Tag Archives: Papa Lucy and the Boneman

Fisch Industries: The State of Play

Writing

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/

On the Completion of Project Lucy

Writing,

Once more, apologies for the extended blog silencio. While I’ve been on this writing sabbatical, I’ve done my best to cut out the typical faffing around online that I’ve often passed off as “writing” and occasionally “research”. Bullshit, all of it 🙂 Seeing as Arts SA did the right thing by me, I have tried to do the right thing by them. Which has meant head down, bum up, and cranking out the words. Everything else is procrastination and best avoided if you’re serious about becoming a word-warrior 🙂

So, after three and a bit months down in the word-mines, I emerge triumphant.  The first draft of “Papa Lucy and the Boneman” is now complete. I stand with one foot planted on the defeated Project Lucy, wiping off sweat and the occasional adjective.  

What happens next, you may ask? Well, there’s about 100,000 words that need to be taken to with a cricket bat. I’m in the process of enlisting a handful of trusted friends to help with beta-reading. Once comments come back, well me and that novel are going to have a little chat. In a room with no windows. I might be taking in a phone book. Don’t make me spell it out.

In all seriousness, there’s still plenty of work to be done. One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever received was from the legendary Cat Sparks. She said that far too often, writing is rushed out half-cooked, and not allowed enough time to ferment. So yes, the work continues, as I do my very best to craft resonance and beauty into this story. With each pass I hope to pick up inconsistencies, continuity errors, and somehow work up the courage to kill my darlings. But it’s probably a little too soon to jump back in just yet. Couple weeks at least, I’m sick of the sight of that bloody thing!

But the good news is, I’m a couple of months ahead of schedule. There’s a semi-embargoed project that I’m about to start, and I hope to drop some juicy details soon. Have also put some feelers out for a couple of things, and hopefully I’ll land a bit of write-for-hire work in the window of time that has just opened. But overall, I’m relieved that I can cross this one off the list. There was a time when I thought I’d lost my novel-writing mojo and would be cranking out weird short stories forever!

Apart from that, a day or two of down-time, family, videos and reading, and walking around in the sunlight like a myopic cave-Fisch. Then, straight back into things.

No rest for the wicked!

Your pal,

The Fisch.

Two Months in the Word-Mines

Writing

So, a bit over 2 months into this writing hiatus, and things are going quite well. There’s only one embargoed project left to be revealed, which will hopefully be happening a bit later this year, and After the World’s “Army Corpse” is completely edited and out of my hands. Excellent stuff!

The complete removal of internet from the house is my sole secret to any success at this mad enterprise – yes, I’ve been locking the damn modem in the damn car 🙂 thus do words appear. Once the good Mrs Fisch hid it from me with my blessing, which turns out to be exactly what the talented Vandermeers do.

Best of all, my novel “Papa Lucy and the Boneman” is tearing along, like a demon horse with a coffee enema and rocketskates. If I can stick to the schedule, the first draft will be finished very soon, and I should have the second draft done by the end of October. My process involves writing 1st/2nd drafts concurrently, ie each writing session involves revision and tinkering, prior to any new words appearing, which seems to work for me (your mileage may vary, of course). Luckily, I haven’t spotted any major structural woes so far, which I’ll save for draft #3 after October.

So what’s in this opus? Once more, readers get to step into the world of Lanyard Everett, last of the jesusmen, scumbag and deeply troubled individual. I’ve shown glimpses of his world in my Aurealis Magazine stories, but this time around I get to play with the history of the place, the backstory, and some other awesome POV characters just to give this place a bit of depth and resonance. I’m trying for the flavour of Jack Vance, the structure is a bit Hyperionish, if you mix in a bit of Mad Max, Terry Dowling’s Rynocceros, and some of Sean Williams’ Books of the Change. I’ve spotted a lot of these influences creeping into the nascent draft, but I hope to give it my own unique twist, the insanity that I only just had the room to touch on in the short stories.

Having. A. Ball. 🙂

What else has been happening? Have been loving the extra time with the family, lots of reading time and cuddles with my boy, trips to the park and beach, the luxury of time to do errands and chores. Mostly though, I’ve been consistently pouring buckets of words into my various projects, and justifying the trust that Arts SA have put into my sometimes shaky time-management skills. Dudes, I’m coming up with the goods 🙂