What's the difference between a messy story and a great one? Often, it comes down to having clear objects that represent a character's goals...

Here’s a dirty secret I rarely say out loud as a writer: I don’t want you to friend me on Facebook. I don’t want you to follow me on Threads or Twitter or Instagram. I sure as fuck don’t give a shit if you’re following me on TikTok.  I’m on all these places, and I’ll engage with you if they’re the only choice, but they’re not my primary focus. As a writer, I’ve got three top tiers of engagement: I want you to subscribe to my newsletter. If that’s a no-go, the second-best choice is joining my Patreon.

A 2024 article about the slow decay of the internet has been making the rounds of social media recently. In it, S.E. Smith charts the speed at which old websites and links become inaccessible and asks what happens when the internet disappears? Here’s an interesting statistic in the article: 38% of websites accessible in 2013 were inaccessible ten years later.  The websites get taken down, or restructured in such a way that old links no longer work, or individual pages get deleted. I’m very familiar with this phenomenon. In the years before I launched Brain Jar Press, I worked for the Queensland Writers Centre and spent a good chunk of my days advising writers about how to build their careers.

Get more from Peter M. Ball on Patreon

I've been re-reading old bullet journal this morning and found this page, from 2016, which led to the most important writing gig I've ever had: I produced this on my friend Meg's back deck, trying to sort through the complicated steps required to apply for a PhD and break them into tangible, completable steps. I basically broke down everything I had to do--and especially the things I didn't know how to do--and laid things out. I wrote this on the 29th of August, 2016. By January of 2017 I was in the program, on scholarship, producing three short books (

The theory of constraints is a business management philosophy popularised in Eli Goldratt’s 1984 book, The Goal, although it builds upon work by earlier thinkers, including Germany’s Wolfgang Mewes. These days, The Goal is better known as a book Jimmy Donaldson—aka MrBeast—used to make all his employees read and assimilate. Now let’s be clear: I don’t really get Mr Beast, nor like him. I think his whole schtick is emblematic of a fundamental problem with algorithmic social media, and I’m vaguely baffled he’s a millionaire or famous. I sure as fuck don’t know how he has a line of snacks, let alone an Amazon show.

The assignment was to rescue a colony that had been overrun by xenomorphs. There were eight of us, nine if you counted the android, but he had malfunctioned after being hacked by separatists and could not support us as he had when I first met him...

Searching for your next favorite story? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Available for a limited time.

Without genuine reform, experts predict house prices to ‘climb by 6-10% in 2025’ and the gap between homeowners and those locked out of market to widen

Angela Slatter’s No Good Deed is a dark fantasy tale of magic, ghosts, and marriage set in her World Fantasy Award-winning Sourdough universe. Isobel assumed her wedding would be the grandest day of h...