Fisho's Frolics

[straight talker]

There are plenty of yabbies left for everyone including BC !!! A recent photo doing the rounds of an unknown location in the Murray!

this photo has been going around for a long time it is coopers creek,they were walking on the roads everywhere.

[Jimmy]

I see you don't have to use the Harvard 'author-date' style of referencing. That was a nightmare to use when I was in uni, made doing assignments so much more complicated than it needed to be.

Really??? I never had an issue with it...I honestly can't see how anyone could....yet a few chicks in my course struggled with it....

[Media Park]

They struggled with dating authors???

[FlyingHigh]

Waiting for fishos GF day experiences.....

[fisho mcspaz]

Waiting for fishos GF day experiences.....

My GF day experience was rather bittersweet, actually - one of the times that reminds me my dad wanted a son, not a daughter. (Heard him say this to Mum when I was eight and never quite reconciled myself to it.) It's very frustrating because nine times out of ten when we go to the footy, we're good mates and he just laughs and tells me not to tell Mum that we drank and swore and got in fights with the other team's supporters. The tenth time - usually in the company of other McSpaz male family members - he'll tell me my behaviour isn't seemly for a woman and could I please be quiet, I'm hurting his ears (which gives me the s***s more than anything, because he's been deaf since 2001, when he fired off a starting pistol for a high-school sprint race without wearing his earmuffs. Also, I was molested no less than three times by various Centrals supporters. I hope grabbing my arse brightened their day at least and helped to numb the sorrows... But all in all, I thought it was a terrific win by the Eagles. You want your Grand Final victory to have you on the edge of your seat (at least you'll say that afterwards!) - I mean, we had the win in 2006 but that was an 84 or 86 (can't remember which) point flogging. I actually had a ball at that game, because I had a few mates in the Centrals cheersquad whom I hung around with for the first half. They bought me drinks so I wouldn't feel too bad when we lost, and then when they realised we probably weren't going to lose and started getting mouthy and violent, a lovely Eagles fan handed me a member's pass so I managed to escape over the other side of the ground five minutes before my Centrals pals were chucked out for being drunk and disorderly. (They'd have done the exact same thing to me if the shoe were on the other foot, so fair's fair, I say!) Anyway, I digress. 2011 was a win of epic proportions, and I sincerely hope we get to do it again this year. Let's all remember that premierships aren't won in April; at least, that's what I'm telling myself, and also telling Mr McSpaz, who is a Redlegs fan and is still rubbing in last week's effort.

It's been a while since I've been on here - I've had a lot going on. Work, study, writing, and to top it off I let my drinking get out of hand again and was done DUI in October. I'm not upset; I'm relieved. At least all of this is out in the open now; there's no hiding it or trying to excuse myself more. I may get off the charges if I undertake an intervention program, but we'll see how that goes. Anyway, at the moment I'm on sick leave from my Ph.D for three months, and I'm working on a completely different novel to my football one. This one's actually a novella; the plot's based on a true story, in this case being the 1727 smallpox epidemic that wiped out more than 90% of the population of the remote island of Hirta, west of Scotland. I'm submitting it to a competition in a couple of weeks' time and if it succeeds, I stand to win myself a fair amount of money plus publication deals for both a book and an eBook version. Fingers crossed.

With the Ph.D, I'm not feeling very motivated at the moment. And I'm liking the environment at uni less and less as time goes on. So I'm going to put together a resume and try my luck in the public sector. If I can get a decent job, I'll then be able to take indeterminate leave from my Ph.D until I feel like going back to it, and in the meantime I'll finally be bringing in some proper money for the household as opposed to my paltry $22K a year scholarship. Anyway, that's what I'm working on at the moment, and hopefully once I get it all sorted I'll have a bit more time to touch base on here - I miss writing my drivel and catching up with everyone.

So in a nutshell - that's what I've been up to, I'm going to disappear again for at least another month, and with a lot of luck, at the end of that month I'll finally have my life sussed out and be able to regale you all with my various whatsits again. If you want.

