Journal

Brain Popcorn, July 11 2017 Edition

It’s eight-thirty nine in the evening as I write this. It’s cold and I’m not wearing socks and my life is far, far better than I deserve right now.
My brain is mushy as hell thanks to spending the last eight hours writing a plan for a novella so detailed that it’s approximately one-quarter of the novellas total word-count, because I will figure out this planning thing if it kills me.
I also spent far more of my day researching the processes of dry cleaning than you would expect given how relevant it is to my overall story.
Yesterday Roxanne Gay posted How to Be A Contemporary Writer over on Tumblr – a post about being a writer that is so on-point and common sense that it should be read by everyone, and will be ignored by all the people who should be paying the most attention.
It’s been over a year since I taught a writing workshop or conducted a seminar, and it seems that I am unlikely to break this streak any time in the next six months. I am scheduled to host an In Conversation with CS Pacat on the 28th of July, though, and she’s running a two-day workshop on Writing Fantasy for Queensland Writers Centre starting on the 29th. Pacat is one of the smartest, most interesting writers I’ve come across in recent years and if you’re an aspiring fantasy writer in Brisbane I really recommend that workshop.
I asked people to speak about their GenreCon experience yesterday and lo, people spoke out. Thanks to everyone who did so – there was a nice healthy spike in registrations over the last twenty-four hours. To everyone who is still thinking about it – there is also a nice, healthy chunk of registrations still waiting to be sold, and the social proof of other people saying “yo, this con is great” definitely beats out me saying it.
Angela Slatter’s book launch for Corpselight is this Friday. You should totally come.

PeterMBall

Peter M. Ball is a speculative fiction writer, small press publisher, and writing mentor from Brisbane, Austraila. He publishes his own work through Eclectic Projects and works as the brain in charge at Brain Jar Press.