story that I would have been surprised if it was – I heartily endorse voting for Michael; his story is damned good). Also on Fantasy week, a non-fiction article from yet another Clarion peep, Ben Francisco, on the portrayal of 2009 in popular SF media.

–  Downloaded and read the latest issue of Kobold Quarterly; they had book reviews in there, including a quite spiffy review of Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels, which resulted in a moment of pure wtfbbq? level of cognitive dissonance followed by a pang of pure adoration for Wolfgang Bauer and his crew for reminding me of why I continued to subscribe to what’s (ostensibly) a d20/DnD gaming magazine despite the fact that I’ve played but a handful of DnD games in the last year or so (and run only two session). Kobold Quarterly continues to be class act, and saddens me that fantasy fiction and DnD have become so separated in my head over the years that this is actually something I feel surprised to see.

–  If you ask how the PhD is going and I twitch, it’s probably because I’m trying to think up some suitable lie that will make me feel better more than anything else.