Aigner Loren Wilson Writer & Editor
Literary Speculative Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Games
The path I took to become a full-time writer, I don't think, is all that unique. But one of the biggest things that helped me was reading posts like this from authors who were where I wanted to be. I've mentioned it before in tons of my craft articles, but I used other authors' careers as a guide map.
Stories, stories, stories, and bread! But mostly story news about my novella, novelette, and short stories.
So, I thought I ended July with a bang, but August ended up being my best month for short story sales in 2022 so far. In total, I made 3 story sales to top magazines and anthologies in the month. I'm more daring and wild in these newer stories. And I love it.
August is my short story challenge month, where I attempt to write a short story (+1,500-words) every day. I wanted to share how I'm able to write a new story within an hour a majority of days.
Curious about where you can find my writing and editing work from July 2022? Check the links below for my work from Tor Nightfire, Writer's Digest, and more.
On index cards sometimes just on a dry erase board or poster board, writers build a story just by its scenes. Instead of writing it out word by word, they draw or sketch it with images or words. Sometimes it'll just be something as simple as 'The Bad Man Dies' and some sketch of how the scene should look or take place.
I've been spending my time doing a lot of career planning and looking to the future. The question on my mind is: this time next year, where do I want to be? The answers I've been chewing on are the steps and moves I need to make to get to that dream writer-self by July 2023. I do this type of thinking/planning every year and whether or not I get the thing I want, I always end up in a better place than where I started with opportunities crawling out of the woodwork. But how do I build on that to make sure my career and craft are constantly growing?
One of my favorite steps in the writing, editing, and revising process is spreadsheeting my story. Spreadsheeting a novel is when a writer or editor takes a story and breaks it out into a spreadsheet summarizing the story on the scene level.
I feel like I've been heavy in this cavern of learning and consuming over the past month. I don't think I've made any big sales, though I did hear back about a story being held for further review. Bittersweet news. I hope the story gets accepted, but if it doesn't, it getting held means the story is doing something right.
Help me pick a new blog post topic! With my workload and interest, I feel like the whole 'What I'm Consuming' blog post doesn't really align with the work I want to spend my time on. I've been kicking around the idea of what to use this week for and have come up with nothing.
Aigner Loren Wilson Writer & Editor 