Jason Fischer's Blog, page 15

Frame this, look at it daily: Diagram of the Writing Process

The scarily brilliant Angela Slatter has whittled up this simple, yet brilliant, chart of her writing process. I’ve sat in on all sorts of weird and wonderful writing classes, groups, all of that schtick -  but I’ve never seen a good writing workflow summed up so well.

Ponder this well, my padawans, because Angela Slatter? She’ll write your FACE off. The lady knows her biz.

The rest of the advice lies here: http://www.angelaslatter.com/reminder-to-self/

It’s all good :-)

For the first time in ages, I feel on top of this writing gig! I’m meeting my goals, I’m not overwhelmed by things, and the business side of things is set up and working smoothly. I’m approaching writing in a balanced and conservative way – allowing plenty of fallow down-time in between projects, but still coming up with the goods and meeting deadlines. Rather than the manic mad-puppy style that characterised my first few years behind the keyboard, I’m running on a  quiet sort of excitement. For the first time, it’s not about the slapping out of fifty first drafts a year…it’s about writing work I’m proud of. Polishing, editing, loving the words. I feel like I’ve been missing that for a while, so it’s a welcome return.

A while back, I read through Jeff Vandermeer’s excellent Booklife, and while I probably don’t adhere to the lessons as much as I should, it all seems to be working well. I set some goals around about the time I read it, will have to dig them up and see if I stuck to them. From memory I wanted to diversify my writing income, and try out some different mediums. So far I’ll call that a success, with some comics, game writing and podcast stuff under my belt. There’s a novel coming out soon (more when it’s all official-like), and a collection on the horizon.

Probably best of all, I seem to have beaten writer envy for good – to be honest, I had a real problem with it for a while there. Now, I’m chipper whenever a buddy does well, and that energy has been redirected into positive ways. You can only be you, after all, and you can only control your own output. Sales, awards and accolades, you have power over none of these things. So why fret and grind your teeth? Again, Booklife is a great resource.

Sometimes I think about legacies and what I hope to achieve by writing. And I still don’t know. I’m still stoked whenever I sell my words, doubly so whenever someone else chooses to spend their valuable time reading them. The only problem with toiling in the word mines is that it’s hard to see what’s going on around you, or which direction you’re digging in. A list of publications isn’t much of a gauge – for all I know I could be eventually known for love-yarns or children’s books. As a creator you’re only in charge of so much, and opportunities seem to shape a career as much as productivity.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this - things seem to go easier in life when you surrender control. Rather than building cement drains, I’m tipping water into valleys. Sure, water seems to follow the path of least resistance, but damn, rivers are interesting  Whatever plans I make, I’m pleasantly surprised when they turn out differently.

Hope your rivers run wild!

Your pal, the Fisch.

Speaking of Dragon Assault…

…the artist just dropped this nifty piece of quest artwork onto the Facebook page. Check it out!

A nice taste of things to come

URL is here: http://www.dragonassault.com/

Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dragon-Assault/461417370535039

 

Here, have a computer game

Feast your eyes on this!

I’ve written some content for this upcoming RPG, which is soon to be released as a beta for Facebook and on the web. I’ve seen some of the other artwork for it, and it’s absolutely GORGEOUS. Do yourself a favour and sign up for the beta, this world is amazingly detailed and I reckon it’s going to be lots of fun.

More info here:

http://www.dragonassault.com/

In non-feet related news, have a computer game

Hey folks, here’s a nicer picture to make up for the rotten feet:

I’ve written some content for this upcoming RPG, which is soon to be released as a beta for Facebook and on the web. I’ve seen some of the other artwork for it, and it’s absolutely GORGEOUS. Do yourself a favour and sign up for the beta, this world is amazingly detailed and I reckon it’s going to be lots of fun.

More info here:

http://www.dragonassault.com/

Marisol Nichols’ Feet

I was lucky enough to meet actress Marisol Nichols when I went stateside. She’s been in a bunch of stuff, most notably “24″, but I was more impressed by the fact that she was a Griswold in National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation. So, I blogged about my Writers of the Future adventures at the time, and all was good.

As part of my website maintenance, I can see how incoming traffic arrives, what people have searched for etc. And almost every week, someone arrives looking for “Marisol Nichols Feet”.

I mean, WTF? I know Quentin Tarantino has a well-publicised foot thing for Uma Thurman, but this seems like an oddly specific fetish. I’m sure Ms Nichols has a lovely pair of feet, but I can’t remember being struck by these, or even noticing them at the time. Is there a movie or TV show where her feet were shown prominently?

Anyway, she was lovely, and the feet-snuffling weirdos who cyberstalk her are just creepy. So I consider this my community service on her behalf. Do you want to see some feet? Well, do you? Here you go.

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Suffer in your jocks, you bloody weirdos

Because you’re running a goddamn small business, that’s why.

