A few weeks back I recorded an episode as a guest on The Publishing Rodeo Podcast, a fantastic podcast hosted by authors Sunyi Dean and Scott Drakeford which discusses the nuts and bolts of the traditional publishing industry. It was such a blast to record the episode, and as of today it’s out in the world and available to listen!
The Publishing Rodeo
If you’re a writer pursuing publication for novels and aren’t familiar with The Publishing Rodeo, it is absolutely worth checking out. Sunyi and Scott both released their debut novels, THE BOOK EATERSand RISE OF THE MAGES respectively, during the same year with the same publisher, yet have had wildly different experiences. I’ve been listening to publishing podcasts for years, but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard one which breaks down the author business experience with this level of transparency. Publishing does love its secrets, and this podcast is saying the quiet part quite loudly.
The Publishing Rodeo is an invaluable resource for anyone walking the writing career path with an eye toward publication. Plus, Sunyi and Scott are really great hosts with an entertaining and informative interview style (as well as just generally wonderful people). We discussed what publishing PR looks like from the media side of things, mainly drawing on my experience at Winter Is Coming where I handle a lot of the site’s fantasy and science fiction book-related coverage. We went over reviews and lists, how to conduct yourself when reaching out to media people and book bloggers, social media, marketing, and a ton of other stuff.
One of the things I really loved about this interview was that it let me wear both my journalist/editor hat as well as my fiction author hat. I have some experience in both of those areas, which means that often when I’m doing my job as a journalist, there’s still a part of my brain that’s thinking about stuff from a fiction author’s perspective as well. I like thinking about why publishers make the choices they make, and how that fits together with the rest of the book publishing and media ecosystem. It’s hard to understate what a total pleasure this discussion was! I hope that if you’re an author or publishing professional, you find it helpful.
You can listen to the episode of The Publishing Rodeo here, as well as in all the usual podcast places. And of course, don’t forget to follow The Publishing Rodeo on Twitter to stay up-to-date with their latest episodes!
Somehow, we’re already closing in on spring and this blog has accumulated a fair amount of cobwebs. It’s been a couple months since I’ve updated, and the time feels nigh to do that and fill you in on what I’ve been up to. It’s been quite a lot, so I’ll try to keep it to the CliffsNotes for now, with the promise that I’ll be writing about some of the bigger things more in the coming weeks.
Most of my time these past few months has been devoted to my work at Winter Is Coming, primarily covering television shows like House of the Dragon, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Orville: New Horizons, The Peripheral, and other fantasy and sci-fi fare of that sort. I expected things to quiet down a little moving into the new year, but then The Last of Us came along and that plan went totally out the window. I had no idea how obsessed I was going to become with that series, both the show and games. I’ve written a borderline embarrassing amount about it since January (which you can find all of over at WiC under The Last of Usheading).
I’ve also been working hard to bring more coverage about fantasy and science fiction books to the site. During the House of the Dragon rush last year I reached a point where I really wasn’t able to review books at all, which bugged me a lot because there are so many great novels I want to shout about from the rooftops. One way I’ve been pushing back against that this year (aside from just reading and reviewing more), is by publishing a round-up of new books that are releasing each month. If you’ve been itching for more fantasy or sci-fi novels to add to your TBR, my lists for January, February, and March are all at your disposal. April will be up…well, when it’s April. I usually try to do these things around the beginning of each month.
Overall it’s been a lot of fun to immerse myself in the work at WiC, but also somewhat exhausting at times. Thankfully, with The Last of Us winding down, I have some breathing room to balance my schedule a little better for my fiction projects. It’s been much needed, because there have been a few developments on that front as well.
The first is that I can share a bit more about my new short story that’s slated for release this summer. It’s titled “Preserving Phylais,” and once again I’ll be teaming up with Zombies Need Brains for it. This one is science fiction, about a human colony adjusting to life on a planet ruled by sentient plants. It will be available on July 1, 2023 as part of the ZNB Presents online magazine, which you can access through the ZNB Patreon, and will release in print and ebook in the ZNB Presents: Year Two anthology sometime in late 2024.
