All posts by Jason Fischer

Bits and Pieces.

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Queensland Floods

It’s a truly horrifying time for Queensland, and the flood is a bona-fide disaster of arse-kicking proportions.  Like everyone else I’ve been devouring the news sites, clicking on maps of the affected areas, and worrying about friends and family near the flooded areas.  It’s really sad to see such a beautiful city cop the brunt of this riparian smack-down.

Tehani Wessely of Fablecroft has put out a fundraiser to help those affected by the floods, an e-book edition of her new anthology After the Rain.  More info here: http://editormum.livejournal.com/266883.html

The Ideas File Is A Bleedingly Obvious Idea

As a writer, if you keep getting distracted by cool new ideas that take over from whatever project you’re currently working on, start an Ideas File.  Dump all the salient info into this file, and forget about it.  If it’s still capturing your imagination when you’re ready to start your next project (even if it’s 6 months later), it’s probably worth writing.  If it doesn’t rock your socks, it was not meant to be.  But at least you got your other stuff done and didn’t get derailed.  I should have started one of these things 2-3 years ago, instead of bounding from idea to idea like a hyperactive kitten.

Elliptical Rider:

There is now a great big stonking piece of exercise equipment in our living room.  Toddler Fisch “assisted” in its construction, and by all accounts it is a very cool new thing with moving pedals and big handle thingies.  Goodbye, spare tyre 🙂

Pimping my peeps:

Fellow WOTF winner and allround good guy Steve Savile has put the word out that his novel Silver is now $2.99 in e-book form, and I’m happy to do my part to endorse and pimp such a groovy book.  I devoured this book in a couple of days, and can’t recommend it highly enough.  Good fun, a great thriller that had me from start to finish, and he out-Browns Dan Brown.  I don’t normally read this genre but if I enjoyed it, anyone can.  It can be found at the following links:

http://www.amazon.com/Silver-An-OgmiosTeam-Adventure-ebook/dp/B00332FFHU/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_img_in

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19399

Goodreads

Is very very good.  Since signing up to this website (and rediscovering public transport) I have absolutely smashed my way through a stack of books.  There’s just something about being accountable with your reading, and being able to easily score/review a work.  I used to throw the occasional “I love this book” on the old LJ blog, but this is arguably a much better way of managing one’s reading.

2010: A reflective post

Writing

Seriously, it was a good year.  Work was good, this writing gig started to come together, and my beaut little family kept me sane and smiling.  Lots of great stuff came my way last year, including several exciting writing opportunities, the trip to America for Writers of the Future, and the production of just under 90,000 words – not bad considering I thought I’d been somewhat slack on the writing front.  Early in the year I set myself a bunch of goals as per the awesome Booklife, and achieved 95% of what I’d set out to do (not counting the unfortunate scuttling of the-novel-formerly-known-as-Candlecraft).  Still, the good bits of this project have been recycled for use elsewhere, so I haven’t wasted a word.

Here’s a list of my publications, sales, and achievements for 2010 – now that I look at it, it was quite a busy year.  I’m hoping that 2011 will be just as exciting, that  I continue to keep my passion for writing, and have a tonne of fun telling cool stories!  Anything else is a bonus really 🙂

Novellas: 

After The World: Corpus Christi, Black House Comics (forthcoming)

Short Stories:

Eating Gnashdal, “Anywhere but Earth” edited by Keith Stevenson (forthcoming)

Goggy, Midnight Echo (winner 2010 AHWA Flash Fiction Competition, forthcoming) 

Hunting Rufus, Midnight Echo #5 (forthcoming)

Goodnights to Heaven, Necroscope 

The Ward of Hours, An Eclectic Slice of Life

gunning for a tinkerman, Aurealis Magazine #44

The School Bus, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #46 (Highly Recommended, HorrorScope 2010 Recommended Reading List)

The House of Nameless, Writers of the Future Vol XXVI

Sebastian, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #44 (Recommended, HorrorScope 2010 Recommended Reading List)

Starship Zamedi, Zombonauts anthology

Podcasts:

Undead Camels Ate Their Flesh, Terra Incognita SF Podcast #26

for want of a jesusman, Terra Incognita SF Podcast #18

Comics:

The Harvest, EEEK! #2, Black House Comics

Achievements:

Shortlisted, Best Novella/Novelette, 2010 Ditmar Awards

Shortlisted, Best New Talent, 2010 Ditmar Awards

Winner, AHWA Flash Fiction Competition, 2010

Finalist, 2009 Australian Shadows Awards (Short Fiction)

