Ben Peek's Blog, page 29
February 29, 2012
Some Kind of Mark
It's an ugly first draft--they all are, for me--but I'm on the final climax and I've passed one hundred thousand words. I planned for one twenty, and I reckon that's about where it will sit, give or take a few thousand, at the end when it's all done and polished.
It'll be nice to start rewriting soon. I've always considered that the real writing, and the most enjoyable part of the process, and the part when a book takes real shape.
And then, it'll be time to find an agent, again.
It'll be nice to start rewriting soon. I've always considered that the real writing, and the most enjoyable part of the process, and the part when a book takes real shape.
And then, it'll be time to find an agent, again.
February 28, 2012
Thoughts on a Tuesday
Every now and then, I ask myself, why am I self employed again?
The advantages are there, running your own gig, being able to call your own hours, being able to dedicate the time to the things that mean something to you, as against all the meaningless shit that a job makes you do. I mean, when I was a projectionist, I was told I couldn't read on company time. Running film is a minute's work every couple of hours, then sitting round in case it came off screen or something. Occasionally you'd have a film to make up, or break down. But if you worked the night like I usually did, you sat in a chair, films playing around you, and you read, cause it was a good time to read, and it was better than the films you'd already seen. But the amount of times a boss walked in and told me to do some meaningless time waste so I wasn't reading is countless. Being your own boss has always been a way to either avoid those mindless time sinks, or at least to justify them so you don't feel as if you're being paid for the lost time of your life.
But the work is steadier, that is the truth. It doesn't matter if there are dry patches, quiet times, people canceling, deals falling through, and people who don't live up to their end of agreements. For the company, it'll matter, but for you, the worker, it doesn't, not really. If it all falls through, pick up, move on.
Anyhow: there's nothing that can be done about it, not right now, except to work and push through the dry patches, enjoy the rainy ones.
Fortunately, I think, the publishing industry is changing. It's partly the rise of technology, partly the net, partly just the way that everything in the world begins to evolve and the way that society has given prestige to being someone who can make art and make a living of it. We don't really value teachers, bankers, nurses, executives, or anything similar--we value sports men and women, we value actors, musicians, photographers, artists and writers. Yet, I think, we value them in a kind of empty fashion, for while we often value the person who is this, we value the profession even more. We value it because it doesn't look like work, because it is not traditionally what we associate with work--that is, doing a job we don't value hugely to pay our rent, though of course, the reality of it is different. But the sheer number of people who want to do this work, who want to produce art, has put as much pressure on the traditional system of packaging and selling art, as the rise in technology has. It is no real surprise, I think, that the two have emerged with each other, that the two drive each other, as much as the failure of traditional systems drives it.
The above isn't a fully developed notion yet, incidentally. Just an idea I turn around every now and then, while looking at how everything alters. Maybe it'll live, maybe it'll die. Either way, really, I'll still have to make a living.
The advantages are there, running your own gig, being able to call your own hours, being able to dedicate the time to the things that mean something to you, as against all the meaningless shit that a job makes you do. I mean, when I was a projectionist, I was told I couldn't read on company time. Running film is a minute's work every couple of hours, then sitting round in case it came off screen or something. Occasionally you'd have a film to make up, or break down. But if you worked the night like I usually did, you sat in a chair, films playing around you, and you read, cause it was a good time to read, and it was better than the films you'd already seen. But the amount of times a boss walked in and told me to do some meaningless time waste so I wasn't reading is countless. Being your own boss has always been a way to either avoid those mindless time sinks, or at least to justify them so you don't feel as if you're being paid for the lost time of your life.
But the work is steadier, that is the truth. It doesn't matter if there are dry patches, quiet times, people canceling, deals falling through, and people who don't live up to their end of agreements. For the company, it'll matter, but for you, the worker, it doesn't, not really. If it all falls through, pick up, move on.
Anyhow: there's nothing that can be done about it, not right now, except to work and push through the dry patches, enjoy the rainy ones.