Beyond short fiction, the other project eating up a lot of my time is my novel THE FOREST HEART. I mentioned during a previous update that my agent and I had parted ways (which I still plan to do a detailed post about soon). During our time working together, we sent THE FOREST HEART out on submission to publishers. Alas, it died on sub…but it wasn’t a clean enough death for me to give up hope on the book. There’s an adage I’ve heard a lot in publishing, that you should try to “give your book its best shot” if you went through all the trouble to write it. The simplest way to describe my sub experience is that the book went on sub, got some encouraging rejections and some discouraging ones, but didn’t receive the “best shot” at the process it could have. Suffice it to say, I have a lot of thoughts about the experience.
I’m currently working on a revision of that book, and making plans about where I’m going to take it next. I have a strong idea about how I’d like to release THE FOREST HEART, but it’s still a bit too early to talk details. For now, the revisions are going well and improving the manuscript in ways I couldn’t have fathomed back when I was on submission. As it turns out, writing hundreds of thousands of words for your day job can really improve your writing, even if all those words were for articles instead of novels.
At the same time, I’ve also been doing some exploratory drafting on a few other books, trying to decide which of them to tackle next. I’m finding that some days, my brain feels more wired for revisions, while others it hungers for drafting. So I’m keeping things very low pressure for now, just feeding the muse and enjoying the process. (Or trying to. I have a chronic problem with putting pressure on myself if I don’t feel productive; the curse of being a Capricorn.)
That about catches us up to now! I’m sure I’ve forgotten things, but this has already turned into a pretty long post. If you’ve read this far…thank you! I appreciate that you’ve taken the time. May you receive the karmic recompense of good stories in your near future.
Happy National Novel Writing Month! Whether you’re a writer participating, you’ve heard about NaNoWriMo because of friends taking part, or you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, I wish you a month filled with stories. For hundreds of thousands of authors, November is a time to attempt the Herculean task of writing 50,000 words (around 200 pages) of a novel over the course of 30 days. In other words, expect me and plenty of others to be in caffeine-fueled hazes of delirium for the next few weeks while we spend more time with our characters than actual people.
Though part of me rails at the thought, 2022 marks thirteen years since I started writing more seriously. I’ve participated in NaNo many times over that span; often I failed to hit the goal, other times I conquered it. But regardless of the amount of words I actually managed during the month, I always felt like I emerged from NaNoWriMo in a much better position than I entered it.
The thing I love most about National Novel Writing Month is that it’s a perfect excuse to re-evaluate your writing schedule. If you’re already pushing your storytelling to the limit on a daily basis, it can be a super productive month to finish out the year. If you’ve been on a writing hiatus, it’s an excellent opportunity to get back into gear. And if you’re somewhere in the middle, as I was this year, it can be great for finding the equilibrium to start making headway again.
Whether you “win” NaNoWriMo or not, that hard check on your priorities and time management can be an incredible learning experience. The 50,000 words can be amazing to have under your belt, but the habits developed along the way can be even better in the long run.
NaNoWriMo is perfect for reflecting on your writing journey and needs
How does writing fit into your lifestyle and schedule? The answer will change throughout your career, often whenever your life shifts in major or even sometimes minor ways. Since NaNoWriMo is a month to prioritize writing stories, it’s also the perfect time to reassess whether that balance needs to be adjusted to accommodate where you are now, as opposed to where you used to be.
For me, the name of the game this NaNo has been finding ways to better balance my day job writing with my creative writing. The biggest change from last year’s event to this one is that I’m now working full time at Winter Is Coming and writing articles for the site most every day. On average I churn out around 3,000 words per day; some days less, others much more. Generally, I’m writing quite a lot.
That makes turning around and writing fiction in my after-work hours a lot more challenging than it was when I worked at other day jobs or did the starving artist thing, focusing solely on my writing and music. At WiC I’m using the same muscles for work that I do for writing stories. And as much as I try to convince my body otherwise, I only have a finite amount of time and energy each day to get all the things I want to done.
Learning how to coordinate my natural biorhythms with my work and life needs has been essential. Try though I might, waking up early to write simply isn’t my thing. I’ve always been a night owl. It’s just the way I’m wired, and a big part of my creativity has always lived in those magic hours when the world is asleep. I literally wrote the first draft of this blog post at 2 a.m. so yeah…this is just what I do.
For this first week and a half of NaNoWriMo, I’ve just been enjoying taking the time to explore what it means to better balance my two separate writing schedules, and remember why I love writing stories in the first place. It’s been refreshing as hell, if I’m being honest.
