In January, 2010, I was dealing with a 3 month old baby and returning to full-time engineering work as a new mother. The furthest thing from my mind was writing fiction. That dream deferred (since college) took on a sense of urgency, though, as I found my time split between work, baby, and household. I needed to make time for myself.
After a failed attempt at NaNoWriMo in 2011 (I hit 40k words before norovirus took me down), I spent a year getting increasingly depressed. Finally, after seeing a friend rave about it, I took a course called Mondo Beyondo in 2013. It opened my mind to just how deep my desire to be a writer had rooted into my psyche. Shortly after that, I signed up for Gotham University’s online course, Science Fiction & Fantasy 1.
That September, I gathered my courage and submitted a flash fiction story for publication.
It was rejected, and after some moping, I worked up the nerve to keep writing and submitting. In June 2014, my first flash fiction story appeared in Daily Science Fiction. I have that acceptance letter and check framed on my wall.
After that, I joined the Codex Writers Group, my online support network that also opened my eyes to so much about the professional writing world. I had no one in my life who could mentor me in this process, and my invisible online cohort became a source for commiseration, celebration, motivation, and desperately needed advice.
In March of 2015, I joined Escape Pod as an Associate Editor, more commonly known as a slush reader, someone who takes a first look at story submissions to a publication. Seeing the “other side” of the editorial desk helped me gain some much needed perspective about my rejections and the variance of editorial taste.
In September 2015, I received the second most jaw dropping news of my life (the first was admission into Caltech): Tor.com Publications wanted to buy my novella, Runtime. That launched me on another roller coaster ride - of having a standalone book release, autographing sessions, and reviews. I learned (the hard way) to deal with bad reviews and ratings, but I also had the joy of meeting real, live, actual fans of my work. The novella led to my signing with a literary agent, a Nebula Award nomination (another jaw-dropper), and a Hollywood movie option.
In parallel, I found myself really enjoying the work of being a first reader. In 2016, I became the Assistant Editor at Escape Pod, taking a management role for the first time in my life. In my first career as an engineer, I had lots of seniority, but I’d never led a team, so my work at Escape Pod taught me a lot. Less than a year later, Norm Sherman, then editor-in-chief, decided to step away, and asked if I’d take on his role. Feeling underprepared, I asked Mur Lafferty to be my co-pilot, and I’m pretty sure it’s the best decision I’ve ever made: We were nominated for a Hugo Award the following year.
2018 also found me dealing with chronic pain/health issues for the first time in my life. My writing time took a double hit when, after two years away from my engineering work, I went back to a part-time “day job” in machine learning. From March 2017, I’d been working on a novel, and 2018 slowed my progress, but in April of 2019, I finished it, and my agent took it on submission.
In the meantime, my short story output went way down. I was super lucky that an editor at Hachette India enjoyed my writing and offered to publish a collection of my short fiction. This brings me to…2019!
My collection, Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse And Other Possible Situations, was published in the Indian subcontinent at the end of August, 2019. I also had one short story appear in Analog Magazine’s Jan/Feb 2019 double issue. You can now read it here: Soft We Wake.
If you’re nominating for awards, Soft We Wake is eligible for the Hugo Award in the Short Story category. I’m also eligible for my work with Escape Pod in the Best Editor (Short Form) category with Mur Lafferty. Please nominate us together as our work there is a team effort. Escape Pod is itself eligible for Best Semiprozine, and all of the original fiction we published falls into the Hugo Award Short Story category. You can get all the details in the Escape Pod award eligibility post.
And so I wrap up this decade having transitioned from being “just an engineer” to also being a parent, an author, and an editor. I’ve had ups and downs, surprise successes and unwelcome setbacks. I don’t know if our 20s will roar as much as the previous century’s, but I’m looking forward to what it brings.
If you read this far, thank you for being part of my journey.
