Peter M. Ball's Blog, page 18

Amusing Things and Cancelled Events

A short list of things that have amused me today:

A Facebook writing thread where someone referred to their graveyard of unfinished projects, and I’m so tempted to write a blog post titled “All Writers are Necromancers”The email sign-off “With Kindness,” which seems like an aspiration act in 2020.The emerging wave of apocalypse marketing showing up in my social media feed, advising me to transfer all my assets into Gold and Diamonds (I’m, like, dude, your targeting is off-base…)Folks starting to ponder their two-week lockdown reads.My cat trying to play with the cat in the mirror. Not Quite The End Of The World Just Yet having a weird, print-only resurgence of sales over the last four weeks.

In less amusing news, this twitter thread from SFWA president Mary Robinette Kowall is worth a read:

I've spent the past couple of days talking to experts ranging from epidemiologists to lawyers to event organizers and there are some things that I think are helpful to understand about why some events are being canceled and why some aren't.https://t.co/NWxYZWO0vW

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) March 11, 2020

I’ve run big events a few time in the past, working for both profits and non-profits, and I’ve got a lot of empathy for this situation.

The profit margins on events are small and don’t have a lot of buffer space at the best of times. Cancelling a GenreCon on short notice would have effectively killed the possibility of any future conference, and left a huge black hole in the operating budget of the parent organisation.

Basically, I’m very, very glad I’m not running any kind of event right now, and feel awful for the folks who need to make those calls.

Discussing Serial Business vs. Serial Craft

A few months back, I went to see Garth Nix and John Birmingham in conversation at the local library, and Birmingham busted out a little bon mot that’s stuck with me:

If we write something, and we do our jobs right, it’s going to get published. It’ll go to our publishers, and if they don’t want it, we can publish it ourselves and take home that sweet 70% self-pub royalty.

This doesn’t imply that it’s going to be massively successful or make scads of money, of course, but it puts writers in a really interesting position. For the first time, publication is guaranteed if you start a project, and that frees you up to take chances you wouldn’t necessarily take in publishing environment focused on brick-and-mortar bookstores.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week, because it feeds into the research I’ve been doing on writing series for my thesis. Series fiction has traditionally been one of those things that goes in and out of vogue in publishing, often connected to the kinds of stories that make strategic sense in a particular era. In the days of pulp magazines, where series characters became a drawcard, you saw the rise of authors creating iconic series characters.

In the age when novels dominated, and the short shelf-life of a book limited access to backlist, you saw a run where books in series–or even trilogies–would only acknowledge their interconnection through trade dress. The words “book one of Series X” would rarely appear until the series had proved it could be a perennial seller and justify the warehousing costs.

In the age of Amazon–and in particular the age of the ebook and social media that allows you to refer people back to book 1 again and again and again–serial fiction is a hugely solid investment. The business case for it has been explored in countless self-publishing forums and courses, and if you’re interested a quick search of indie publishing and readthrough will find you a host of resources.

It feels like traditional publishing has been slow to capitalise on it, outside of a few rare outliers like Tor.com who seem to have been custom-built as the test case for blending traditional and indie approaches.

But the thing that intrigues me, and the thing that sent me scurrying off to do a PhD, is the relative dearth of people willing to discuss the craft side of series. I recently sat through a webinar where a prominent voice in self-publishing talked about writing a fifteen-book series, noting there is no limit to how long you can keep going.

This is both technically correct, given the circumstances above, but fails to take into account the way a long-running series will clash with all sorts of commonly held assumptions about the way narrative is structured. Authors are often encouraged to focus on characters at the point of their greatest change, and this quickly becomes absurd if you apply that logic to fifteen books in a row.

There’s only a handful of resources I’ve come across that truly try to engage with the series as its own thing, and the implications of that. Most folks treat them like one big story (a really bad approach that doesn’t fit some serial conventions) or a bunch of individual stories that just happen to connect.

I’ve got a longer list of resources I’ve put together for a recent webinar outlining my research, but if you’re looking for one my strongest recommendation remains Robin Laws Beating the Story.

Laws is one of RPG game design’s most innovative narrative thinkers, which means he’s spent a lot of time pondering how to replicate stories moods and themes in games in addition to his fiction writing. Couple this with a strong love of pulp genres, and you get an innovative breakdown of narrative craft that steps away from familiar models and incorporates approaches that don’t rely on a big narrative arc.