Sticking with that that idea of keeping things low pressure, I’ve been doing things a little differently this NaNo: instead of working on a novel, I’m aiming to finish a few pieces of shorter fiction. Tonight I completed the first one, capping off a science fiction novelette that I’ve been wanting to finish for months. I’m not sure if I’ll ever share it, and it almost certainly is not very good in its current state…but the act of simply writing it has been a blast. And finishingit has been even more of one. I’m very excited to move onto the next, and keep writing through the month!
Whether I hit the wordcount or not, if I come away from November with a better understanding of where I am right now as a writer and some habits that better fit my needs, I’ll count that as a win.
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.
We’re well into the summer, which means I’ve officially passed my one year anniversary of being on submission. Since a year feels kind of like it should be a milestone marker, I figured I’d pop onto the blog and share some thoughts about what I’ve learned from this last year and change on sub.
It’s been a long road, filled with a swirling maelstrom of emotions. Being on sub is pretty similar to querying, except you have far less control. Instead of you sending your book to agents, your agent is sending your book out to editors at publishing houses. Having a novel out on sub is a weird, isolating, magical and often stressful experience, and it’s one that gets talked about in the writing community a bit less than, say, querying or the run up to the release of a debut book once you’ve signed a deal. Despite spending years researching the traditional publishing process, querying, conventions and any number of other topics, sub was one part of the publishing journey that I knew basically nothing about before I was in it. I’ve met a lot of writers who felt similarly.
However I’ve since discovered plenty of other amazing writers who have talked about their experience on submission. Which is great. The more that information is shared to remove some of the mystery surrounding these crucial aspects of the writing career path, the better. So I guess this me trying to add a little more to that.
Long post ahead!
A desk. It’s much tidier than mine. (Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
You’ll learn a hundred new ways of looking after your mental health…and periodically fail at all of them. One thing you’ll hear pretty consistently from most people who’ve been on sub for any amount of time is how emotionally challenging it can be. Unless you’re in the lucky minority whose books sell very quickly (it does happen, rarely), it’s totally normal to go through all sorts of emotions while on sub. Mitigating those feelings can often feel like running on a treadmill, where stressors pop up and in response you discover new ways of keeping yourself grounded, healthy, and focused during this time. But no matter how well you do at it, you’ll inevitably have days where you don’t feel great and question every life choice you’ve ever made. That’s okay, it’s normal, and it’s happened to pretty much every single writer I’ve talked to who’s been on sub. Being gentle with yourself in those moments is so important.
Develop/fine tune your writing process and habits. Working with your natural biorhythms can be a game changer. I often write fiction at night and have always gravitated toward that. When I accepted that and worked with it instead of telling myself that I “wasn’t a real writer” if I didn’t wake up at 5am to write or force myself onto a rigid schedule, it made writing much easier. Mileage may vary here, and your needs as a writer can and often do change as the years pass, but at the end of the day, the right thing for you as a writer is whatever gets you writing.
“At the end of the day, the right thing for you as a writer is whatever gets you writing.”
Honing your ability to discern actionable editorial feedback, trends in feedback from rejections, and what to let roll off your shoulders. This can often be much easier said than done. A general rule of thumb is to not take any one particular bit of criticism too deeply on submission, with a few crucial caveats.
If the critique resonates with you on a gut level, either when you first receive it or months later when you realize that thing you dismissed outright because they were talking about your baby was actually a pretty good idea. If you feel it could make the story better, and hearing the criticism helps you realize how that could be the case, then it’s always worth paying attention to.
If you see a through line in the rejections. These can range from easily decipherable to opaque and anywhere in between.
To give a few examples from my own experience, my novel is a 240k word adult epic fantasy. I know the market well enough, and designed this book intentionally enough as a doorstopping tome that I was confident in it, but always expected to receive length rejections. One day I’ll talk more about that, but suffice it to say that we did get some rejections that cited length, primarily from smaller publishers. This was an easy through line to spot, but also one I knew not to worry about unless it was a blanket response from everyone (which it wasn’t).
However, you might also find yourself in a position where you’re getting different, sometimes conflicting feedback. This is actually a very good thing, even if it can feel confusing. It means different aspects of your work are resonating with different people, and that there is not necessarily an easily identifiable weak point in the book. I once got two rejections on the same day; one said the equivalent of “I loved the characters but couldn’t get into the plot” while the other said “The plot was compelling but I didn’t connect with the characters.” That’s a great example of non-actionable feedback, because it’s clearly a matter of personal preference.
