It’s bloody great fun to fall down the rabbit hole of research. One of my favourite parts of writing is the conception stage, where you get to play fast and loose in the land of what-if. You know, collect shiny things, see how they fit together, woolgather and generally daydream about a topic.

When I was a little boy, I used to love poring through all sorts of books, encylopedias, whatever was lying around. I remember jumping from factoid to factoid, and used to love learning little bits of everything. Outside of pub trivia and writing, this sort of scatter-brain learning doesn’t have much practical use. Luckily I’ve parked my bum behind a keyboard once or twice (and pub trivia’d with the best of them).

And even now, one of my happiest joys is to faff around on Wikipedia or similar, rolling around in knowledge like a dog in poop. It’s almost like a game that I play with my own mind, where everything in a made-up scenario has to comply with its own logic. When I was writing the zombie novellas for Black House Comic’s After the World series (that have been repurposed into my novel Quiver, which is on sale here – wow, see what I did there!) I was a research NERD. I’m serious, I think I’ve learnt more about England, southeastern USA, the US military, Cuba, golf-carts, the English correctional system and about 1000 other things than I ever needed to know. In one instance, I needed to know where one of the characters lived in Gravesend, Kent. To get this information, I had to look up teacher salaries, and real estate, and figure out roughly what sort of house this man could realistically afford, and what would be a nice area to raise a family. This was all to get a street name, which I used ONCE.

This is an essential part of my what-if process – grab many disparate elements, find a way they fit together, and follow that thought for as far as it can go. Before you know it, you’ve got yourself a story sunshine 🙂

Of course there’s more to writing than just the outlining/conception phase, but by Jove’s bearded toothbrush, that’s the most fun bit for me.

Ah, NaNoWriMo. That’s National Novel Writing Month to the uninitiated, a global event where aspiring writers crank out 50,000 words of first-draft during November. There are criticisms against this event by some, affirmations of its usefulness by others, and if you’re a writer you’re either gonna love or hate it already.

I won’t go into any of that here. One thing I thought worth mentioning is this – one frequent bit of writer advice is that You Must Produce. Write, write, and write some more. Work those fingers until they are bloody stubs and your keyboard the cheese grater. You can’t send out the story that hasn’t yet been written. And this is all true. When the time is right, you must apply arse to chair, and just bloody get on with it. It’s so easy to talk about writing, but if you’re serious about it, you’ll get into the hard slog when needed. It’s exhausting but worthy, otherwise why would anyone do it?

But I would like to gently point out something that I’ve learnt the hard way. Despite all the rhetoric and chest-banging to the contrary, it’s Okay to Take a Break. I’m serious. If you write day after day, you just might burn out. Some people can and do write each day, and if that works for them, kudos. As for me, I like to take at least one decent holiday from writing each year.

I call it Fallow February. Going by the theory that overfarming a plot of land can make it barren and infertile, I like to let my mind go fallow around February-March of each year. Play video games with no guilt. Faff around with movies and books. Socialise, and just relax. DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT WRITING.

This year, I’m actually having Fallow February in November. Apart from some work with my lovely AHWA Mentorees, you’ve caught me in the middle of a luxurious stretch of Doing Fuck All. And it’s great. Earlier this year I was actually bombarded by deadlines, so I had to take a raincheck on Fallow February. The last time I tried to write, I really struggled to get into it. And that’s when I knew it was time to hang up my GONE FISHING sign (aka play lots of Skyrim).

I know this is the right thing to do, because my muses are starting to go nuts. I’m getting lots of “what if?” story ideas. The creative fly-wheels are starting to whir and hum, greased by the oil of relaxation and fired by the brand new sparkplugs I plug in once a year.

You’d have a holiday from your job, wouldn’t you? Don’t be a dickhead 🙂 Fallow February FTW!

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.

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.

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!