by Jason Fischer | Nov 17, 2010 | Writing
Much like a gift-giving grizzly bear on meth, Christmas is bearing down on us once more. With that in mind, I’ve got a couple of fiction-related presents coming out to the world. The first one is now official, Christmas Eve will see a brand new story of mine appearing on Chuck McKenzie’s zombie-tastic Necroscope blog. There’s some other goings on as well (including some neat prizes for those who become Necroscope Shamblers) so check it out here:
http://zombiefictionreview.blogspot.com/2010/11/news-whats-coming-up-at-necroscope.html
The 2nd gift, well, you’ll just have to wait a bit longer, won’t you…
“Too much….pudding….”
by Jason Fischer | Oct 28, 2010 | Uncategorized, Writing
Professionalism
I’ve kinda neglected the blogging a bit lately – call it a spurt of professionalism, in that I only wanted to blog Things Of Note and not just pollute my new site with rubbish jokes, pictures of stupid stuff I found funny, and all of the crimes against humour that I committed on my old Livejournal site since 2007 or so. I tend now to email this stuff to a select few and spare the greater world my special brand of spam 🙂
Still, I’ve rethought this approach, particularly as my parents even read this to find out what’s going on and I’ve been more or less silent, barring some writing-related news. There seems to be a cast-iron infallible belief amongst many aspirant writers that, above all else, you have to be professional at all times, and conduct yourself with perfect decorum in your online life, and most definitely in person when you are at cons or what have you.
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by Jason Fischer | Sep 27, 2010 | Announcement, Pimping, Publication, Writing
(for those of you who haven’t read these yet, the first two instalments of my WOTF retrospective can be found here https://jasonfischer.com.au/?p=136 and here https://jasonfischer.com.au/?p=155)
Immediately after the awards ceremony, we writers and illustrators made our way back into the hotel lobby. Before the ceremony, this had been the venue for our swanky dinner, now we found that we were at the site of our first book signing. The organisers of this event are nothing if not awesome, and it makes my head spin to think how quickly they effected this change!
The lobby of the Roosevelt, shortly after its transformation from a dining hall into a book launch/signing. Big stacks of the anthology can be seen in the middle of the room, and along the outside of the room the illustrators wait next to their framed illustrations. Most of the writers can be seen in the middle of the pic, madly signing away.
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by Jason Fischer | Sep 23, 2010 | Announcement, Publication, Writing
Just sold my story “Eating Gnashdal” to Keith Stevenson’s upcoming anthology Anywhere But Earth. Nice! Some more info about the book here:
http://keithstevenson.com/CDLblog/submissions/
And a list here of the other authors who so far have been accepted for this book, it already looks like a great line-up of local writers:
http://keithstevenson.com/CDLblog/2010/07/11/abe_update_3/
Many thanks to everyone at Clarion South who helped me with this story, and a big thanks to Russell B Farr for his advice and assistance.
by Jason Fischer | Sep 12, 2010 | Interview, Publication, Winner!, Writing
(Here is part 1 of my epic adventure for those who missed it: https://jasonfischer.com.au/?p=136)
So after returning to the Author Services building turning in our 24-hour stories, John Goodwin (President of Galaxy Press) dropped by to give our class a bit of a talk about media, self-promotion, and interviewing skills. This was really invaluable stuff – I’ve done other writing courses/camps/retreats before, and not once has anyone ever told me about how to conduct myself in an interview situation. Here’s a great example: If someone says to you “so, what’s your story about?” can you neatly summarise your tale in thirty seconds or so? Pretty much every time I’ve been asked this question, I come out with “there’s this guy, you see, and he lives in this land where so-and-so happens, and he has the ability to so-and-so, and then…” by which time the other person has a glazed look in their eyes and you’ve officially lost their interest.
Now change this into an interview setting with the media. You’ve got thirty seconds to sell yourself and your new product, to an interviewer who is probably not interested in the genre and who will unconsciously attempt to derail the conversation to more familiar territory. We were taught how to be concise, how to present ourselves, how to stick to the topic and answer the question we really want to answer (much as politicians do in interviews).
We were put into practice with our “twins” (person you’re sat next to for the workshop), and did dry-runs of our interviewing skills until we were blue in the face. This was invaluable, as later on we first prize winners did film and radio interviews, and all the contestants did film and taped interviews with the folks from Author Services after the awards ceremony. At some stage a filmed interview with us will appear at neverendingpanel.com, and we each did a spot for XM Radio. I’m sure glad we had a bit of practice first!
All books published by WOTF winners are kept in a very cool library, and I too have a book here! It’s the skinny one next to The Jane Austen Book Club.
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by Jason Fischer | Sep 10, 2010 | Announcement, Writing
I have mentioned this a few times now, but the time is finally here! Issue #6 of Midnight Echo (magazine of the Australian Horror Writer’s Association) is now open for submissions. This is the SF/Horror issue, co-edited by myself, David Conyers and David Kernot. Submission details as below:
http://australianhorror.com/index.php?view=144
This market is open to all, not just members of AHWA. So have a read of the guidelines, and send your creepy alien tales (of 5000 words or less) to midnightecho@australianhorror.com – it’s as easy as that.
If you have any queries, comment on this post or email me direct at mail@jasonfischer.com.au and I’ll do my best to answer them. Good luck and good writing!