However, after getting a few more rejections, I did notice a common complaint that was never worded exactly the same, but amounted to one consistent idea: that the story wasn’t immediately gripping from page one. It’s a door-stopping epic fantasy tome, and is set up for a longer payoff…but as I thought about this, I did see a way to improve the book that could help with that. The more feedback you get on submission, the more you hone your ability to discern the difference between the actionable feedback, and the kind you don’t need to sweat over.
Either way, it’s good to at least think on all of it. Even if it’s not actionable, there may still be something to be learned. And an editor took the time to give it to you, after all!
Communication is key. When in doubt, talk to your agent. If they’re good at what they do, you’ll often leave feeling better than you started even if you’re discussing difficult topics. You’ll be figuring out the dynamic of this relationship while on submission as well, and good communication is an extremely important foundation. Learning your agent’s communication style, how it meshes with yours, and discussing things is crucial.
Learning to work with agents could be its own post, but since I don’t know when I’ll get to that, I’ll just say there are plenty of good places out there that discuss it in depth. The Bookends Literary Agency YouTube channel is a personal favorite, and sci-fi author Michael Mammay’s blog has plenty of good stuff on the topic as well.
Make writer friends! Good communication extends way beyond your agent. In general, I’m a huge supporter of the idea that meeting other writers is pretty much always a good thing. We’ve all come to this crazy writing path for different reasons, from different places, and with different goals, but the mere fact that we’re all here means that none of us are alone. It’s great to make writer friends for your sanity (and your career).
I think a good piece of advice is to connect with other writers at the same stage or slightly ahead of you…but really, it’s just good to make friends with anyone! I’m a big proponent of leading with just being a human being first. I used to cringe at the idea of networking, almost treating it like a dirty word because the idea of connecting with people with business aims felt fake or something. But really, networking is about being a person who wants to meet other people working in your field, and just being nice, professional, and kind. Being mindful of how you can help each other out becomes a lot easier when you’re not thinking of it like business levers, but instead as people you know whose work you want to support, or hope might one day be willing to help support you. Note the order of those two things. No one enjoys when someone comes hard at them with the asks without first establishing a relationship (unless it’s your literal job, like you work in PR. But even then, those are relationships too.) Remember that every person you meet is…a person. Like it or not, publishing is a relationship driven business, and one of the best ways to build relationships is to just be supportive of your community and those in it.
Speaking of networking, sub is a great time to work on your author platform. Sub is the perfect time for you to stretch your proverbial legs and get a feel for what it would be like to manage your online presence as an author. How would you want to organize things? How often would you like to blog, to send mailing list blasts, to post to social media? Which of those tools do you even want to utilize?
These kinds of questions will need fine tuning continuously throughout your career, but being on sub is a great place to start thinking about them if you haven’t already. A massive platform is absolutely not necessary to get a fiction book deal. The book has to speak for itself, and the biases of the market also play a huge role. That said, if you have an attractive social media presence (that doesn’t mean just numbers, but how you handle your presence), it can only look good to publishers. Same for having a mailing list, and all those other marketing things that keep writers up at night. You don’t have to do them all, but it’s good to decide what you want to do, and sub is a perfect time figure it out.
You’ll have time to obsess. Which can make it the best time for re-evaluating aspects of your career…and also the worst. My rule of thumb is when I catch myself thinking in circles, it’s probably time to go do something else. Like…go for a walk. Or look at something other than a screen.
Keep working however you can. One of the most common pieces of sub advice I see is “write your next book.” And if you can do that, yeah, that is one of the best possible things you can do on sub. But even more important than writing a next book is just to keep writing, period. Whether it’s a novel, short stories, articles, blog posts, novellas, whatever; each does different things for your craft and career. Any writing is better than no writing.
That said if you do need a break, be kind to yourself. Recognize burnout and your natural reactions when you actually want to sit down and write. Does sitting at your computer make you feel like a weight is pressing down on you, and your mind is working through mud? Sometimes taking breaks, resting, or refueling the well is the best thing you can do for your writing. Your mental stamina and capacity are the fuel on which your writing business runs. Like any other bodily function it is not infinite, but it does recharge. For my money, learning to manage that resource is one of the most crucial aspects of developing a writing career.