It’s very much the start of a discussion that needs to be had around series fiction, especially since it’s likely to explode over the next decade. While the idea of recurring characters has always had some appeal, writers have traditionally struggled to get a long-running series off the ground due to the realities of publishing.

Now that it’s possible to do an ongoing series in a cost-effective way, lets start thinking about how to write them better and play to the strengths series fiction has over the stand-alone novel.

Old School Virtue

I winnowed my inbox down to nothing yesterday, and the damn thing crept up to 19 overnight. Unfortunately, my email program has decided to play silly buggers and refuses to delete anything unless I mirror the inbox from my phone and do everything in basic HTML

Fortunately, Gmail has a “my internet is ass and I’m basically on dailup” version of its interface for just this situation.

But it makes me wonder what folks will actually do in Australia in the unlikely event we do get locked down on a two-week quarantine. Our internet is vaguely shit at the best of times–last year, we could tell when new episodes of Game of Thrones started because our connection ground to a halt.

I do not think it’s built for the number of folks who may be asked to telecommute, entertain themselves, and generally search out important information if a mass lockdown actually happens.

It almost makes my pile of unread books feel like a virtue, you know?

I have eaten the donuts…

On our first morning in Adelaide, my beloved sent me out to the local market to procure us some breakfast. “Grab some fruit and hommus,” they suggested, “we’ll avoid the exorbitant buffet charge.”

And lo, I went forth and acquired grapes and pears and hummus from the local Romeo’s market. And, because I am me and they were weird as fuck, I brought back a terrifying tray of Jam Donuts which appeared to be a regular cinnamon donut cut in half so the cream and jam could be piped in.

The weirdest damned approach to a jam donut I’ve ever seen. I cannot see any way it would be less effort than the usual way, but it definitely caught my attention.

In any case, today is a regroup day. Inbox is sitting at 89, which is at least 83 emails over my comfort zone, and I’d like to winnow that down after finishing the day’s wordcount.

Back from Radelaide

I’ve spent the last three days in Adelaide, doing a lightning tour of Fringe Shows and generally being the bad kind of friend who doesn’t let anyone know that I was in town. Caught a total of six shows, ate a lot of great food, and hung out with the fam.

The fringe is an interesting experience when you’re a writer, because you really start seeing the difference between the “competent, polished, and dull” and the “flawed, but interesting and ambitious.”

We hit one of the former in a final night, and largely walked away angry–there was nothing technically wrong with the show, but it was centred around a gimmick and had nothing at it’s heart. Strip away the gimmick and we could have had a similar experience by wandering into a pub and making requests of a decent cover band.

I hit two of the latter–shows that were not good, but were interesting as heck–and my immediate response was to grab flyers so I could see what the folks who made them did next.

You can learn to do better when you’re flawed but interesting, but it’s way harder to teach ambition to folks who are focused on the polish.

For those of you in Kindle Unlimited…

If you’re a reader with a KU subscription and a hankering for great fantasy, allow me to turn your attention to the MARCH KU FANTASY READS page assembled by dark fantasy author Melissa Padgett. It brings together seventy-odd titles that cover the spectrum from sword-and-sorcery, urban fantasy, romantic fantasy, epic fantasy, and more, all brought together in one place to make it easier to browse and find new books, authors, and series you might love.

On my list to investigate further: PH Solomon’s Bow of Heart books, Trevor Darby’s Myth Squad books, and Padgett’s guide to sociopathic princesses. I may well be pointing Kay McLeod’s Carnelian Fox my partner’s way given it’s confluence of things they will likely love.

The page is running until March 15, so check it out over yonder.

Not in Kindle Unlimited (aka Netflix for Readers) and interested in finding out more? Amazon’s got you covered.

Out Now: Frost (Keith Murphy #2)

The second Keith Murphy Urban Fantasy Thriller hit the shelves yesterday. Revised and revamped since the 2015 release, Frost is a sleeker and tighter short novel than it once was.

If you’re on the fence about giving Keith a try, I’ll direct you to my favourite review of the first edition over on Goodreads:

This second instalment in Peter Ball’s grubby Gold Coast urban fantasy series is like a perfect lesson in how to frame the middle part of a trilogy

–Return of established characters? Check.
–Introduction of new characters? Check.
–Exploration of the status quo from book 1? Check.
–Shake-up of that status quo? Check.
–Exploration of the greater world/setting? Check.
–Higher stakes and tension than the previous book? Check.

