Pimp

Me Teach You to Write Good, eh?

PETERMBALL News & Upcoming Events

There’s a more substantive blog post coming, but I’m just dropping past to announce the following to anyone who may be interested in this writing course that’s kicking off next Wednesday Night. It’s an introductory course run as part of my dayjob at the Queensland Writers Centre. ‘Course, I’m a sucker for talking about writing, which is one of those reasons I regard the dayjob as one of the best-damn-dayjobs ever

Details as follows:

Introduction to Creative Writing
Presented by Peter Ball

If you’re the kind of person who loves books and films, who gets brilliant ideas for characters and plots while sitting on the bus, who scribbles in a journal or is just inspired to imagine and create stories… well, it’s quite likely you’re a writer! Take the plunge and join us for this four-week course where you will explore your unique writing voice, discover your own abilities and learn new tools and exercises to nurture that inner storyteller.

You can book your place over at the QWC website or by calling the office on 3842 9922. If you’ve got any questions, I’d be happy to answer them here.

Venue: Queensland Writers Centre, Level 2, State Library of Queensland, Cultural Centre, Stanley Place, South Brisbane
Prices: Full Price $190 / Concession $171 / QWC Members $130 / QWC Member Concessions $117
Course Dates: Wednesday March 7, 6PM – 8PM; Wednesday March 14, 6PM – 8PM; Wednesday March 21, 6PM – 8PM; Wednesday March 28, 6PM – 8PM

Horn Spotting

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , , ,

So back in 2010 I get an email from Alisa over at Twelfth Planet  sent me an email that said, in effect, there’s some people making a TV show that’d like to use a couple of TPP books as background props.  Apparently there are contracts that needed to be signed when this kind of thing happens, which is one of those things about making television that I never really thought about, and I was being given a heads up that the permission had been granted and there was some kind of TV show which may or may not use Horn and a bunch of other Australian small press books in the background.

This was two days after my dad’s heart attack, so I mostly nodded and made sure there was nothing I needed to be doing and went back to fretting and coping with the fact that my dad was due for open heart surgery in a few days time. Like everything else that happened about that time, it kind of slipped my mind.

Today I discovered the TV show in question was actually Outland, and for the next week, if you hie yourself over to iView and watch the second episode, you can spot a copy of Horn being picked up and flicked through by Fab at about the 4:16 mark. A blink and you’ll miss it moment to be sure – I know, because I totally missed its presence in the episode until Narrelle Harris tweeted this photo in which Horn is tucked behind her book The Opposite of Life (which is, incidental, one of the most charming vampire stories I’ve ever read, and I read a lot of vampire stories).

Even without cameo’s of books I either wrote or seriously enjoyed, the second episode of Outland was all kinds of brilliant and, seriously, go fucking watch it, ’cause there’s only six episodes in this season and I really want there to be another one. If you’re trying to figure out why, I recommend checking out the Open Thread about the first two episodes over on Horden About Town where they discuss some of the meta-textual jokes that even I, in my nerdiness, managed to miss the first time around (I mean, seriously, how did I miss the wheelchair thing?).

 

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.