Over the course of the past six months I’ve transitioned to a full time writing/editorial job while simultaneously continuing to work on novels, and the thing I’ve found most challenging about it is balancing this physical capacity for writing. It’s helped me come to realize that when you’re in a position to put your all into writing, eventually you’ll still hit a point where your mind simply can’t push itself anymore; when it just shuts off, and lets you know the work is done for that session. This can vary day by day, week by week, project by project…but in general I’ve found a much more harmonious and productive writing lifestyle by learning to recognize and work with those natural limits than to constantly batter against them and wish they were higher, believing I wasn’t capable, or dedicated, or some other not enough while the real answer was simply that I needed rest. It never ceases to amaze me how much easier a writing problem I spent hours staring glassy-eyed at when I was exhausted becomes after a night of sleep.
Speaking of being kind to yourself: Life happens. Remember that regaining momentum after a break is one of the hardest parts of an artistic career, so be patient with yourself. This is true for any career or activity or hobby, really. What stays in motion tends to stay in motion, what’s at rest wants to stay at rest. It’s why we all hate Mondays so much. (Don’t lie, you know you do.)
This has gotten pretty long, so I’ll leave you with this final piece of advice, one of the best I was ever given. Just. Keep. Going.
When I was a bookseller at Barnes & Noble, I had an older co-worker who had been involved in various creative careers for most of her life; writing, dancing, sailing around the world and teaching, a whole lot of things. She shared a piece of advice with me that I’ve never forgotten. “The one common trait that every single successful creative has is that they just kept going.” They refused to give up on their dream, their passion, this thing they loved so much that they couldn’t bear to not be doing it. Careers often take turns we don’t expect, for the good and the bad. They’re like life that way. The only certain way to fail at something is to give up.
If you’re on sub right now, or contemplating this path, keep your head up. The road can be daunting, but you don’t walk it alone.
It’s been a little hard to focus these past few days. Politico broke the news this week that the Supreme Court is considering overturning Roe v Wade in the United States, which would revoke the federal protections for abortion and cause individual state laws to dictate its legality. If that happened, safe abortions would almost immediately become banned, or so severely limited that they might as well be banned, in almost half of the United States. It’d be the kind of nightmarish societal implosion that should only exist in the cautionary tales of science fiction novels. Yet here we are.
Part of the reason I’ve been so quiet on the blog these past few months is because I’ve had a difficult situation at home…which is unfortunately very relevant to the current discourse. I didn’t imagine I’d end up talking about it this way, but given everything that’s happening it doesn’t feel right to keep it to myself.
At the beginning of 2021, my wife and I were eagerly anticipating our first child. We had been trying to start a family for a while, and were beyond excited when we discovered we were having a baby.
Just over a month and a half ago, we made the decision to end the pregnancy after the 20-week scan of the baby discovered a birth defect that would have seriously impacted our child’s livelihood. The scans at 12 and 16 weeks both came back without any issues, showing our baby was healthy. Somewhere between 16 and 20 weeks, that changed. The chances of debilitating, lifelong complications were extremely high, if the baby survived.
We did not want to get an abortion. We explored every option, and seriously considered continuing the pregnancy. But after an exhausting amount of research and meeting with multiple specialists, it became clear it was the best choice for all of us, the baby included. We had less than a two week window in which to make our decision before the procedure would no longer have been an option.
Only after we actually went through with the abortion did we find out that the baby had already passed away, sometime between our 20-week scan and the surgery.
Since then, I’ve often caught myself reflecting on how lucky we are to live in a state (New York) where getting an abortion was even an option for us. If it hadn’t been, it would have unnecessarily prolonged what was already one of the most difficult experiences of our lives. We still would have lost the baby, but would have been forced to use a less safe procedure because we would have had to wait weeks longer, putting my wife’s well-being at even greater risk. Having options in that moment was so incredibly important; not having them would have made the situation exponentially worse. It’s hard to truly fathom what an enormous difference that makes until you are standing in that doctor’s office, facing down a decision you never dreamed you’d have to make.
Banning safe, doctor-facilitated abortions is cruel and irresponsible. It will not stop people from having abortions, only force them to be done under more dangerous conditions. Deciding to end a pregnancy is a deeply personal decision, and not something any government should have a say in. There are many reasons why an abortion might become necessary for someone. And from the wording of the leaked Supreme Court document and arguments they’re entertaining in states like Mississippi, it’s clear those very valid medical concerns and practices are not being even remotely considered.
This week has been the first time either my wife or I have talked about what we went through outside of closed conversations with a handful of people. It’s insane to think that the very rights that kept her safe less than two months ago are in jeopardy. Insane that the next people who need those rights might not have access to them. Insane that this discussion is even happening in 2022.
