Author: PeterMBall
News & Upcoming Events

What I did With My Weekend, and part of the week thereafter

1. So it’s three five-day-old news by now, but Clockwork, Patchwork and Raven won the 2009 Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story and I now have a shiny glass trophy kicking around the flat. The Spokesbear demanded I photograph him with the newly acquired, but it’s remarkably hard to photograph a curved glass trophy with a bear looming over it. Instead I’ll just mention that a hardcopy of the story is available in Apex’s Descended from Darkness anthology and sales of the book go towards keeping Apex Magazine running. The weekend itself was freaking awesome and laden with opportunities to catch up with folks I don’t get to see anywhere near enough (the redoubtable Jason Fischerand Best-Fantasy-Short-Story-Co-Winner Christopher Green among them). 2. Finally sat down and indulged my inner Charlie Kaufman fan by watching Synecdoche New York. It felt rather like someone had cut the last twenty minutes off Adaptation and left us with the confused muddle of stuff,

PeterMBall 28/01/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

What *is* the appeal of Avatar?

Possibly a dangerous question to ask, given that I am the energizer bunny of Avatar-hate, but the movie came up at one of the regular games last week and everyone else at the table seemed to like the film (except the one person yet to see it, who isn’t likely too) and I realised that where I see stunted story that doesn’t do anything after the set-up* a bunch of other folks are seeing unmitigated awesome. And I continue to not get it, just as I never got the appeal of the Transformers film and the Matrix and a bunch of other things, and while I’m normally okay with that given that everyone reads a film differently it’s starting to bug me a little this time around. I find myself wondering whether the expectations of films have shifted so far into the boundary of spectacle that story ceases to be important, or if there’s been some kind of fundamental shift

PeterMBall 18/01/2010
Works in Progress

Lists and Planning

1000 words of redraftage on Black Candy last night. It appears that the “hours per day” writing metric I’ve been used to get the Cold Cases draft in is going to be replaced by the more familiar “wordcount needed before I can sleep” metric. I suspect my process may be seasonal – Brisbane is too damn hot in summer to do regular work-hours in my flat and I find myself drifting towards writing at night when the temperature and humidity is down. Either way, I’m back work after taking the first ten days of January off for the purposes of taking a break from writing, celebrating my mother’s birthday, and writing my somewhat over-detailed yearly plan (sixteen pages and counting) of what needs to done on the writing front. My T0-Do List for January and February: 1) Redraft Black Candy 2) Write 3 short-stories I owe people after saying “yes” when they asked if I’d be interested in submitting 3) Write

PeterMBall 13/01/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

This is my Pimp Hat

Three things worth noting: 1) Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts @ Podcastle The audio version of Ben Fransisco’s story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts is live over at Podcast. Go forth and feast your ears upon it; you will not be sorry. 2) Fantasy Magazine Best Story of 2009 Poll If you haven’t had the chance yet, hie yourself over to Fantasy Magazine and place a vote in their 2009 reader poll to determine the favourite story published there last year. My votes swung towards Angela Slatter’s The Chrysanthemum Bride and Lisa Hannett’s The Good Window, but as usual you can’t go wrong with the majority of the stories that Fantasy publishes. 3) Apex Magazine’s First Annual Reader Poll Apex Magazine is also looking for your vote on the best story they published in 2009, although I’m steering clear of recommendations given that two of the stories involved were mine.

PeterMBall 12/01/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Two-Track Mind

I spent the first ten days of 2010 listening to exactly two albums: Regina Spektor’s Far and The best of Bauhaus. And when I say “album” I may mean “the following two songs replayed endlessly, with the rest of the album getting a guernsey when I eventually step away from the stereo to do other things.” Yeah. All in all, it’s been that kind of year thus far.

PeterMBall 11/01/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things About 2009 – the Rest of the List

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I ran out of 2009 before finishing the list. Given that I’ve managed to start 2010 with a whole bunch of stuff unfinished, much of it urgent and really needing to be done, I give you the truncated version of what would have rounded out the fifteen awesome things about 2009. 10) Non-Fiction, Part One: Booklife, Jeff VanderMeer I’ve been known to bemoan the fact that there are very few resources for writers that actually teach you the stuff you need know once you’ve got the basics of things like “plot” and “character” and “not looking like a crazy freak when submitting” under control. In many ways the learning curve for writing becomes a hodge-podge of received wisdom and scraps of knowledge gleaned from conversation, with the occasional outright question being asked of friends and contacts further along the path when need be. From that point of view, Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife is one of the best writing guidebooks