Various bits and pieces

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Horrorscope 2010 Recommended Reading List:

A couple of my short stories made this year’s Horrorscope Recommended Reading List, and “The School Bus” from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #46 came Highly Recommended.  Cool! 🙂 I find myself sharing the list with some terrific writers and their works, so I’m quite pleased with that.  http://www.horrorscope.com.au/2010/12/editorial-horrorscopes-2010-recommended.html

A brief moment of basketballery:

The brother-in-law got NBL player of the week!  Nicely done, Luke! http://www.nbl.com.au/news/article/2010/december/big-croc-claims-weekly-award/

The Adventures of Toddler Fisch

(we’re having a bit of fun getting him to go to sleep at the moment – he will typically thrash around with his long legs, knocking on the walls, flipping upside down, throwing his covers off, getting out of bed etc.  He’s often a bundle of energy, till the golden moment that sleep claims him)

Mrs Fisch: “How’s he going?”

Me: “I’m not sure what he’s doing in there, but I think it might be Parkour.”

If it’s good enough for Tolkien, it’s good enough for me.

Writing

I recently shared a bunch of old maps from my journeyman days, and briefly made mention of Tusk, the infamous “telepathic elephants enslave mankind” novel.  The ultimate trunk-story, as it were.  Poking around in these old folders, I also found an old amateur moment, shared here for your amusement.  Yes, I invented a language for my elephant race.  Not only that, a complex numeric system, and methods and devices for them to write, trunks being less nimble than human fingers.  From memory, I spent WEEKS on this.  Again, a great example of how too much time down the rabbit-hole of Research is not necessarily a good thing. 

This sort of thing is best left to the experts.  Namely, professors in Language and Literature.  If Tolkien saw the following attempt at inventing a written fantasy language, he’d probably roll around in his grave: Continue reading →

Here, have a bonus Christmas story.

Publication, Writing

As mentioned previously, I wrote a new zombie story for Chuck McKenzie’s zombietastic Necroscope blog, called “Goodnights to Heaven”.  The goal was to come up with a christmas-themed tale of the undead, the result of which can be read at this link:

http://zombiefictionreview.blogspot.com/2010/12/fiction-goodnights-to-heaven.html

May you all have a relaxing Christmas, and it is my sincerest wish that your barricades hold off the corpse hordes long enough for you to enjoy a pudding and a brandy 🙂

Today’s New Definition

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Fisch-Kringle, n, (fsh-krnggl):

An annual experience.  Used when Jason Fischer draws your name out of the hat for the office Secret Santa, and leaves it to the very VERY last minute to dash out and purchase the required gift.  Attempts to disguise himself as the secret santa are instantly detected (like the time he bought everything in fluffy pink, so the recipient would think their secret santa was a female).  He does this every year without fail.

Because you GOTTA HAVE A MAP!

Writing

I had recent cause to pore through my story-trunk, which is almost always a cringe-worthy exercise, followed by the opportunity to have a good laugh at my past self.  For those unfamiliar with the term, a story-trunk is the repository of one’s failed writings, the term dating back to the time when the aspiring writer most likely had an actual chest or locker, stuffed full of bound manuscripts, rejection slips and gallons of tears.  Sometimes this would be the bottom drawer, a tea chest in the shed, or a cobweb-wreathed filing cabinet.  These days, the story-trunk is usually a folder on one’s hard-drive, an innocuous icon hiding a multitude of writing sins.

Prior to my recent incarnation as a short-story writer, I had any number of practice novels under my belt.  And ye GODS, these things are bloody awful.  Sigh.  Still, we all gotta start somewhere, and I was well on my way to “write a million words before you stop sucking” by about 2005 or so.  I look fondly on these books, as if they were a dodgy uncle at a family BBQ – they’re embarrassing, but at the end of the day they’re still family.  No regrets, dudes.

In amongst my newbie fantasy novels are a whole swag of maps, lovingly adorned with various details.  Because if you’re gonna suckle from Tolkien’s teat, you may as well indulge in some amateur cartography.  I’ve included some for your amusement:

Around about the time I discovered Terry Pratchett, I decided that humorous fantasy was definitely my thing.  Hence, the Woven World, a Pratchett-esque world springing from the knitting needles of the oblivious Aunt Gladys, aka God.  I remember the mystical kingdom of Strailyer, famous for its chain-mail wearing bogans, hurling boomerangs and beer-cans at their foes.  Glorious.  My main protagonist was Chronick the Teutonic, wielder of the disastrous Scheissenhammer.

Here’s some more classics from ye olde story-trunk:

Continue reading →