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Three Things

PETERMBALL Journal

WRITING RACE

I’m going to be the guest racer at tonight’s Australian Writer’s Marketplace Writing Race, an online gathering where a bunch of writers…well, write.

*Waves hello to any AWM Writing Races that drop past*

I last guested at one of these back in 2009, just after Horn was released, and it proved to be a lot of fun. Kind of like Write Club, only online and with people who aren’t the inimitable Angela Slatter. If you’re a writer at a loose end this evening, why don’t you strap on your writing pants, fire up your keyboard, and come join us on the AWMforums around 8 o’clock.

THE DALEK GAME

I know I’ve said this before, but if you’re not following Kathleen Jenning’s Dalek Game illustration, you really are missing out on one of the most charming series of illustrations on the internet. I recommend Daleks Can Jump Puddles, the flappereque Roxie Dalek, The Dalek in the Rye, and…and…and…look, just go follow the entire series, okay?

Especially the second Neil Gaiman Dalek, which is all kinds of aweseome.

LIMINAL LIVING

Life’s been…chaotic…for the last few weeks. I took on a new role at the dayjob until the end of the year, I gave notice to my landlords, and I’ve been out and about in the world far more often than is normal for me.

Right now, there’s a definite sense of things being in flux, and so I cope with three of my favourite activities: writing, packing, and planning.

The packing is probably the most fun of the three. I’ve been threatening to move out of my flat for about three years now, usually whenever my lease ends and the landlords put up the rent, but a few weeks ago the apartment finally sold and the new owners informed me there was a considerable rent hike coming in December. I took one look at how much they’re asking, factored in the inconvenience of renting from owners planning to do extensive renovations, and told them as politely as I could that I’d be moving out the week before the rent hike took place.

Fortunately I already know where I’m going and I’ve got three and a half months to prepare for it, so there’s very little of the usual anxiety that comes from house-hunting. I’m going into liminal mode from December on – putting stuff into storage, saving money, abandoning any long-term plans  – and I’ll start making long-term plans again in November of 2012 when I finish up my current dayjob contract.

As I drink my celebratory snifter of port…

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It’s a cool winter evening and I’ve turned off most of the lights in the flat, shuffling around the study by dim glow of the desk lamp, swaying in a slightly dreamy manner to Bauhaus songs while I poke bits of Flotsam with a stick.  In theory I should be writing right now, but I figure if I don’t sneak off and blog now, I’ll get all caught up in drowning Keith Murphy in the demonic equivalent of a baptismal font and it’ll be another week before I post here again.

I’m going to mention, first off, that Angela Slatter is in the process of delivering a very special series of Friday Drive-By interviews focusing on the contributors to the forthcoming Stephen Jones anthology A Book of Horrors. The first link takes you straight to the page she’s set up for it on her website, which means you miss out on the very charming otters that appeared on the post announcing the interview series, but it’s definitely worth keeping an on eye on things if you’re a fan of Angela’s work (as I am),  Stephen Jones’ anthologies (er, yes, fan of them too), or just Angela’s drive-by interview series in general (yes, sorry, I’m a fan of those too).

Hold on, I’ve run out of Bauhaus songs. It’s time to move on to Joy Division (If you’ve never seen the Australian film Three Dollars where David “Faramir” Wenham dances like Ian Curtis, you’re missing out).

Okay, so, other things. I wrote a little more of my morning commute story today, figuring out a bit more about the characters involved. Lunch breaks at work seem to be a boon to getting things done on the writing front, since there’s enough time there to get about two or three pages filled in the Moleskin notebook I’m using, which adds up pretty quickly when the page or two I get done on the train is factored in. The weird part, of course, comes with writing things out of order – I’m just kind of putting down scenes and seeing what the characters do and trusting that sooner or later a beginning and an end will show up.

Interestingly, this isn’t a story I could write electronically. Short bursts of time are terrible when I’m trying to type things on a computer, where the pages are infinite and the keys make pleasant clattering sounds as I work, but a fifteen to forty-minute stretch is kind of ideal for hand-writing. I suspect it’s got something to do with the page itself imposing a kind of structure on the writing, but I wouldn’t swear to it.

I’ve discovered, once again, that working above a bookstore is a dangerous proposition. Last week I picked up Brett Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park while strolling through the shop before work; this week I found myself buying a copy of Notes from the Underground (a book I’ve always meant to read, but never gotten around too) and China Miéville’s Kraken. Fortunately, I’m back to reading books faster than I buy them, so I don’t feel too bad about the purchases.

I also discovered that my Klout profile lists me as an expert of pancakes, which suggests I tweet far to much about breakfast, I suppose. Admittedly, I am only a very small expert of pancakes, but that’s more-or-less in keeping with my pancake consumption. Given the option, I’d choose to be an expert in something much cooler: ninjas, perhaps, or obscure seventies punk bands from Brisbane, but considering I know even less about those topics than I do about pancakes, perhaps it’s best the option isn’t mine.

A friend emailed with the question have you ever googled sinister ducks, which I hadn’t prior till then, but immediately gave it go. I’ve already posted the results almost everywhere, but suffice to say that a good search engine and youtube will satisfy your curiosity and it’s well worth it.

