SethFleisher.com

75k

Seth Fleisher — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:47:41 +0000

That's what I hit last night. Seventy-five thousand words on the novel, which also happens to leave me at almost precisely the half-way mark. It took sixteen months to get here.

Sixteen months from now, I'll buy you all a drink.

Release of LOLA, CALIFORNIA Today

Seth Fleisher — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:20:08 +0000

Edie Meidav's third novel, LOLA, CALIFORNIA hits the stores today. Edie's an old friend from my Sri Lanka days--her first two novels were fantastic and I expect nothing less from the newest one from FSG. Here's what's already being said:

--One of the "most anticipated books of 2011." - Max McGee, The Millions; Ed Champion, WNYC-New York

--"Brilliant . . . awesome." - Publisher's Weekly

--"In this intense and tumultuous tale, Meidav adeptly limns the dark and sinuous obsessions of friendship with penetrating insights." - Booklist

PS Here's some musical honey: get the new free songs for LOLA, from the score composed by Kevin Salem, at http://www.kevinsalem.com/Lola.html

Readings:

July 9 (Rhinebeck/Oblong)

July 16: (Woodstock/Kleinart)

July 20: (Seattle/Elliott Bay)

July 23 (Mendocino/The Gallery)

July 28: (Berkeley/Mrs. Dalloway's)

July 30: (Gualala/Four-Eyed Frog)

August 4: (San Francisco/Book Passage)

August 5: (Montclair/A Great Good Place for Books)

"Someone" Has Been Remiss

Seth Fleisher — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:19:20 +0000

I don't want to name names, but it seems that someone (nudge nudge) has not posted on his blog in quite some time. I'm sure he has all kinds of great excuses for being out of commission for so long. But instead of harping on these, perhaps "someone" could just come out and admit that he might have done better. What's past is past. Yes, he may have been spending every free second working through his novel. Yes, he may have just passed the 52,000 word mark, but surely he owes something to the rest of us. An apology is not going to be enough, of course--but it seems like a reasonable place to start.

Maybe "someone" could take the hint, own up to the mistake, and issue said apology...when he can pull himself away from his other "writing project" for a moment.

Persons Are People

Seth Fleisher — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:13:15 +0000

After hearing my three-year-old refer to a group of kids he'd met at the park as "persons" (pron. "pawsons"), my mother reminded me that when I was roughly the same age, angered that she wouldn't give in to some random demand of mine--an army toy or a twelfth chocolate chip cookie--I declared with Hollywood-level drama, "I'm a person. And persons have feelings too."

Which got me thinking about persons and my novel. The story is told in alternating chapters from the points of view of a father and son on two different continents in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. I had been writing both narratives in close third person, as I often prefer to do with my fiction, but still hadn't found the exact voice I wanted for the son's chapters. The story is intended to be his story, and I needed to nail the voice.

On a whim, late one night last week, I went back and rewrote one of his chapters in first person, and eureka!, I hit on it. You know what I mean--when you knock right into a voice you've been searching for and you feel it resonate almost bodily?

So, I'm planning to keep writing the son's chapters in first person, at least for a while, as I think I'm onto something and it's suddenly feeling like less of a struggle with him. Certainly possible that when I get to the end of the book, I'll choose to switch his chapters back to third person, but by then, well, I'll have the book, and it will hopefully just be a matter of tinkering.

You writers out there--do you prefer to write from a certain point of view in your own fiction?

SWKTR8UPRAMP

Knee-Deep

Seth Fleisher — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:02:21 +0000

I've been remiss, and not just because of an ill-timed work trip to Rwanda. I'm knee-deep in my novel.

The novel proposal's been something of a hit. Turns out people want to see pages. Pages! Who knew that in order to sell a novel you'd have to, well, write a novel? Makes things that much more complicated.

So I've been writing. And making decent progress. With solid drafts of the first three chapters, I'm already nearing the 20k word mark, which leaves me with, let me see, only another hundred thousand words left to write. Hmmm....

So I suppose I should get to it. Happy Memorial Day y'all.

PS And on the right, my brand new bathing suit. (No photos please.)