Fortunately, I think, the publishing industry is changing. It's partly the rise of technology, partly the net, partly just the way that everything in the world begins to evolve and the way that society has given prestige to being someone who can make art and make a living of it. We don't really value teachers, bankers, nurses, executives, or anything similar--we value sports men and women, we value actors, musicians, photographers, artists and writers. Yet, I think, we value them in a kind of empty fashion, for while we often value the person who is this, we value the profession even more. We value it because it doesn't look like work, because it is not traditionally what we associate with work--that is, doing a job we don't value hugely to pay our rent, though of course, the reality of it is different. But the sheer number of people who want to do this work, who want to produce art, has put as much pressure on the traditional system of packaging and selling art, as the rise in technology has. It is no real surprise, I think, that the two have emerged with each other, that the two drive each other, as much as the failure of traditional systems drives it.
The above isn't a fully developed notion yet, incidentally. Just an idea I turn around every now and then, while looking at how everything alters. Maybe it'll live, maybe it'll die. Either way, really, I'll still have to make a living.
February 27, 2012
The Griffith Review Novella Contest
Today, I learned that the Griffith Review had announced a new project directed at publishing novellas.
Judged by a panel, published, and getting a share of 30k, I thought it sounded interesting enough to have a look at, and promptly discovered this in the rules:
Well, isn't that nice?
Honestly, this is a real shame. It doesn't impact on me, not really--I doubt anyone at the Griffith Review knows me, and certainly no one has asked me to submit--but with the implication that they'll be cherry picking from authors they like, it's of no real consequence. However, this does push one of my dislikes, which is the endless scamming of young and new authors in the publishing industry. While fifty bucks is fairly benign, it's no real different than a couple of grand for a 'private editor's appraisal' by people who don't work for publishers, by the self publishing outfits that take your money and promise you greatness, and the countless other endless ways that new authors are parted by their cash in the hope that they will be published in a good and respectable way.
If Griffith Review wants to publish novellas by established authors they champion, there's no problem with that. Given the quality of authors who have appeared in the magazine over the years, I'm sure it'll be fine.
But to scam on the new and young and desperate while you do? That's a bit unnecessary.
If you're a new author coming by this post because you're curious about the contest, take my advice: skip it. There are a lot of places to get published. None of them will take your money to do so. A lot will even pay you without you giving them a thing.
Judged by a panel, published, and getting a share of 30k, I thought it sounded interesting enough to have a look at, and promptly discovered this in the rules:
Unless you have been contacted by Griffith REVIEW and individually invited to make a Novella submission, you will be charged an entry fee of $50 (or $35 if you hold a current print or digital subscription to Griffith REVIEW) upon entry to this competition. The entry fee will be used to cover the administrative costs of conducting this competition.
Well, isn't that nice?
Honestly, this is a real shame. It doesn't impact on me, not really--I doubt anyone at the Griffith Review knows me, and certainly no one has asked me to submit--but with the implication that they'll be cherry picking from authors they like, it's of no real consequence. However, this does push one of my dislikes, which is the endless scamming of young and new authors in the publishing industry. While fifty bucks is fairly benign, it's no real different than a couple of grand for a 'private editor's appraisal' by people who don't work for publishers, by the self publishing outfits that take your money and promise you greatness, and the countless other endless ways that new authors are parted by their cash in the hope that they will be published in a good and respectable way.
If Griffith Review wants to publish novellas by established authors they champion, there's no problem with that. Given the quality of authors who have appeared in the magazine over the years, I'm sure it'll be fine.
But to scam on the new and young and desperate while you do? That's a bit unnecessary.
If you're a new author coming by this post because you're curious about the contest, take my advice: skip it. There are a lot of places to get published. None of them will take your money to do so. A lot will even pay you without you giving them a thing.
February 23, 2012
Rudd/Gillard
The Greens are backed by idealism and all the energy of youth. Now they are sanctified by a formal alliance with a minority Labor government. The alliance confers legitimacy on a political force whose central strategic purpose is the elimination of Labor as the alternative to mainstream conservatism—a mission made easier by Labor's redefining of itself as a party to the right of centre. It is remarkable that Labor is referred to without challenge by friend and foe alike as a 'brand'. Not a project, not a mission. 'If we are not a crusade we are nothing,' once declared Harold Wilson of UK Labour. Australian Labor is not a crusade; Labor is what it is: the rhetoric of the hour, words for the moment when only words will do.
--Rodney Cavalier.
Ah, Australian Politics: you deserve prettier actors, a soundtrack, and more sex.