I’ve said it before, I like to live my life as a warning to others. Those of you who have aspirations of becoming a professional writer, gather around and hear my tales of woe.

It’s great to work in a creative field, even better to get paid for your efforts. Having a second income is not the reason I got into writing (payment for art is its own contentious issue which you should wade into at your own peril) but finance becomes a fact of life once you’ve been doing anything for a while.

Save your receipts (especially if you’re going to conventions or awards nights). Set up a detailed spreadsheet of how money’s coming in, and where it’s going out. Get an ABN if you’re in Australia. Keep on top of your invoices, politely chase up any money that’s been a long time coming your way, and of course, always pay your own bills on time. Be wise as to what you can claim for a deduction.

I’ve been writing since 2001, and making money from it since about 2004. This is the first year I can honestly say I’m on top of my financials, and the lodging of a tax return wasn’t all that painful. Don’t be a dickhead like me, be organised from the get go :-) even if you’ve only got a dribble of money coming in at the moment, it makes good sense to get into practice. After all, you ARE running a small business. And most small businesses get themselves into trouble through disorganisation and lack of forward thinking.

Thus sayeth the Fisch.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Novel

For those coming in late, I was fortunate enough to take a six month sabbatical from my employment, with the assistance of an Arts SA project grant and all of the leave I could scrape together. I became a hybrid stay-at-home-dad and a full-time writer. Went through all of the cliched agonies and tribulations that accompany this creative lunacy.

I approached my writing as a job, with deadlines and productivity goals. End result, I came up with approximately 2 novels worth of new material in that time. My grant novel “Papa Lucy and the Boneman” was jolted into its lurching, horrific life. Several write-for-hire projects were vanquished, and in the latter half of 2011 I was one busy beaver.

So what I have found interesting is this: I now cannot enter my study for fun. There was a time when I would quite happily sit in that room, looking at my brag shelf, enjoying the collateral of my writing career. There’s laurels in yon study, and I enjoyed resting on them. This would be followed by a lot of faffing around online (“research”), maybe a game or two, and eventually some writing.

No longer. The moment I walk in and sit in that chair, I feel like it’s game on. Any faffery tends to be done on the iPhone now, or the laptop. It appears that 6 months of strict discipline is not so easy to cast aside. Just an interesting observation!

Know Your Achilles Heel, Edit Accordingly

Bad habits, we’ve all got them.

And that’s okay when it comes to the bad habits in one’s writing, you are in the unique position where you get endless do-overs. Before you release your brain-babies into the wild, you get to carve, polish and refine them to your heart’s content. The flip side of this is, you are almost always too close to your work. “A face that only a mother could love” most definitely applies to artists and their creations, perhaps moreso.

With that in mind, when it comes time to tweak your writing, my advice is this: identify your weaknesses. Find the ways that you frequently break the rules, look at lazy habits that you might have gathered along the way. Case in point, I know that I’m shocking with passive voice, throw cliches around like confetti, and my endings almost always have to be thrown out and rewritten. But right after typing “THE END”, that creative post-coital glow sets in, and like everyone else I can see no wrong in my child. I’m a genius, it’s perfect, and naught need be changed.

BOLLOCKS. I’m as awful as I’ve always been, and committed almost all of the writing sins I swore off last time. My recommended process is to go off, have a cuppa, hell, take a week or two off if I can. Stuff the hubris and ego back under the stairs. Then I look at my slab of word-vomit with fresh eyes, and unleash the editing chainsaw. Next step is to find that Achilles Heel, and carve it up like Leatherface.

“Just a second, I’m in the middle of this edit.”

Fisch Industries: The State of Play

So, we’ve reached the end of the financial year. I’ll be honest with y’all, 2011/2012 was extremely busy, and I came within a whisker of burning out. I wrote over 200,000 words of new fiction, including the current draft of my novel “Papa Lucy and the Boneman”. I also wrote three complete novellas, three or four short stories, a swag of pitches and proposals, as well as all the online buggerising around, social networking and such.

In truth, I did all this in about 10 months – for the last 2 I’ve been taking things very easy. Like anyone bitten too often by the writing bug, I’ve toyed with the idea of just chucking in the towel. And like anyone bitten too often by the writing bug, I laugh at people who say this (including myself). Last couple of weeks I’ve been back on board in force, trying to meet the last swag of deadlines, and planning my time over the next 6 months or so.

Refreshed. Ready. I intend a frontal assault on the Word-Castle, where I will storm the walls. In coming months, I intend to roundhouse several nouns and adverbs in the face, and flush thousands of paragraphs out of hiding. 

Finally, some AWESOME and EXCITING news coming soon. The moment it’s all official-like, you can be sure to find out about it here I will say one word only: Tamsyn.

PS: here, have a link to an online Elements of Style. Highly recommended for writer-types.

http://www.bartleby.com/141/