And just like that, we’ve already cruised through the first week of 2022. It’s amazing how time flies. I hope that you had an excellent holiday season, and an even better start to your New Year.
I’ve been busy settling into my new job as the associate editor of Winter Is Coming. Half of that has been getting accustomed to everything my new post entails (and writing…a lot of writing), the other half has been getting a feel for how I’ll be slotting my other creative pursuits into my daily schedule. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything even remotely close to a regular day job schedule, but surprisingly I’m finding that I have way more time and energy to work on other stuff then I’d expected. So while this week has consisted of a lot of adjusting, I’m really excited to dig into this new schedule and get to work this year.
Which brings me to the “what I did last year” section of the post, because that was something I meant to talk about before the end of 2021 and just didn’t get a chance to. One thing I’m trying to embrace more this year is being easier on myself about those kind of slips. Writing has a habit of swelling to fit the time you allow it, and for me it always feels like I’ve got ten times more to do than I’m getting done — even when what I’m getting done is actually quite a lot.
That was certainly the case last year. For as many difficulties as 2021 held, it also somehow ended up being one of the best years of my writing career to-date. Hell, maybe the best year, though I’m hopeful that 2022 will top it. Early last year I sold my first short story — and it was published in the summer as part of THE MODERN DEITY’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING HUMANITY anthology. I actually got to hold a book with my writing in it, finally! I signed with a literary agent, and we took one of my novels out on submission. It’s still out on submission, because the process can stretch on (especially during these pandemic times). We’ve gotten rejections from several editors, and are waiting to hear back from several more. I also wrote half of a new book, a new short story (which I just sent out on its first submission!), and a truck load of articles for Winter Is Coming. It’s hard to choose favorites among all the work I did over at WiC this past year, but one of the things I’m most proud of are the interviews I did with C.L. Clark, Andrea Stewart, and Fonda Lee. I love talking with authors about their work, and doing those sorts of interviews has been one of my babies at the site. I also interviewed Joshua Palmatier, founder and editor of Zombies Need Brains, right here on the blog.
The twin capstones to the year in writing were that I was hired as the associate editor of Winter Is Coming (which happened just before Christmas), and going to Worldcon.
The Zombies Need Brains table at the Worldcon Dealer’s Room. Can you spot THE MODERN DEITY’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING HUMANITY?
All told, it was a pretty badass year for me. Surviving these insane times we live in was up there on the achievement list too, perhaps the most badass thing of all. I’m certainly not taking it for granted.
But while it’s nice to think back on last year, we’re already into 2022 and I’m already looking forward to the year ahead. I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions, because honestly there’s just been so much that I’ve had to deal with that it feels a little redundant. My main New Year’s resolution is just to step up and keep meeting the universe halfway, doing the things that need doing, and putting as much energy into my writing, music, and home life as I can. It’s possible I’ll come up with some more finite goals as the month goes on though, because that’s the way my list-happy brain works. I’m already starting to feel “read a book a week” creeping up on me, because I finished a book this week and that felt pretty good. (And there are a lot that I want to read coming out this year.)
But for now, I’m just feeling incredibly grateful to be where I am, doing what I’m doing. That includes talking to you here on the blog…because I also started this website right around this time last year! So thank you for reading, and for coming along on the journey with me. It’s been so exciting, and I can’t wait to share more adventures in the coming months.
Here’s to hoping 2022 is kind to you, and filled with good stories. To the year ahead!
What I’m reading: CIBOLA BURN by James S.A. Corey
What I’m watching: Cobra Kai, The Book of Boba Fett
What I’m playing: Pokemon Shield, Animal Crossing, Hades
Happy holidays! I hope you and your loved ones had an excellent weekend, wherever the path may have led you, and that you’re getting lots of rest and festivities in this week as we head toward the New Year. The past few months since I updated the blog have somehow felt like they’ve flown and crawled by turns, but here we are at the end of the year. 2021 has been both extremely challenging, as well as the most exciting year of my writing career to-date. A year of juxtapositions, if ever there was one.
All I know is that I’m both extremely grateful and relieved to be sitting here writing this, and to look back on all the adventures the past twelve months have held. I’ll be talking more generally in my year-end reflection, which I hope to have up later this week, but for now I figured I’d updated on one particular thing while my excitement about it is still hot. (Aka, before I clear all the related swag and pamphlets off my work table.)