Much love,

Fisho

[Gozu]

The new book sounds apocalyptic so hopefully there are some zombies in it

[FlyingHigh]

Was hoping your day may have been better than that Fisho.
Good luck with your endeavours and challenges over the next few weeks.

[fisho mcspaz]

The new book sounds apocalyptic so hopefully there are some zombies in it

So far the closest I've come is a seal that turns into a person and weugfsejlkwjasglwkejgn OH MY GOD IT'S THE ICE CREAM TRUCK! There is actually an ice cream truck coming up the road!!!

I got up to go and chase it but I fell over the couch, and now the ice cream truck has turned the corner. Highlight of the weekend.

Anyway, oh yeah, the seal/person. There's a wealth of folklore from the Hebrides, Faroe and Orkney Islands about the selkies, or seal folk. Lots of different stories, but they generally revolve around the same two or three themes. I used one of my characters to narrate a version of the tale in which a man steals a selkie's sealskin, trapping her in human form. He then brings her home to be his wife (lovely) and some years later, one of her children discovers the sealskin hidden away and gives it to their mother; she pulls it on and dives into the ocean, never to be seen again by her family. But unfortunately there aren't any zombies in that story. There are, however, lots of bearded Scotsmen. Owing to reading too many Enid Blyton books as a child, I grew up believing that anyone with a beard must have something to hide. Which brings me to the question: when a bearded person is turned into a zombie, what happens to their beard? I'm quite sure I've never seen a zombie with a beard. Does it fall off, or does the zombie rip it out in big handfuls and devour it with a raucous triumphant cackle? Do the other zombies pin him down and shave it off as a prerequisite to becoming one of them? Are beards to zombies as kryptonite is to Superman? If anyone can answer this question satisfactorily, I will be very impressed.

One thing I'm having trouble with is killing off the villagers without making it too vile. Because it would have been absolutely f***ing revolting to watch, let's be honest. Don't do a Google Image search for 'smallpox' if you've just eaten. All the adults on the island died except one, although eighteen children survived. Those left living were too weak to bury their dead, and things remained in this state until the steward of the MacLeods, who owned Hirta, came for his annual visit, a good nine months after the epidemic. If I were Stephen King, I'd have a terrific time with all the ghastly superfluous details - pustules and encephalitis and rats gnawing at decaying bodies - but I'd rather set the scene with a bit more pathos.

[Gozu]

Shame about missing out on that ice-cream. I had a Barnacle Bills today for the first time since I was a kid, yummy.

That selkie stuff sounds interesting almost like a break off of mermaids in old folklore. Not sure I appreciate the rather sweeping generalisations of us bearded peoples! But you might be onto something as personally I do look like a complete muppet clean shaven and look much better with a goatee and/or beard. That does sound like a pretty interesting idea for a book and has a bit of a Van Diemen's Land feel to it. Isolated at the mercy of disease & the elements of the time.

Now zombies, have you ever seen the hit US TV show The Walking Dead, Fisho? I reckon you would like it, fantastic show aplocalyptic, excellent drama and zombies!!!

[Psyber]

It sounds like A E van Vogt may have used the Selkie concept as a springboard for his Sci Fi novel "The Silkie" published in the early 1970s.
That started with a theme of human mutant with aquatic capacity, and with space going capacity emerging as well.
His central character was male though.

[fisho mcspaz]

I see you don't have to use the Harvard 'author-date' style of referencing. That was a nightmare to use when I was in uni, made doing assignments so much more complicated than it needed to be.

Really??? I never had an issue with it...I honestly can't see how anyone could....yet a few chicks in my course struggled with it....

Harvard sucks. I started teaching at uni last year and I recommended that students use the footnote system. Partly because I dislike Harvard myself and partly because the Flinders History department insists upon the footnote system. I said that English is flexible (it wasn't in my time - ahhhh the good old days of 2003 when all my lecturers insisted on footnotes) but other disciplines won't be and so they might as well get used to using the footnote system now.

