by Jason Fischer | Jan 15, 2015 | Meaningful Post
At the end of 2013, I started a novel, wrote the first 45% in a blaze of clattering keys – then shelved it for a year. Real Life and Study got in the way of things, and just when I pulled my nose out of the books, a couple of opportunities to write commissioned short pieces landed on my desk. Once those were squared away, I got back into my novel (empty earth thriller yet to be named).
The best news is, it’s falling out of my head just as quickly as when I first started it, which tells me the idea holds water. Early on, I’d cobbled together a thorough outline, detailing what each chapter would do to contribute to the story arc as a whole…
…which I’ve already started deviating from. I’ve changed horses midstream, and you know what? It’s okay.
No plan survives contact with the enemy. In this case, the enemy is my squirrelly writer hind-brain, which churns and burps out words into my fingers, which I then type with and wait a minute I’ve said too much.
Anyhow, I can’t think of a time when I’ve been 100% faithful to my outlines, even while the 1st draft word vomit is splattering all over the page. Safe to say, I’m probably not alone here – author Fiona McIntosh is also a notorious pantser, whose planning of her fantasy works involved a synopsis/outline she rarely kept to, a rough world map, and an idea of which famous actor resembled which of her characters.
She would then proceed to write some of the greatest page-turning works I’ve encountered. The Quickening books honestly kept me up into the small hours, despite the fact that they were pantsers of the highest order.
I’d like to think of my outlines as a plan – and the beauty of plans is that if Plan A isn’t working, there is a Plan B, Plan C etc. In my own process, it works best to let that writer goblin trapped in my subconscious write what flows best – keeps it interesting, and keeps the story itself honest. If that means my writer goblin pisses all over my intended finish line, hey, I’m cool with that.
“Well, of course the Space Goats are going to form an alliance with the Tin Can Cartel. They’ve both been attacked by the Shenanigans Society, and their differences aren’t that hard to overcome in the face of a shared enemy.” – Jason’s Writer Goblin, about 2 in the morning.
So if anyone wants me, I’ll be standing over this half-finished idea, watching my word-vomit fall upon it in a pleasing manner.
Namaste,
Fisch.
by Jason Fischer | Jul 17, 2014 | Funny/WTF?, Meaningful Post
99% of this blog is dedicated to my writing endeavours. I will make an exception for this.
TODAY I ATE A CURLY POTATO ON A STICK. A whole potato, cut into a continuous spiral, deep-fried and smothered in salt. It’s moments like these that make you realise humanity is a worthy thing.
I’m considering making this my new author photo. SO GOOD.
[normal transmission resumes]
by Jason Fischer | Jun 20, 2014 | Meaningful Post
Life’s tough, so what! I’m alive 🙂
Now go out there and smash your goals into bits. Absolutely anything is possible.
by Jason Fischer | May 2, 2014 | Meaningful Post, Uncategorized
If you’ve got any stake in speculative fiction writing and publishing, you’re most likely aware of the frequent conflicts in that community. What once might have occupied a few heated pages on LiveJournal, or the leisurely back and forth at conventions and via mimeographed zines has changed forever. What we have now are live rolling arguments on venues such as Twitter and Facebook – and that’s just how it is now.
Blogs now seem to serve as some sort of halfway zone between an author/pundit platform, and a repository for lengthier arguments and essays on these topics.
The most recent development in fandom is that our internal conflicts are now external, and in recent times have even hit the pages of USA Today, the Guardian, The Huffington Post and the Washington Post(and probably others). There is a lot of bad blood, entrenched positions, and an almost even division on the old left/right fault lines. Quiet online rumblings are now open hostilities.
This makes me cautiously optimistic. I’m serious. No matter what your differences, conflict is always better than apathy. An old model of group performance goes like this
- Forming
- Storming
- Norming
- Performing
So the Storming (and perhaps the beginning of the Norming) that we are currently seeing is part of an observed trend in group behaviour. (By group, I mean in the broader sense that Fandom=people who have a shared interest)
I’m not sure if step 4 periodically goes back to steps 2 and 3 when Performance isn’t working, but history seems to indicate that it does. So it goes to suit that once this stuff gets sorted, a group Performs.
Whether this means a political fracture is inevitable (as the Norming) and then the Performing means two or more loose socio-political organisations/groupings will emerge is anyone’s guess. But there is change in the wind, thanks largely to the internet and social media. For those with a stake in speculative fiction writing and publishing, we definitely live in interesting times.
Maybe the Norming means that online salvos and attacks will become a normal part of the speculative fiction experience. Which is sad, but if that’s how things are meant to go, maybe some rules of engagement will emerge, unspoken or otherwise.
I’d like to think that maybe things will end up the way the Aussies do things. We’ve got a fairly small and spread out fandom, but we’re as connected as anyone else. Also, as vibrant and talented as anyone else – several Aussies have made it to the 2014 Hugo shortlist, taking up roughly half of the podcast shortlist. So we’ve got some knowledgeable commentators here, and they’re getting some well-deserved global recognition.
And you’d better believe that there are online spats here. All the time, over all the usual things that these communities argue about. But most of the time, folks of differing viewpoints/philosophies get along, and rub elbows at cons etc.
We’re a weird little pond, and it’s quite notable that unlike elsewhere, our award shortlists are more often than not female-friendly in recent years. Basically everyone gets a go, and I’d like to think that we’re a petri-dish of how things could be everywhere.