The weekend before the holidays, I attended Worldcon in Washington D.C. I’ve been wanting to go to a Worldcon for…gosh, I guess around a decade now. Considering that this year’s convention was a mere eight hours away and that I also made my first pro short story sale in 2021, it felt like this was the one. Due to general life upheaval, pandemic stresses, and whatever else, I waffled on whether or not I’d be able to go for months leading up to the event. But then the stars kind of aligned to let me know it was the right time. So Valorie and I packed ourselves up and road tripped down to Washington D.C., stayed with some family friends, and took the metro out to the Omni Shoreham Hotel for the con on Friday and Saturday.
(Yes, I did have to run up that escalator from the train station at one point during the weekend. No, I did not die — though it was a close thing.)
What an experience! I thought it might be cool to highlight some of my favorite parts:
Getting to meet tons of awesome people! This was absolutely my favorite thing about the convention. I got to meet some writers I’ve known for a while online, people in the publishing industry I’ve looked up to for years, and plenty of wonderful new acquaintances as well. Writing can be a lonely path, so to have an event like this where so many of us recluses can gather is really amazing.
I stopped by the Zombies Need Brains table in the Dealer’s Room! It was a real treat to get to catch up with Joshua Palmatier, the brains behind the zombies. We haven’t seen each other in person in years. Really, the fact that he was going to be there repping ZNB was one of the first factors that made me lean toward going. The Modern Deity’s Guide to Surviving Humanity looked pretty awesome on the table alongside all the other fantastic anthologies that ZNB has put out. It was also pretty cool to meet some of the other anthology authors, or to talk to people who were thinking about submitting to this year’s open call.
I also attended a pair of kaffeeklatches. If you want to get some time with a specific publishing professional in a small group, where you’ll get to ask burning questions and receive unequivocal answers, these are some of the most valuable events you can do at a convention like Worldcon. Just make sure to sign up early — they fill fast! I missed one I had been hoping to attend, but ended up going to another I hadn’t been planning on. The universe, and its ways.
The panels were fantastic, too. I didn’t really plan for it, but somehow I ended up attending more panels about short fiction than anything else. Hearing thoughts on the short fiction landscape from people like Neil Clarke and Lynne M. Thomas was really enlightening. Apparently, the gods are steering me toward writing more short fiction this year. I have had a few short story / novella ideas kicking around, so hey, the extra education is pretty great in my book.
The Hugo Awards. This is a large part of Worldcon that I had been excited about, and basically have been dreaming about going to for years. Valorie and I went this year, and while we were just two more faces near the back of the crowd, boy was it awesome to actually be at the award ceremony, especially in a year like this one. The Hugos have made some changes in the past few years, and it seems the event organizers are pushing even more to make it as inclusive and welcoming a space as they can. I hope this trend continues. I wrote up some thoughts about this over at Winter Is Coming, but generally, I’ll just say that it felt an awful lot like a lifelong ambition being fulfilled to even be there, and that it was wonderful to see so many extremely deserving creatives recognized.
There were many more highlights, and many that I’m forgetting, I’m sure. It’s hard to narrow things down when the whole damn weekend was just so fantastic. This was my first Worldcon — and my first in-person writing convention in general — but you can bet it won’t be my last. I’ve already been mulling over the possibility of going to Boskone, which is much closer to home.
For now though, filled with gratitude for all the memories, friends, and fun from DisCon III!
Hard to believe, but the summer is already waning. (Or, as the Starks say, winter is coming.)
It’s been a long last year-and-a-half, but for some reason this summer has flown by…in some ways. In others, it feels like an entire lifetime has been lived in but three months. I have a few blog post ideas about writing craft that I’ve been kicking around, but since it’s been a while since I posted a proper update, I figured I’d start there. A lot has happened here these past few months, and I’d be remiss not to talk about it!
Where to even start?
First, the biggest (and most relevant) news to you: THE MODERN DEITY’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING HUMANITY is available now wherever you buy books. This anthology features 15 urban fantasy short stories, revolving around ancient gods adapting to the modern day in intriguing ways. My story, “The Teotl of Gaming,” is one of them. “Teotl” follows Macuilxochitl, the Aztec god of games, as he tries to get by as the head of an online gaming company…while moonlighting as a gambler to stave off the deific equivalent of a midlife crisis. As you might expect, things spiral out of control pretty quickly.
