Linkfest – Page 2 – Peter M. Ball

Journal

Ditmar, Etc

So about six months ago I won the Best New Talent Ditmar, and I have to admit that I’m rather fond of the trophy. It’s a clean design and it’s got a nice weight to it, and it makes for a nigh-perfect book-end on the brag shelf in my living room. Plus its not made of glass like the Aurealis Award, so it’s somewhat easier to photograph with the camera in my mobile phone. I didn’t really expect to win it, so it was rather nice when it happened, even if I was so convinced I wouldn’t win that I wandered off to have dinner with friends instead of going to the ceremony. At the time my name was announced, I was tucking into a particularly good hamburger at a nearby restaurant. Oops. On the plus side, at least I was surprised. I mention this for two reasons. The first is that my dad’s health problems hit not long after Worldcon

PeterMBall 16/02/2011

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Sexy Batman

So I was going to rant tonight, because it appears there’s things in the blogosphere to rant about, but then I thought better of it all. Instead I’m just going to suggest that you all go and read the latest installment of Hark, A Vagrant and catch up with Sexy, Sexy Batman. I find myself wishing more Batman comics were like this. And now I’m going to eat leftover prawn and feta pizza from lunch.

PeterMBall 24/01/2011

Smart Advice from Smart People

Nancy Kress on Fixing the Ending

Nancy Kress recently did a short post on how she fixed a story ending that wasn’t working, although it sneaks in as part of a post about other things. The short version, for those not inclined to follow links, goes something like this: Step One: go back to the last point where the story last excited you. Step Two: Change the action of a secondary character. Step Three: Chart the protagonists response to that change. I may have sat there staring at the advice for a good ten minutes this morning, wondering how the hell I’d never thought of it. I mean, it’s simple and rather obvious, but seeing it articulated like that as a process is somewhat revelatory.

PeterMBall 21/01/2011

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

The Cure

A friend of mine just posted this on facebook. Due to overwhelming nostalgia and flashbacks to teenage angst, I, of course, am immediately posting it here. ‘Cause, honestly, I don’t care how long it’s been since you last listened to the cure, it’s still too damn long. And now I go back to the edits and line-proofs, in the hopes I get them done in time to not piss off editors. Catch you on the morrow, peeps. Don’t let the Monday get you down.

PeterMBall 09/01/2011

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

The Sunday Round-Up

So this week I managed to finish reading Georgette Heyer’s Cotillion, start reading Kirstyn McDermott’s Madigan Mine, watched the third season of The Big Bangtheory, and went down to the Gold Coast to spend some time with my dad while he makes his way through the three months of rehabilitation that follow open heart surgery. I worked a whole bunch and got to play with the company website. I tried to write fiction without any real success: 2,500 words total for eight days of work. I had a long fight with my local vendor of mobile phones after the phone they sold me under the promise that it would do everything my old phone did proved to be false, yet this wasn’t deemed sufficient to replace the phone for something else. I managed to lose track of what day it was twice, getting messages from people asking “dude, where are you?” while I sat there going “what? Come on, it’s only

PeterMBall 14/11/2010

Journal

4 Things

1) This morning I introduced a friend to the glory that is Hark, A Vagrant, which is kind of like XKCD for literature and history nerds instead of math-geeks. I mention this purely because I just assume everyone reads these things, but every now and then I’ll be all “the hippos will always be hungry; they will never be satisfied” and people will be all “WTF Peter? That makes no sense.” 2) A fairly neat review of Twelfth Planet Press’s Sprawl anthology, which was released at Worldcon and contains new short stories by me and Angela Slatter and LL Hannett and many other awesome folks. In an odd moment of synchronicity, my contributor copy arrived in the mail yesterday too. Should you want your own copy, you can go order one on the TPP website. 3) I suspect being eaten by sabre-tooth tigers would be mildly uncomfortable. And no, you do not context for that. 4) I find myself, post-worldcon, staring at

PeterMBall 06/10/2010

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

1 Day ’til Worldcon

And in an hours time I’m off to the airport. I’m a bundle of nerves this morning, but I’ve been singing this song for the last half-hour: And tomorrow there is Worldcon.

PeterMBall 01/09/2010

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Suspect I may be listening to this a lot tomorrow…

’cause I’ve already started humming to chorus to myself every half-hour or so:

PeterMBall 21/08/2010

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

A momentary diversion

One of the nice things about the internet is that occasionally a friend will be all “dude, you have to check this out” and I’ll be all “dude! WTF? LOLS!” Today is one of those days. I give you the Call of Cthulhu, summarised in two minutes or less in fluent Valley Girl. For real, dude. Total WTF? LOLS

PeterMBall 17/08/2010

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

18 Days ’til Worldcon

– There’s a bit of this going on this morning, for I’ve had my second short story acceptance for the year. Details to come once I’ve signed contracts and such, but it looks like this one might see publication sooner rather than later. – If you’re not following the Drive-By Interviewsover at Angela Slatter’s blog, well, you really should. – Ditto The Coode Street Podcastfeaturing Jonothan Stahan and Gary K. Wolfe. There’s something immeasurably pleasurable about getting to hear two very knowledgeable people talk about the history of SF, publishing, reviewing, and (perhaps most importantly) the BOOKS YOU DON’T NEED TO READ in order to understand out field. After listening to one of their earlier episodes, I feel myself utterly absolved of having to finish the rather dire Princess of Mars. – And, hell, lets throw out the rather fine fortnightly podcast from the Galactic Suburbia crew, for I’m a fan of that too. – Also, if you’re interested in scoring

PeterMBall 16/08/2010

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Furnace Room Lullabye

Since it came up in comments on in the livejournal feed, I’m going to make quick mention of this. I can understand the desire to make fun of country music, because much of it isn’t my thing and there are far too many examples of bad country music out there (especially in Australian, where the genre deserves to be razed to the ground merely for the existence of Slim Dusty). But it’s worth remembering that for every ten or eleven bad examples there is at least one good, often lurking in the background, that wouldn’t exist if we put up with the genre as a whole. I mean, country music gave us the genre of rockabilly (which was good) which in turn gave us The Living End (which was not). It gave us Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails tunes and giving them a tenderness they never would have had in their original incarnation. I will argue tooth and nail

PeterMBall 25/07/2010

Journal

Things that Happened While I Was Otherwise Distracted

I’ve been distracted of late – either by trying to get the latest version of Cold Cases ready or hole-in-my-head drama depending of the day – and I somehow managed to miss a whole heap of stuff happening around the traps. 1) The latest edition of the Terra Incognita Podcast is up, featuring me reading my story Black Dog: A Biography that came out in the Interfictions II anthology last year. Unlike most of the previous podcasts of my work this one actually involved me recording the reading myself, an experience that forced me to realise exactly how inarticulate I am in the verbal form (seriously; apparently I drop the consonants out of words and rely on vowel sounds and inflections to get things right, and we do not speak of how many times I had to restart things in order to avoid this). 2) Angela Slatter’s Brisneyland by Night is the feature story over at the Twelth Planet Podcast at the moment, which

PeterMBall 22/06/2010

Tag: Linkfest

Ditmar, Etc

Sexy Batman

Nancy Kress on Fixing the Ending

The Cure

The Sunday Round-Up

4 Things

1 Day ’til Worldcon

Suspect I may be listening to this a lot tomorrow…

A momentary diversion

18 Days ’til Worldcon

Furnace Room Lullabye

Things that Happened While I Was Otherwise Distracted

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