(note: of course we’re not perfect gender-wise and other-wise, but things are humming along nicely Down Under)
So it was interesting to observe a mini flare-up in Australian SF circles yesterday, between two people disagreeing over a “state of genre fiction” article. It followed the usual pattern of these online conflicts – innocuous article is posted, the little blue birds of Twitter begin to fly, and Facebook posts sprout underfoot with the beginnings of bad feelings.
But then these people took ownership of their disagreement, and a couple of well-stated apologies later and the whole thing was over. It was beautiful to see, and the cause of ire was addressed. Said apologies were both along the lines of “Wow, Twitter really escalated that. Our bad.”
In a diasporic community with all sorts of bad blood and current nastiness, this is the sort of Norming that I can live with. At the risk of sounding like “Can’t We All Just Get Along?” this may only be one example of online fandom etiquette as it could be. But it was great to see. Hopefully the future will bring constructive conflicts, and all of this energy and passion can be harnessed towards positive ends.
Again, we live in interesting times.
EDIT:
Okay, with all respect to those who have participated, I’m (regretfully) going to have to shut down new comments in this thread. I don’t want people to feel unsafe here, and I think things are starting to go circular anyway. Sorry, I’m not usually for censoring people but I have to stop this now. Hope folks understand!
by Jason Fischer | Jan 17, 2014 | Meaningful Post
Greetings folks! [blows dust off ye olde blog]
Like any other field of endeavour, writing attracts many types of personalities. Every sort of philosophy and viewpoint is represented, somewhere, by someone. From the best-selling authors through to the twitching crafters of manifestos and bizarre fan-fiction, we’re all sitting down to Make the Thing Happen.
One thing I believe we creatives have in common is a hunger. A drive to get those words out, to crystallize whatever we’ve got going on inside our skulls. Everyone has a different reason for doing this, be it a personal journey, a desire for fame and wealth, a need to communicate an important message as far as possible. A deep love of a franchise. Or even just for the lolz.
But it’s important to remember that we’re all hungry, even if it’s for different things. And that’s fricken awesome, folks. Hunger is a great drive for creation, and should be applauded. The opposite of a striving, hungry soul is a complacent and stagnant one. If a writer can deliver that sense of urgency, of importance, to those who read their work, they’ve made the world just that little bit better.
What I’ve observed, both in my own journey and observing that of others, is that the hunger changes. You might change targets, several times. The small victories near the starting line no longer seem sufficient, and as you grow and evolve, you just get hungrier.
Not hungry like the hummingbird, a blur of activity that has to eat and eat, just to keep going (and oh, how I hummed!). I’m thinking more like the deep hunger of a reptile, some long-lived thing that hides beneath rotten logs. You’ll pounce on something and eat, and it will be amazing and satisfying. You’ll digest it for weeks, months, before you need to eat again.
I think that long-view can only benefit the average creative. Focusing on resonance instead of the quick and shiny glim of a tasty bug. Growing into an impressive force that lurks beyond human ken, and is remembered, nay, feared 🙂
Be driven by that deep, slow hunger. Work on something ambitious and memorable, and focus on it like an ancient swamp creature with nothing better to do. I dare you!
“Dude….just finished writing an awesome book. Dude? Where are you going?”
by Jason Fischer | Dec 6, 2013 | Meaningful Post
Hey all 🙂 long time since I blogged on my Doings Of Note. Sadly, real life has a way of derailing these things. I’m really going to try and update this thing more often, even if it’s just hair-metal video-clips and vague absurdities.
I try my best to keep stupid non-writing stuff away from this site and on my social media. The end result is a paucity of updates on the Fisch-Blog, and a near constant stream of puns and dodgy pictures everywhere else.
Anyways, onto the shareholder report. Here is what is going on at Fisch-Tech Enterprises (ie my comfy chair and laptop). Following the launch of my zombie-tastic short story collection “Everything Is A Graveyard”, I found that I’ve largely abandoned short form writing. Don’t get me wrong, I regret nothing, and learned a lot of things from working on shorter pieces. At some point, every journeyman writer should try to encapsulate a SF idea in flash fiction form.
In recent months though, I’ve found that I can’t write in anything shorter than novella length. I’m naturally leaning towards beefier slabs of writing, with the leisure to develop characters, let them drive the story, and take it into weird and wonderful directions that my poor outlines don’t expect. It’s nice to feel comfortable working on longer pieces, and I’m no longer a slave to the Take Over the World Now! mindset that drove me circa 2007 or so.
Case in point – the current novel (tentatively named “Wipe”) didn’t even exist as a concept until about a month ago. It was driven by a radio commercial, a workmate’s fear of not having done much with her life, and a whole bunch of random internet wool-gathering. When the last bit fell into place, my creative flywheels started spinning, and just like that the first 6 chapters have fallen out of my head. In about a fortnight.
I love the characters like they’re real people, and find the setting compelling enough that I constantly want to go back, to reveal just that little bit more of it. Each day, I simply can’t wait for my next writing session. That’s not work, friends, that’s Loving the Gig That You’ve Got.
It is so nice just to revel in the sheer joy of writing again. To put aside all of that knife-gripped-in-the-teeth results-driven creativity, and just have a ball. I feel sad that I forgot this feeling for so long, but it’s sure nice to have it back.
In closing, I give you this video of animals caught stealing. Peace out, y’all!