Secure in her numbers, Julia Gillard has called a ballot for the leadership of the country, while overseas, Kevin Rudd flies home to figure it out. The day before, Rudd made a statement about not sneaking up and assassinating a leader elected by the public, never pausing to acknowledge that the Australian public has no power or control over who is the Prime Minister. The vote on Monday is nothing the Australian public has a say in either--cut off from any real power, the people of Australia now get to watch the Right of the Labor Party roll Rudd into a sack and dump him in a river, somewhere out with the Irish on the backbench. But ah well. Australia has always long said people can make a choice who leads the country, and if you speak a lie strong enough, it will eventually be seen as a truth.
A part of me believes that, if Rudd had any sense of good revenge, he would return to Australia and simply take what he could of the Labor Party and form a new political party, fucking over Labor and the centrist right that has taken control of it. A new party wouldn't be any more electable than Labor is right now, but if you want to get even at the people who betrayed you, took away your job, and left you as the only first term Prime Minister to never sit a full term... well, if you were still smarting at that, it would be worth a go. To a degree, you have to believe that Rudd has a touch of that in him, especially given the way things are falling now. It does not appear as if he can win leadership of the party, again. He is, by all accounts, like by a minority within the party, and only a large part of Australia, who resent the earlier assassination, or have grown tired of Gillard and her leadership--but as I said, the last group have no actual part in the vote.
Much of the national Labor Party right now reminds me of the NSW Labor Party, leading up to its huge loss, where Barry O'Farrell simply had to not eat a live baby on TV and say something like, "I hate all black people but enjoy being fucked up the ass by a huge black dildo." That's literally the only way the Coalition would have lost. Right now, it's the only way Tony Abbot will not be the leader of the country next. He might have to eat two babies and take two black dildos in a rare display of double penetration. But otherwise, he's pretty set. He keeps low, hangs back, lets Labor destroy itself, and practices being nice to women in a mirror.
It's sad, really. There was a moment there where Julia Gillard could have stepped up and been a hugely inspirational leader, could have done so much for the rights of women, for being an atheist, for being a supporter of a republic. But she has been weak: controlled by the Right in Labor, unable (and perhaps unwilling) to support gay marriage, tax miners, and simply present herself strongly, she has mostly been the puppet of her backers, an empty vacuum that they have been able to pour their beliefs and ideas into. It is, as I say, a real shame, but then neither is it surprising.
As a small note to leave this post on, if Australia did get a vote on Gillard or Rudd, I would vote for neither. I wouldn't vote for Abbott, either, and I wouldn't vote for any party that passed a vote on to any of these people.
Which is good, because I don't vote. I have long stated that an important part of democracy is not just the ability to vote, but also to have the ability not to vote. As much as events like this fascinate me and interest me, they do not change my opinion about the current state of our Capitalist democracy, not even if there was more sex, prettier people, and a soundtrack with bands that I liked.
February 21, 2012
La La
The new book proceeds along, closing in on a hundred thousand words. I should have a rough ending down in a couple of weeks and then the real writing can begin. Of that, I have fifty of it straight, only needing minor edits, another thirty needing another draft, and then the rest.
Just a random quote about immortal people who are involved in campaigns of genocide and now, back to work.
Open now, the blind revealed motes of dust in the light. "The Keeper's Enclave is, relatively speaking, a new organisation," Orlan explained. "A thousand years ago, the maps say that Yeflam was nothing more than a small crop of islands, home to a culture based on fishing. It was not until six cursed men and women driven out of the Kalahan Mountains arrived that it changed. The oldest of them was Jaelyn Meah, just under fifteen hundred years of age at the time, if I remember right. She and her companions constructed a sanctuary for the Cursed, though as to date, their number is only twenty seven. Of course, that is the largest group of known cursed men and women, but they are not the Immortals, nor Aela Ren, whose rule of the Eastern Kingdoms has been characterised by genocide."
"You talk about the years as if they mean nothing," she said. "Ren's rule had lasted five thousand years before the wars began."
"I am the eighty second Samuel Orlan." The short man grinned. "My perspective may be slightly askew."
Shaking her head, Ayae eased herself down onto a chair. "The Keeper said I was to go to him tomorrow," she said.
Dawn lit the edges of the cartographer again. "Demanding sort, but perhaps for the best. The Keepers do understand their curses well. And—"
"And?"
"I am afraid," he said, the light enveloping him, "the only way to understand something is to ask the people who have experienced it."
Just a random quote about immortal people who are involved in campaigns of genocide and now, back to work.
