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:
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.
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 🙂
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
(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.”