If you enjoyed Exile, this is a terrific follow-up that does everything right. (Although I still wish the editing and proofreading was a bit tighter.) If you haven’t read Exile then go away, read it, come back and [[see start of paragraph]].

Review by Patrick O’Duffy

You can pick up your copies of Frost exclusively on Amazon: AUS | UK | USA

Keith Murphy: The Original Pitch from 2010

Tomorrow the second Keith Murphy book, Frost, goes live over on Amazon. As always, I recommend pre-ordering a copy to have it delivered fresh.

To celebrate the moment, I went and dug out my first pitch for a Keith Murphy serial that I sent through to the Edge of Propinquity ‘zine back in 2010, laying out the twelve stories I intended to write if they accepted.

The final stories ended up very different to this pitch, especially the proposed version of Frost versus the final product. That said, there’s elements that have stayed consistent: ghostly magicians, demonic crime lords, and cults are at the heart of Exile. Frost is all about what happens when Valkyries show up, and the old bloke mentioned in Skull Monkey becomes a major part of Crusade (albeit without a skull monkey)

Even the basic concept of Piledriver filtered through, as part of the novelette in These Strange & Magic Things.

SERIES PITCH: FLOTSAM

The Gold Coast has always been a good place to lose yourself, a tourist city on the Australian coastline with a surplus of beaches, theme parks and nightclubs full of tourists. They say no-one is born on the Gold Coast; the permanent residents just end up there, washed up against the beach like flotsam after a storm.   

It’s easy to lose yourself on the Gold Coast. It’s even easier to be found by things that hide there, in the shifting shadows behind the neon. There are demons hiding out there, and worse things besides. Old things, ancient entities for whom the word demon is means little. Things allowed to flourish in the shifting tides of a city where no-one stays for longer than a holiday and no-one cares about the locals. 

Keith Murphy left the Gold Coast ten years ago, but now he’s coming home with orders to lie low. He’s got an occult hit man for a boss, the last magic bullet from the 9mm that killed an immortal down in Adelaide, and just enough knowledge of the world behind the world to realise how much trouble he’s in

1) Paradise City

Keith rolls back into the city with a head full of bad dreams and a nightmare on his heels, the spectre of the immortal Norse magician he helped Danny Roark kill down in Adelaide. Stopping the ghost will stretch Keith’s limited knowledge of magic to the limits, and may well attract some of the more dangerous entities that live in the Gold Coast shadows. His only hope lies in the home town advantage, but is that going to be enough to stop someone with centuries more experience in the occult arts? 

2) Skull-Monkey

Keith’s neighbour in the Jadran Hotel isn’t what he seems – he’s old, he’s well-versed in ancient lore, and he lives with a weird skull-monkey creature that hisses at Keith Murphy every time he walks past. Keith befriends the old man, trying to uncover his secret, but it’s possible that digging too deep will result in one of them killing the other.

3) Piledriver

Keith gets drawn back into the world of his childhood friends, trying to forget the things he did while working with Danny Roark, but the familiar ritual of going to the local wrestling shows draws Keith and his friends into the orbit of an unfamiliar entity. Saving the life of a friend will force Keith to play the role of the hit-man once more, but he isn’t sure he’s got what it takes to stand toe-to-toe with the darkness. He makes the final decision too late for anything but vengeance. 

4) Lock and Load

Keith runs into an ex-girlfriend at a funeral and learns she’s sold her soul to save the life of her son. Despite his best efforts, Keith gets drawn into a devil’s game to redeem her, but will saving her soul cost him his own? 

5) 9mm

A midnight phone-call from Danny Roark puts Keith on high alert – a coven of sorcerers from Adelaide is coming to take vengeance on Danny for killing one of their own and Keith is the only one who can help. Keith hits the city in search of someone who can use blood, magic, and one last bullet to stop the coven from taking Danny down, but some trade-offs come at too high a price. 

6) Murphy’s Law

The one indisputable rule Roark taught Keith Murphy is that white fellers never mess with the native magic. Unfortunately a demon from Keith’s childhood isn’t giving him any other choice, and in attempting to save his own life Keith’s going to learn exactly why Roark made the rule. There are things older and more dangerous than demons in the Gold Coast shadows, and Keith will never look at his city the same way after seeing them. 

