Ten years ago today, I sold my first short story. The past decade has been a great adventure, a mix of highs and lows. I’ve learned and changed along the way, going from a novice with little experience of the publishing world to a seasoned writer and editor. To honor that journey, I decided to do a retrospective.

Back in January 2013, I took an online course called “Mondo Beyondo,” and one of the exercises was to free-write a list of things I dreamed of doing - no limits, no realism, just pure wishful thinking. Some items from that list: 

• Win a Hugo or Nebula award

• Write a bestselling epic science fiction trilogy

• Attend the Clarion writing workshop

• Spend a month alone just writing every day

• Become a professional futurist

While I haven’t done any of those exact items, expressing them put me on the path to embracing a second career as a writer, and that was the point. The class made a distinction between dreams and goals. The latter are things you set out to accomplish. The former get you in touch with your deepest desires and open yourself up to pursue them.

Later that year, I took a Gotham class in writing science fiction and fantasy, and I submitted my fiction to magazines for the first time in my life. Those early rejections hurt a lot! But I learned to persevere. To keep writing. To keep submitting. To keep getting rejected. Until one day, February 20, 2014, I received an email from Daily Science Fiction saying they would like to buy my story, “Strange Attractors.” In the contract, they called me “the Author,” as a stand in for my name. I felt lighter than air!

My journey from that point on was not linear by any means. When I got the acceptance for Runtime, I had bet a friend a week earlier that I would sell nothing for the rest of the year. The novella sale led to another major turning point for me, though, because I then signed with my literary agent, Cameron McClure, who has been my guiding light to this day. It also led to my first award nomination - Best Novella in the Nebula Awards.

That same year, I joined Escape Pod as an associate editor. This turned into a parallel journey, one that taught me a lot more about what goes on behind the scenes. When I became assistant editor, I learned how hard it is to write a rejection letter, and when I became an editor (with the most excellent Mur Lafferty by my side), I discovered that choosing which stories to publish and which to turn away is even more heartbreaking. This helped me a lot in terms of my own submissions experience, though, and I developed more equanimity in dealing with rejections of my own.

About a year after becoming an editor, I had the tremendous delight of getting my first Hugo Award nomination for our team’s work at Escape Pod. Several more followed, including a few rounds for Best Editor of Short Fiction. Every nomination brings with it a sense of elation and gratitude. Every loss brings a pang of disappointment, but it doesn’t last long. Attending awards ceremonies and “losers parties” as a finalist was a lot of fun and something I hadn’t expected so soon in my journey. 

The road to getting my first novel published took several more years and had its own bumps. Machinehood was on submission with publishers for five months and gathered nine rejections before it sold. A few weeks after getting my first round of edits, my editor was let go. Then the pandemic struck, and my debut occurred while bookstores and conventions weren’t meeting in person. I did my best to celebrate and promote, but I had gotten sick with COVID five weeks earlier, and it was hard on my body. About a month and half later, I developed Long Covid symptoms, which worsened throughout that year, and have yet to improve.

My debut year also brought in another big set of rejections for my next novel, Meru, which I had drafted during the height of the pandemic shutdown. It eventually sold as part of my first two-book deal. A major highlight for the following year was Machinehood’s nomination for Best Novel for both the Locus and Nebula Awards, and the publication of my novelette, “Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold,” which would go on to garner some award nominations of its own. 

In between, I’ve written and sold a bunch more short stories. Back in 2019, while I was at a family reunion in India, an editor at Hachette India reached out to me about publishing a collection of my short fiction. I was delighted to accept, and having my books in stores and airports in my birth country was something I hadn’t even dreamt of. Science fiction and fantasy are not as big there as they are in the USA, but the genres are growing in popularity, and it’s been wonderful to be part of that and to connect with other writers in South Asia. 

As of today, I have five books to my name with a sixth forthcoming in August. I’ve worked with four different publishers and seven editors. I have over twenty short story credits. I’ve been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Igynte, and Locus awards. I never made it to Clarion, I haven’t actually won any awards, nor have I written a trilogy, but I’ve attended other workshops, my books have oh-so-briefly hit bestseller status on Amazon, and I’ve been consulted as a futurist. I’ve also quit working in the tech world (in part due to my disability) and learned to shift my identity from engineer to writer.

I’m currently a free agent in that I have no books or short stories due on contract, but I have no shortage of ideas. I’m sure the next decade will bring more unexpected twists and turns. The plot of my life wouldn’t be as interesting without them! But even if I have to stop writing tomorrow, I will always be grateful for what I’ve accomplished, for the many writers I’ve befriended, and for all of you, the readers and fans, who have carried me through my worst moments and celebrated my best. 

And in a lovely bit of synchronicity, I just sold another short story (to Clarkesworld), almost ten years to the day since my first one.