PeterMBall 01/01/2010
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

A short review of Avatar in 10 parts

1) I’m going to find every mother-fucker who tried to convince me I’d like this film and I’m going to punch them in the arm. If they trotted out the “you just have to turn your brain off” logic, I’m going to punch them twice. I turned my brain off, as advised. It was still too stupid for me to actually like it. 2) To be fair, there were some good bits. Many of them recycled from Aliens, the last film James Cameron made that I actually liked. I liked Giovanni Ribbisi’s evil corporate guy far more than I liked Paul Reiser’s evil corporate guy. And Michelle Rodriguez in an ornithopter makes up for a variety of ills. 3) At the end of the first hour, I hoped that this might not be an utter disappointment. The opening is solid, the characters get onstage pretty quickly, the set-up is full of bad naming conventions but otherwise okay. Conflict is established:

PeterMBall 30/12/2009
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things about 2009 (9/15): Amanda Palmer, Live

Once or twice a year I get out to see a live gig that reminds me why I like going and seeing live music. It happens far less often these days than it did in the past, but as a Dresden Doll’s fan it was kind of inevitable that I’d sell internal organs in order to go see the Amanda-Fucking-Palmer solo tour when it passed through Brisbane. Short version: Awesome Long version: totally worth living without a spleen until I can buy mine back from the pawn broker.

PeterMBall 18/12/2009
News & Upcoming Events

Some *Really* blatant blatant self promotion

Data Point the First: There’s about seven days left of Twelfth Planet Press’s Silly Season Stocking Stuffer Sale, whereby Australians can pick up a copy of my novella Horn with free shipping (and everyone else in the world gets a massively discounted postage). Given Horn’s cover price of $10, that’s a pretty sweet deal. Data Point the Second: As of about six minutes ago, there were only 9 copies of Horn left in Twelfth Planet’s inventory. Data Point the Third: The free shipping on Horn is a total “while stocks last” kind of deal (and there are plenty of other awesome books included in the sale. Now I’m not mentioning this to suggest you should go buy a copy of the book right away. Nope, not at all. This is the silly season after all, and folks are generally watching their budgets in order to ensure maximum goodwill and festive cheer for those they love. I’m not even saying “get

PeterMBall 17/12/2009
News & Upcoming Events

Announcing the first Apex Magazine Story of the Year award–They need your vote!

I’m just going to snurch this one straight from the Apex blog: To celebrate the end of our first year of becoming a professional level digital magazine, I’m pleased to announce that we will be presenting an award to the best original fiction published by Apex Magazine. The award will be voted on by the fans, meaning you! Voting starts tonight and will continue through January 30th. The story receiving the most votes will be announced on February 1st. The author of the Apex Magazine Story of the Year will receive a trophy and the unique distinction of being the best Apex had to offer during 2009. Presented below are the twenty-two original stories published during 2009: “59 Beads”(4300) by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz “Overclocking”(2600) by James L. Sutter “After the Fire”(2900) by Aliette De Bodard “Benjamin Schneider’s Little Greys”(2100) by Nir Yaniv “A Poor Man’s Roses”(2400) by Alethea Kontis “To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament” (5500) by Peter M. Ball

PeterMBall 17/12/2009
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things About 2009: Hail to the Peeps edition

Among the many things to be thankful about in 2009 is the fact that it’s been a very good year to a lot of my friends who also toil in the wordmines. There’s nothing quite so awesome as being part of a community full of folks doing cool stuff, and it seems like virtually everyone I know has spent the last twelve months firing on all cylinders. Among the highlights are Ben Francisco‘s story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts in Realms of Fantasy, seeing photographs from the set where one of Angela Slatter‘s stories being transformed into a short film, and the news that Chris Lynch will be launching his publishing company’s first anthology before the year is out. Basically, lots of folks have done lot of cool things this year.  And given the time you can bet that I’d loudly and assertively celebrate the awesomeness of every single one of them until you too became a fan of what

PeterMBall 16/12/2009
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Awesome Things About 2009 (6/15): Write Club

I keep saying it, I know, but write club is awesome (For those wondering what the hell I’m talking about, I recommend this post and this post on Angela Slatter’s blog*). Turns out it’s a remarkably popular idea too – I’ve had a couple of conversations where people wondered how Write Club worked, and it seems Angela gets asked about it as well, so I figured I’d share my** thoughts on why write club works for those who may be curious. Reason 1) Angela Slatter is Fricken’  Awesome Granted, I say this quite a bit on this blog as well, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s true. Even if you ignore the fact that she’s a superb writer whose keen critical eye has stopped me from looking like a goose a couple of times this year, and the fact that she’s generous with both her time and connections, she’s one of the people I enjoy catching up with once a week.  If you’re

PeterMBall 11/12/2009

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