dayjobbery – Peter M. Ball

Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx

GenreCon: The Aftermath

By the time you read this it will have been a little over a week since the inaugural AWM GenreCon ended. I’m going to specify this upfront, ’cause a portion of the content has been written before, during, and after the con, fitting into the little slices of time where I have sufficient brainpower to write. Some of these fragments made sense. Some of them did not. Such is the nature of running conventions. Point the First: GENRECON ROCKED I can scarcely believe I’m able to say this, since I spent so long fretting about the various ways that the conference could have gone wrong, but GenreCon proved to be a smashing success. Attendees were happy, guests were happy, my boss was really happy. We got a massive response rate to the pitching program (and a really high proportion of pitchers got asked to submit partials), the program was packed out, and for once I was at a con where

PeterMBall 12/11/2012

Works in Progress

NaNoWriMo? We Laugh at NaNoWriMo…

For the second time since starting the new bloggery regime, I’m writing a post in real time. This time, at least, I did it on purpose. As I write this I’m bunkered down in the QWC office with a team of twenty other writers, all of them ferociously typing away in an attempt to write 30,000 words in the space of two and a half days. We call this madness the Rabbit Hole – the third that the QWC has run – and this time around it’s being run in several locations around Australia. This my second bite of the cherry for the Rabbit Hole. The first time around I was a newly hired employee of the QWC who signed up ’cause it seemed like a good way to generate some work. I showed up and worked exclusively on Fritz the Laptop, who routinely objected to such tasks as “playing music” and “running word” and generally “working for longer than

PeterMBall 01/06/2012

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

In this post, I swear a lot for no apparent reason

I’m sitting here on a Sunday trying to remember what I was going to blog about. There was plan a while back – perhaps even a written one – but I’m afflicted with a curse that causes me to forget anything remotely plan-like the moment I sit down at a keyboard. Fortunately, I have a back-up plan: 4 Random Things where I place Fuckin’ in the centre of the entry title. 1. DENNIS FUCKIN’ LEHANE One of my favourite book stores is Brisbane’s Pulp Fiction, a speciality-store focused exclusively on Fantasy, SF, and Mystery/Crime fiction. When I first started patronising the store I stuck to the fantasy/SF side of things, revelling in the ability to pick up fiction from small presses and mid-list authors I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to track down. All that changed about…jeez, I don’t know, but a while back…and these days I tend to pick up a few things from the crime side of things. I’m a fan of the

PeterMBall 16/05/2012

News & Upcoming Events

Cool News from the Day Job

So yesterday we made a small announcement at my dayjob. It went a little something like this: Source: GenreCon News Blog The Australian Writer’s Marketplace is pleased to announce the launch of the first annual GenreCon, a convention for professional and aspiring writers of romance, mystery, science fiction, crime, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and more. One part party, one part professional development: GenreCon is the place to be if you’re an aspiring or established writer with a penchant for the types of fiction that get relegated to their own corner of the bookstore. Featuring international guests Joe Abercrombie (Author, The First Law Trilogy, Best Served Cold, The Heroes), Sarah Wendell (co-founder, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books), and Ginger Clark (Literary Agent, Curtis Brown), with more guests being announced in the coming weeks. GenreCon is the place to be if you want to: Educate yourself about the publishing industry Learn what it takes to become a successful genre author Network with other writers who are passionate about genre fiction Meet editors, agents, publishers, and

PeterMBall 18/04/2012

Journal

Tenters & Zucchini & Reasons to Shop for Books This Afternoon

This morning I went to start the blog with the phrase “waiting on tenterhooks,” which is one of those expressions that’s been around for a while without me ever really understanding where it actually came from. And so there was google, and this rather succinct discussion of the phrase where I discovered the tenterhook was a series of hooks on a wooden frame used in making woolen cloth, specifically in the bit where the freshly woven fabric was stretched out to dry after being cleaned in a fulling mill. The tenter was the frame and the hooks went around the outside, and it had the side-effect of straightening the weave. We’re not much with the tenters these days, but I found myself looking at the description and though, well, yes, life feels exactly like that at the moment. There have been doings and goings-on in regards to dayjobbery and we have hit the bit where I wait, quietly, filling in the hours

PeterMBall 25/05/2011

Tag: dayjobbery

GenreCon: The Aftermath

NaNoWriMo? We Laugh at NaNoWriMo…

In this post, I swear a lot for no apparent reason

Cool News from the Day Job

Book Information?

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