And, since it seems to be the thing to do at the moment, I should mention that I’m on the googleplus in a very “well, this thing exists, lets wait for it do something interesting” kind of way. I’ve never really been an early-adopter of social media before and, based on this experience, I’m rather glad of that. Facebook and twitter were both much more fun to learn when there were lots of people already using it. Google+ just feels like I’ve shown up for a party a few hours early, so I’m standing in the corner and looking mawkish while I wait for the rest of my friends to arrive (I am, rather sneakily, hiding behind the pseudonym Peter M Ball, should you be +enabled and looking to add me to a circle).

  • And with that, the spokesbear says I’m done, for it’s time to go back to the wordmines.

Lull

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Tonight’s a moment of respite, I think, amid the pell-mell rush of the last few weeks. And for all that it’s been a good kind of rush, full of new jobs and new words and ticking things off the metaphorical to-do list, I’m kind of glad to be easing off the accelerator a little. I’m currently sitting my study with a snifter of port, my belly full of well-roasted vegetables, and my head full of stories that I’d really like to write in the near future.

It’s a pleasant kind of feeling, one that’s been all too scarce over the last eight months, and it’s rather nice to be looking at things I could do instead of panicking about the things I haven’t yet done.

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So, yes, an update. Where shall we begin.

As I mentioned in my last post, I disappeared down the Rabbit Hole over the weekend just gone. It was a deranged and foolhardy exercise, conceived by my new boss, where a group of writers gathered together for three days and tried to write 30,000 words each. I wrote no-where near that many, nor did I expect to, but I still emerged from the weekend with 16,000 words under my belt and a substantial head-start on the next few installments of Flotsam.  I’ll be off to continue work on the draft once this blog post is done, forging ahead into this brave new world where I do not have to live in fear of deadlines.

I’ve discovered magical things happen when you do not fear your deadlines. That Douglas Adams quote about deadlines making pleasant noises as they whisk past isn’t all its cracked up to be, largely because missing deadlines just makes you stupid and slightly worthless, regardless of how nice the editor is about things. And writing isn’t one of those activities that gets better with misery and late-night cram sessions. Getting things done ahead of a deadline means the story you turn is much more likely to resemble the story you thought you were writing, for example, and you’re actually permitted to email your editor without starting using the phrase look, I’m really sorry about this, but…

There are other things being written too, quietly and in the short cracks of  free time created by the new job. Catching the train to work means I can scribble down a page or two before work, and getting a lunch break is good for another couple of hundred words. I started a new short story today, something that may be a strange kind of love story, and I suspect it may be the first love story I’ve written that actually has a happy ending. My plan is to write the entire thing on my morning commute, in one of the moleskins I was given for Christmas and never really got around to using because they were too nice for scribbled notes, and there shall be trains and people who think they know better than they do and murdered donuts who suffer excruciating deaths.

(Of course, someone at worked asked about the third Miriam Aster novella today, to which the only answer is look, I’m really sorry about this, but…)

Which brings us, I suppose, to the new job.

I’ve been somewhat coy about mentioning this online, largely because the sensation of having a regular day job that I like and enjoy is a remarkably foreign experience. The short version goes something like this: three days a week I work as a project manager for a community arts project run by the Queensland Writer’s Centre, which is this very odd cross between working a meaningful, engaging, rewarding job that I really enjoy and getting to catch up with a bunch of writer-type people I usually only encounter at writers festivals, workshops, and conventions. That I get to work in offices located at the State Library, above a cafe with decent coffee and a non-mallspawn bookstore is icing on the cake.

I’m three weeks into the contract, and I’ll admit to being slightly nervous about going in this morning. I love the job dearly thus far, but i’d just spent three days in the QWC offices belting out words for the rabbit hole. Surely, I thought, this will be the day I resent the fact that I can’t just stay home and write. 

Turns out, no, it wasn’t. Not even a little. And man, I tell you, that realisation was very unsettling.

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Okay, some random things.

Kathleen Jennings draws strange and curious things with surprising regularity, and if you’re not following her blog then you’re really missing out. The Dalek Game, in particular, has been one of the highlights of my year. Last week Alan Baxter and I used the medium of twitter to produce this startling rendition of Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, and the Fourteen Ducks who can Save the Earth. Go and check it out – odds are, if you’re reading this blog, you’re going to enjoy the experience. Personally, I think the image answers any questions I ever had about why twitter was a worthwhile place to spend time.

Stephen Dedman’s The Art of Arrowcutting is a remarkable novel, one that’s done a remarkable disservice by it’s cover-blurb given the way the urban-fantasy/noir genre has shifted since the book was first released. I suspect it’s not a book I’d recommend to everyone, but also suspect that those I would recommended it to would come to love it with a kind of fierce and unholy joy. It is, however, almost certainly a book for writers to read – it was recommended to me as a book with phenomenal, Wuxia-influenced action sequences in prose form and it utterly delivered on that recommendation. It also makes me wonder why in hell it’s been five years since someone last published a Stephen Dedman novel, because there really should be more of them floating around in the world.

And: Apex Publications, a company I have a great deal of affection for, have recently had interest Diamond Distributors about carry the Apex range of books and short story anthologies in stores across the USA and the UK. Taking advantage of the opportunity means Apex needs to shift their business model away from short print runs, so they’re currently crowd-sourcing the funds they need on peer-backer.