[fisho mcspaz]

I have never seen The Walking Dead nor read The Silkie, but I must make a point of doing both in the near future.

Very close to the finish line with my book now. I just need to tie up the endings of a few chapters and insert a passage about hunting fulmar on the cliffs of Hirta. But I don't like a lot of what I've written. It's boring and superfluous. I tell my students 'show, not tell' with their creative writing and I think I need to take my own advice.

Anyway, I'm struggling big time to finish this f***er. Anyone who has any ideas/motivational speeches to help me limp across the finish line, now would be a good time. I don't care how s*** it is, I just want to finish it. I can edit it tomorrow and next week.

[Q.]

I have never seen The Walking Dead nor read The Silkie, but I must make a point of doing both in the near future.

Very close to the finish line with my book now. I just need to tie up the endings of a few chapters and insert a passage about hunting fulmar on the cliffs of Hirta. But I don't like a lot of what I've written. It's boring and superfluous. I tell my students 'show, not tell' with their creative writing and I think I need to take my own advice.

Anyway, I'm struggling big time to finish this f***er. Anyone who has any ideas/motivational speeches to help me limp across the finish line, now would be a good time. I don't care how s*** it is, I just want to finish it. I can edit it tomorrow and next week.

"Hard work is a two-way street. You get back exactly what you put in."

[smac]

You can do it!

Insert Rob Schneider pic from Waterloo here.

[Jimmy_041]

You can do it!

Insert Rob Schneider pic from Waterloo here.

That would be Waterboy but it was 12.28 am

[smac]

Yes it was! Don't remember logging on last night!

[Lightning McQueen]

Yes it was! Don't remember logging on last night!

Ahhhh, sleep-surfing?

[smac]

Yeah... That was it!

[fisho mcspaz]

I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I FINISHED MY BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And no one is awake to celebrate with me, because it's three in the f***ing morning! That being said, I'm sure that if I went into the bedroom, jumped on Mr McSpaz and said 'Oi, get up and have a beer with me, I've just finished my book' that he'd get in the spirit of things and join me. But I'm only 80% certain, and it wouldn't be nice to bother him anyway, because he hasn't been sleeping the last two weeks, he's been worrying about me because I haven't been sleeping, I've been staying up late writing my book, and I've also had some terrible headaches + facial pain that have left me crying on the couch wishing I was dead. So I'd better let him sleep.

But, that reminds me - this is an awesome day in more ways than one, because not only did I finish my book, I also, FINALLY, got a conclusive diagnosis of my headaches. Two years of pain I've endured. God knows how much medicine I've pumped into my body to cope; I had my bloods done recently and was really surprised to find that my liver and kidneys were working better than ever, because I was sure I'd f***ed both up royally. Anyway, I had X-rays done and was diagnosed with TMJ dysfunction; my jaw isn't actually misaligned, I've just inflamed it and the trigeminal nerve from clenching my teeth in my sleep for years. Solution: custom-made mouthguard. I can hardly believe that such terrible pain can be remedied by something so simple, but my doctor is very optimistic so I am too.

I feel a bit strange writing about myself all the time, it seems quite narcissistic. But fair dinkum, I'm not being conceited, I'm just so proud of finishing my book. It's good. At least, I think it is at the moment - I'll probably go over it again tomorrow and see half a dozen areas that need tidying up. And I'm not so deluded as to think it's a marvellous creative piece of work. It's not great literature. But I do think it's a good story told reasonably well. At the moment, that's all I could ask for. I feel satisfied and complete in a way I haven't felt since I completed my Honours thesis four years ago. Whatever happens from now on with this book, I know I worked bloody hard on it, I definitely did my utmost where the research was concerned, and I love it. It's mine. I created it.

I'm sending it off to the Griffith Novella Project tomorrow. If it succeeds, I'll end up with ten grand and a publishing deal. If it doesn't, I'll keep trying to find a publisher. Regardless, if anything ever comes of it, I'll make an announcement on here.

[Gozu]

Congratulations Fisho!