7) Frost

Most tourists never see a Gold Coast winter, so when the off-season arrives Keith is looking forward to laying low. Unfortunately he starts seeing familiar patterns in the frost and hears warning cries on the morning wind, drawing him into the conflict between a local ghost and the possessed cop who killed her. 

8) Hard Rock

There are a dozen clubs on the Gold Coast strip and there are young men showing up dead in each of them, strange symbols carved on their foreheads and two incisors removed. When the investigation reveals nothing, one of the local cops contacts Keith and calls in a favour, forcing him to confront the demon responsible. 

9) Valkyrie

Danny Roark appears on Keith’s doorstep with a bullet in his stomach and a curse on his lips, warning him that the warding they pulled over their hit is gone. Danny needs a hospital, but there’s a host of the Valkyrie is riding on the Gold Coast, heralding the end of the world, and the first of their number is already here… 

10) Fortified

The end of the world is coming and the only men left who can stop it are Keith and Danny. Keith starts calling in favours, trying to tip the odds in their favour, but the price of the help they need is one last hit…and this time the job requires killing an innocent. 

11) Ragnarock and Roll

Keith always knew the end of the world would start on the Gold Coast, and when the hosts of the Valkyrie hit town it looks like his premonition is correct. With Danny out of commission, it’s up to Keith to lure his pursuers into a trap and keep the various secrets living in the Gold Coast’s shadows from spilling free across the world. 

12) Flotsam

He may have saved the world, but killing people remains the only skill Keith Murphy has. When his success against the Valkyrie leads to new contracts coming in, Keith must make a choice – remain a killer or find a new use for his talents.

Phases of 2020

In my planning, this year is broken up into phases. Periods of time when all my focus bends towards a particular milestone, then pivots to spin off in a new direction once radically new focus is needed.

For instance, the first stages of the year were all about preparing for my Thesis Review meeting, where I sit down with supervisors and review where I’m up to after three years of research, then determine whether I’m likely to finish my doctorate in a timely manner.

It’s a phase that’s required a *lot* of dedicated work on my exegetical writing, which meant my focus hasn’t been on fiction for nearly three months now. Also a phase where I ticked boxes I’d left unticked through 2019, such as delivering a hastily conceived public presentation of my research (archived here, in all it’s flawed glory) and structuring the meta-data that goes along with the thesis.

One of my supervisors suggested my exegesis could be finished with a good, solid week of shaping and edits. I have my doubts about that, but holy god, given my history with not-writing-exegetical-work, the fact that I’m this close is damn near miraculous.

It also means that I move into the next major phase of 2020, pivoting away from exegetical writing and towards getting all the fiction for my PhD project written. That’s the next three months, after which I move into finish-all-the-edits-and-busy-work-before-my-scholarship-runs-out until the ed of July, upon which I pivot into an oh-crap, I-need-an-income-source-to-replace-my-scholarship scramble to find a new dayjob that will cover the mortgage.

And, of course, underpinning all of that is the ongoing work to build up Brain Jar Press: putting out new books, re-releasing older work, and generally building up a readership. This, too, has its phases–last week I transitioned from “figuring out production” to “figuring out promotion.” A chunk of budget I invested in courses and eduction last year is now swung towards tools like Facebook Ads, putting eyeballs on first-in-series books like Exile and building up a readership.

All in all, it’s the kind of abrupt transitions that makes me think long and hard about establishing a Doing Now page here on the sight, just so it’s easy for folks to get an overview of where I’m at.

Keep Up

I posted this to Facebook four years ago, when some folks who refused to acknowledge systemic bias decried any suggestion there might be an element of racism in their actions.

Computers have evolved since the seventies and eighties. Cars have evolved, banking has evolved, food has evolved. Your iPhone is a very different beast than it was when they launched back in 2007

Practically every damn thing in your life is different than it was when you first encountered it. The technology progressed. You adapted.

This is why I am fundamentally confused by the fuckers who insist that the definition of feminism and racism they learned in 1984 is basically consistent with the way the word is used today.

Things change. You keep up. If you can figure out how to use a goddamn cell phone without seeming like a dinosaur, you can figure out how to keep up with the conversations around sexism, racism, and other forms of cultural oppression.

It’s still true.