The Fun of a Writer’s Life
If you want to stay caught up on everything I’m working on and get free reads of my work, join my readers’ group! I share behind-the-scenes moments from my career, where I’m pitching, who I’m writing for, and so much more. This post is just a small sample of what I share with my readers’ group.
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I hope the end of your summer went well! I got to grab some early tickets to Fiyahcon, which was amazing. The convention was started last year by FIYAH Magazine, the publisher of my horror poem, A Demon at My Window. It’s all about decolonizing speculative fiction and highlighting speculative fiction BIPOC writers, publishers, and supporters.
It’s a great virtual convention for networking, growing my knowledge of the genre, and in general, geeking out over all the cool panels and people in attendance.
Have you done anything fun this month? I’d love to hear about it. Drop it in the comments!
Along with Fiyahcon, I was on vacation all September with a couple of small and big adventures planned. Like for instance, I’ve been taking more advanced game design classes in C# and learning how to design games with Unity and Godot, popular game engines that are used to build more visual and complex games.
I’ve designed and made a few small games over the past few weeks, and they have all been absolutely ugly! But I love ugly at this learning stage. I’ve also been talking with some game companies about joining their team as a writer or narrative lead. We’ll see where that goes as the weeks wane on into the darkness of winter.
Big adventure-wise, I took a much-needed trip back home and did it cross-country on the train, which was scary during the pandemic. Luckily, I was able to reserve a room for myself for the majority of the trip and was able to lounge and see the country isolated from the rest of the passengers.
It was amazing. I saw so many things I’ve never seen before. Definitely a once in a lifetime trip that I won’t forget.
Free Virtual Halloween Reading
My free virtual reading is only a couple of weeks away, and you best believe I will be plugging and boosting the event until the day of. It’ll be me and a costume and a few book nerds. I’ll be reading darker tales and poems from my recent collections Plagued Company and to be haunted for free.
After the reading, there will be a Q+A with some of the booksellers. I think there will also be times when the audience can ask questions. For people interested, here’s the event page for the free virtual reading on October 29th, 2021. Full details can be found at Orca Books Co-Op’s website above and on the Facebook event page.
Hope you can make it!
My Books, Masterclasses, and Games
I’ve decided to keep my sale going on my books and games. Be sure to grab a copy or check them out. I’ve also finally created an author Facebook page where people can follow me and get links to my work, news about what I’m working on, and more.
Along with all of that, I’ve updated my author’s website a little. Check it out!
Also, if you are an active reviewer or game streamer who would be interested in reviewing either my books or my games, let me know and I’ll send you free review copies of the requested titles.
If you ordered a copy of any of my games or books and haven’t received them, please let me know by dropping a comment. I’ve recently sent out an update for Take Me Home — now on Itch.io — due to an error in the file that was making it start in the middle of the game and not at the beginning.
My apologies if you happened to get the error file. You should have received an update in your email last week of the correct game.
In the next few weeks, I’ll be uploading a playthrough and thank you video for both of the games to my YouTube and Facebook author page. It’ll be a fun time of me joking, giving behind-the-scenes glimpses at what went into making each of the games, and a first look at me playing the games in that type of format.
Freelance News
I can also finally announce that I am stepping into a senior fiction editor position with Strange Horizons. I’ve been working with the magazine since 2016~ as a slush reader and copy editor all with the hopes of moving into this position. Working at such a top-tier publication in the speculative fiction community means more than I can say.
My WIRED article went live as well (link below), and I’m working with them on another piece. There are more pitches and stories out at dream publications as well. One of them even has a rewrite request that I believe I can easily turn into an acceptance. I’ll know more about the other pieces over the coming weeks.
I’ve also recently an article—maybe more—to Writer’s Digest for their upcoming March/April issue next year. Not only that, but it’ll be a feature article!
Writer’s Digest is a dream pub for me and one that I would love to have a column at someday. I couldn’t be happier to be working with the editor and developing my other pitches.
Along with my articles coming out from Writer’s Digest and WIRED, I have some pieces slated for publication through Discover Pods, Tor Nightfire, and Lightspeed Magazine.
While I write those pieces, I’m editing up a handful of short stories and novelettes I will be submitting throughout the rest of the year and into the next. My focus is going to start moving toward more fiction publications and less (or more focused) nonfiction work while I work on my next few books.
To help with my shift in focus, I’ve recently signed a contract to join on as an in-house editor with a hybrid publishing company. Everything is all very new with this position, but I’ll be working with authors on shaping up their books for publication. I’ll share more as I ease into that role.
Query News
There’s been a lot of interest in Out of the Machine, my scifi thriller about a teen, Tin, falsely accused of murder in an expansive city where your data is used as the main verdict to convict. The story itself follows Tin as she and her friend travel across the city in an effort to solve the murder before she is found guilty.
But not takers yet.
So far, my novel has been out doing the query rounds for about 6 months, which is nothing, and it’s still out at 3 agents and 1 contest, so I’m still holding out with a lot of confidence and hope.
I plan to keep my novel out on query without tweaking anything until June 2022. At that point, I’ll revisit the manuscript and make the decision on whether or not I want to send it through another round of edits, explore alternative publishing outlets, or put it to rest. But by then, I’ll have another few books self-published and another near query status.
I won’t hear back from the agents and the Dzanc’s Fiction Contest until next month at the earliest. If I get no takers, then it’s on to the next round of agents. June 2022 is my cut-off for sending the manuscript out on query. At that point, I’ll evaluate the book and make a decision on next steps.
Thanks as always for being a reader!
Aigner Loren Wilson 