I’m really proud of how this story turned out, and that it’s part of a book with such an incredible line-up of authors. It was my first real foray into urban fantasy, and Macuilxochitl was a blast to write about. The book is available in several different print and ebook formats. All that good info is up on the Fiction page.
We just passed the one month mark since the release of THE MODERN DEITY’S GUIDE…but my focus has been divided into quite a few other areas as well.
The other largest thing I’ve had going on is that my epic fantasy novel, THE FOREST HEART, is out on submission to publishers. This is a story rooted in my soul, and it’s been so exciting to work with the Seymour Agency to get it out into the world. It’s been on sub for a few months now, which means I’m in that “questioning every decision I’ve ever made and courting madness,” phase of the process. I’m told this is pretty normal, but boy will I be glad when we move past it. Having a novel on submission is a lot of waiting, knowing that the book is either in the inbox of an editor you’re hoping to work with…or possibly even being read and considered by them. It’s a very exciting thing, as well as an anxiety-inducing one.
One way I’ve been combating the anxiety is by staying busy. I’ve been writing articles over at Winter Is Coming of course, about everything from Spider-Man rumors to dreamcasting the “10,000 Ships” Game of Thrones spin-off that’s being developed and beyond. I have a piece that went up this past weekend about a different GoT spin-off, the upcoming House of the Dragon, which was a lot of fun to research and write. It’s always a good time at WiC, nerding out about awesome sci-fi and fantasy stories.
On the fiction end of things, I’ve been diving into a different epic fantasy book series, THE PLANERENDER PROPHECY. This series is one I’ve been developing for nearly my entire writing life. It was one of the very first stories I imagined. Some of those scenes go back to when I was a teenager, washing dishes at the local café and daydreaming about seven-foot tall demons covered in blue scales. I finished the first book of the series, WHISPER OF THE DEIMWOOD, back in 2012, and nearly published it with a small press at the time before moving on to THE FOREST HEART. (That, however, is a story for another time.)
Now that THE FOREST HEART is on submission and I’m taking a mandatory break from that world, it’s been the perfect time to get back to DEIMWOOD. I’ve been hard at work revising it, figuring out what parts can be salvaged and which need to be totally rewritten. As you might guess, going back to a story after almost a decade away means there are a lot of opportunities for improvement. It’s nice to be rekindling my love for that tale, and re-immersing myself in its world.
When I’m not writing DEIMWOOD or articles, I have a handful of short stories in various stages of development as well, which I’m hoping to submit to several upcoming anthologies. The one I’ve talked about the most is a hard sci-fi, which I’m planning on submitting to one of the new Zombies Need Brains anthologies. ZNB just launched their kickstarter for those, and they look pretty awesome. As always, once the kickstarter funds they’re open submission. A pretty great opportunity for writers interested in doing SFF short stories, in my somewhat-biased opinion.
When I’m not doing all that…well, I still try to play music when I can. Always something going on here. I played my first live show since the pandemic last month, three hours of just me and an acoustic guitar. It was a really fun time, and definitely has me looking forward to getting out and playing some more. Provided the world doesn’t go into lockdown again. But since that looks like a hairy proposition at best…we shall see.
One final thing I’ll leave you with: I’ll be putting together my first newsletter mailing later this month. If you’ve read this far into the update, it might be the sort of thing you’d enjoy. I’ll be going into a bit more detail about what I’m working on, general thoughts on the publishing industry, glimpses at other fun creative projects, and exclusive previews of my current writing projects. As well as plenty of other stuff, as time goes on. My plan is for the newsletter to be a quarterly email, since no one likes to get spammed.
If you’re interested, you can sign up for it here:
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Tomorrow marks the release of THE MODERN DEITY’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING HUMANITY, along with its two sister anthologies, DERELICT and WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. To mark the occasion, I sat down with Joshua Palmatier, founder and editor of Zombies Need Brains, to talk about the short story anthology format, writing craft, and what goes into building books like these.
We also discussed the themes for the next ZNB kickstarter, and talked a bit about what it’s like to sift through the slush pile. If you’re a writer and are interested in writing short stories (especially science fiction or fantasy), Joshua drops some great wisdom for that sort of thing. Check out the full interview above!
“[Open submissions are] one of the things I always wanted to do, because in my opinion, often our strongest stories are coming from the writers that have never been published before.”
Daniel Roman 