Yesterday was Samhain, marking the end of the pagan new year. I’ve always found the holiday to be a good time for reflecting on the year past. Grounding myself and thinking about the year ahead. The gravity of that feels heavier than usual this year, because 2022 has been one of extreme challenges and growth.
The past few months have been ridiculously busy here. My first year working full time at Winter Is Coming has been an absolute blast, but since mid-July I’ve been firing on all cylinders due to the amount of crazy good fantasy and science fiction media coming out. I’d meant to write a blog post hitting some highlights from those past few months of covering shows, books, and movies, and I may still. But with the seasons changing and my focus balancing a little bit more squarely between fiction and journalism, I wanted to talk a bit more about what’s ahead…as well as a few big changes that have happened here.
I suppose the first thing to share is some good news: I’ve sold a new short story! It’s science fiction, which has been a wonderful stretch for me creatively. For the most part I’ve primarily written fantasy; this new short is one of only a handful of attempts at sci-fi in the 13 or so years I’ve been writing stories. I’m not allowed to talk about the details quite yet, but I’m very excited to share more soon.
Speaking of short stories, I’ll be spending the next few weeks writing even more of them. November is National Novel Writing Month, and I’ll be participating in a slightly different way this year. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words of a novel over the course of the month. Instead of the traditional NaNo, I’ll be focusing on short fiction instead, aiming to finish several different smaller stories. I have different aims for each, with some earmarked for submissions or self-publishing or other things. I’m keeping them close to the chest until I actually get some words down, because NaNo is hard enough without jinxing myself, but I’m very psyched to be taking part in the masochistic fun again this year!
The other big development over here is that my agent and I have parted ways. It was an amicable split, and for the best for all parties. One of those situations where it simply wasn’t the right fit. This happened only a couple of weeks ago, so I’m still processing exactly what it means in terms of where I’m going next with my writing. I’m far more excited than nervous, which feels pretty telling. At some point I am sure I’ll blog about the experience.
But that day is not today. For now, I’m just peeking out of my hobbit hole to say hey, and that I hope Halloween or Samhain or whatever else you may celebrate during this time has treated you well. Here’s to another year and a day of good stories.
Now back to work I go!
Daniel Roman 