A. P. Fuchs is the author of many novels and short stories. His most recent efforts of putting pen to paper are The Canister X Transmission: Year Two, Axiom-man Episode No. 3: Rumblings, The Dance of Mervo and Father Clown, and Mech Apocalypse. Also a cartoonist, he is known for his superhero series, The Axiom-man Saga, both in novel and comic book format.
Fuchs’s main website is www.canisterx.com
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I met A. P. Fuchs way back when we were all young and foolish and driven. He stuck around while others fell. My warrior-brethren!
1. What do you want to talk about, but nobody ever asks?
Why the mid-listers who bashed self-publishing and the writers who also did suddenly started doing it themselves. Seems extraordinarily hypocritical and I don’t buy the answer you can now make money self-publishing. You could make money self-publishing before the eBook boom — I did — so a better answer is required.
My whole take on what happened is simple: their market dried up so out of desperation to keep things afloat, they self-published their backlist when they either got dropped by a publisher or the publisher closed its doors. The irony is, back in the day, they called us self-publishers desperate and not real writers, and eBooks weren’t real books, etc. My, how the tables have turned. But no one will ever admit to this because it’ll make them look bad and/or foolish and/or desperate. Which is a shame because writing and publishing is supposed to be about honesty and telling the truth (even truth veiled in fiction).
So, in my opinion, they’re dropping the ball in that regard and need to step up their game because publishing goes beyond simply writing books and releasing them. I like the idea that writers — sorry, “authors” — should also be journalists. Again, the idea that truth is prevalent in whatever they’re concocting. I just don’t see it happening and the almighty dollar is part of that reason. Writing should transcend money despite publishing being a business. Art should come first, then the check. I also realize I’m in the minority on this one.
2. What advice do you wish you’d received, but didn’t, when you first started to take writing seriously?
A lot, but if I were to pick just one thing, it would be the importance of point-of-view in a narrative. I didn’t know about point-of-view on my first two books — the first was published by a vanity press, the second one is unpublished — but I wish I did. I hired an editor to edit my second book and what I got back was a manuscript that looked like someone spilled red paint over it. It was the best monetary investment I’ve ever made in my career and I learned so much from the editor’s notes.
Nowadays, I’m a massive stickler on point-of-view and any time it strays I get mad. It’s such a simple concept yet writers don’t seem to understand it. You can explain it to them this way: be one with the character. You can only know, think or feel what the character knows, thinks or feels, and you can only know what they perceive through their five senses. Anything beyond that is a breach of point-of-view. It’s the same in life. I only know what I know, feel, and think, and I only perceive what I perceive. I don’t know or feel or think or perceive what you do, Jon, unless you tell me.
I also want to take this opportunity to share the greatest piece of writing advice/perspective I’ve ever received, and it’s this: It’s only a book. Kingdoms won’t rise and fall because of it.
3. What are your regular habits as a writer?
Getting shit done every day, whether a little or a lot. My first book took a total of eleven months to write, nine of which were actually writing it. Two of those months were the only time I had writer’s block until I realized writer’s block is horseshit and only an excuse not to write. There is no reason a book should take eleven months to write unless you’re writing an obscenely long fantasy epic or are writing every third or fourth day or something. Case in point: I’ve written a book in a week, and wrote two books in three weeks. The readers loved them. Speed doesn’t mean poor quality so long as you’re invested in the project.
I also drink a stupid amount of coffee like most writers and vape and smoke a lot. I’m also on medications to keep me stable so I can work without worrying about falling apart.
I keep notes, but not a whole lot. Sometimes I outline, if you want to call it that, because it’s more a point-form list of this happens, then this, then that, then this, each point on the outline — which are no longer than a sentence — the core of a scene.
There’s more, but I don’t want to give away all my secrets.
4. What is your editing process?
This will be a short answer because there is not much information to give. My book goes through six stages and then it’s press time.
1) Write the first draft
2) Write the second draft (content editing, proofing, expanding or shortening scenes)
3) Write the third draft (which is basically the same as number 2)
4) Book goes to my editor who does a thorough edit for the same stuff I do.
5) Get the book back from my editor and go through his edits to accept or reject them. I accept, on average, about 95% of his edits. The remaining 5% are matters of taste and opinion and I typically stick with what I originally wrote.
6) Partially format the book for press then go through it one more time. After that, it’s press day and I don’t sleep for 24 hours while I finish the formatting and do the remainder of the work to turn the galley into a published book.
5. What is your greatest difficulty as a writer?
Sometimes I can’t get into the story as much as I would like. It’s a dream when you live and breathe a book during it’s writing process, but when your heart is not completely into a project — even though you want to do the project — it takes discipline to hit the keyboard anyway and punch out 500 words as a minimum. However, I’ve been fortunate in that the books I’ve found the hardest to write and are the ones that come out the best. No idea why. Maybe some sort of subconscious fuck you to myself to show myself up. I don’t know.
6. How do you decide which book to read next?
Either whatever’s next on the TBR pile, or whatever one speaks to me. It’s like browsing your DVD collection. Oh, sorry, Blu-ray collection. A movie just jumps out at you. Same with books.
Nothing complicated or over thought here.
7. What is your greatest single ambition?
To be a popular writer and artist, and to finish The Axiom-man Saga, my fifty-book superhero epic. I know you only asked for a single ambition but those two are tied together.
8. Why don’t you quit?
Because I suck at everything else in life so might as well stick with what others have told me I’m good at.
