I had a fantastic year writing and realized a number of important things. I aimed at writing longer fiction for the first time. I also attended a number of conventions and paid attention more to the business of writing and publishing. I might describe it, in reflection, as a year of transition between being a writer and an author. (And here’s my Year in Writing:2021 from last year.)
I only made about 20 formal submissions for short fiction this year and received three acceptances. An odd little genre-defying story, Something Else to Do was accepted for the anthology Modern Magic by Knight Writing Press. The story Imaginary Friends was published in the anthology The Future’s So Bright. And The Right Motivation appeared in Corporate Catharsis: The work from home edition. But that’s not all I published.
I published several more works with Water Dragon Publishing. I was invited to submit a story for the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy and wrote Better Angels, which appeared in August followed by The Better Angels and the Very Scary Halloween, The Better Angels and the Very Rapid Rescue, and a piece of flash fiction, Who’s Afraid of Whom.
In total, I wrote about 140,000 words in 2022. Not mentioned above, I wrote several side stories intended for the Revin’s Heart fix-up: Where There’s a Will (the story of how Will and Grip meet and fall in love), Curtains Rise (the back story of how Will met the Baron (Grip’s father)), and Riva’s Escape, the origin story of how Revin transitioned. I also wrote a novel (barely): A Familiar Problem, for which I also wrote a side-story (A Different Midsummer Night’s Dream). I’m just finishing a novelette/novela with the origin of neoboxers for the Truck Stop series. And finally, I’ve started a new novel project, The Ground Never Lies, for which I’ve written a pilot.
Writing the side stories got me to realize that I love writing fan fiction — I just love writing it about my own writing. But every one I’ve written has given me deeper insight into the characters and world building.
In August, I was interviewed by the Small Publishing in a Big Universe podcast (the interview aired in December) and, in October, I was a “guest interviewer” which gave me the chance to interview Francesca Forrest, which was a lot of fun. I don’t personally have the patience to listen to podcasts very often. But being interviewed and interviewing other people is fun, so maybe I should do it more often.
I joined two writing organizations in 2022. The Straw Dog Writer’s Guild is a regional writer support network. I’ve participated in workshops, readings and have joined the Program Committee to help coordinate events. The Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA) is a professional association for writers of science fiction and fantasy. I was unable to attend their annual meeting, the Nebulas, because it conflicted with my union’s annual meeting. Hopefully this year, that won’t be an issue. But I participate in their weekly Writing Date events (and even hosted one!) and use their Discord server to interact with other authors.
Finally, I read slush for the first time. It was unbelievably helpful to see less polished writing than what gets published. I was like, “Oh! So this is what they mean when they say, ‘Show, don’t tell’!” This may have been as helpful as anything else I’ve done all year to help improve my writing. Although just getting editorial feedback on my writing continues to be helpful. And I’ve noticed that my most recent writing requires less editing than my older writing, which encourages me to think that my writing is improving.
Overall, It was a great year in writing and I look forward to another great year to come!
When I first wrote The Third Time’s the Charm, it was more like the first chapter of a book than it was a short story. So I had a sense of the larger story that lay beyond the initial foray. But, to be honest, I only had the vaguest idea of the overall arc of the story. I hadn’t made many of the important world building decisions. I went through many rounds of revisions to give it a satisfying arc of its own, but the rest was still there, taunting me and I really wanted to tell the whole story. It speaks volumes that Water Dragon Publishing was willing to take the risk to serialize Revin’s Heart and give me more-or-less free rein to develop the story as I wanted.
I wrote For the Favor of a Lady, primarily to learn more about the characters. I had only the vaguest idea about Grip’s origins. When I wrote Storm Clouds Gather, the Etheric Storm Generator arc presented itself which led directly to Crossing the Streams. And it was at that time, that the shape of the rest of the series took form. But I still had to get from here to there: that’s what The End of His Rope is: a bridge between the earlier arcs and the arcs that follow. It also introduces a couple of important new characters and gives us an opportunity gain more insight into Revin’s character.
As with previous parts, there are many (of what I hope are) “warm, fun interactions between likable characters”. And there are several of the dramatic airship scenes that I know are popular with readers. And some nail-biting action. And, if I say so myself, the ending is particularly satisfying and really sets the stage for the last two parts that follow.
After I finished writing Revin’s Heart, I wrote three side-stories that recount events where Revin is not present. Since Revin’s Heart is told from his point-of-view, these couldn’t be included. But I thought readers that had gotten to know the characters might enjoy seeing how they came to end up where they had. The first of these, Where There’s a Will, is about how Will and Grip met and fell in love (this is teased in For the Favor of a Lady).
“Just how long have you and Will been together,” Revin asked.
“It will be two years next week. On Thursday.” Grip said.
“You know it to the day. That’s very sweet,” Revin said.
Grip looked down, blushing. But he looked happy. “They’ve been the best two years of my life.”
“How did you meet?” Revin asked.
“Oh, that’s a long story for another time,” Grip replied.
from For the Favor of a Lady
The second, Curtains Rise, describes the history that Will and the Baron, (Grip’s father) share. This is teased in Storm Clouds Gather.
Then Will saw the Baron and stopped dead in his tracks.
“Well met, William,” the Baron said.
“It’s Curtains!” Will said.
“What?” Grip said, looking back and forth between the two of them.
“Curtains! That’s what they called him back when…” Will said, then broke off when he caught the Baron’s expression. “I’ll… I’ll tell you sometime later.”
from Storm Clouds Gather
These stories were a delight for me to write. But there was one more side story I decided that I really needed to write: Revin’s origin story. That is, the story of his transition from a woman to man.
I was worried about writing this story because I knew it was going to require to me to make a number of choices that might not support choices I had made in writing Revin’s Heart. But, when I had finished, I was was pleased with the results that required no more than token changes to the stories. And gave me a lot of deeper insight into Revin’s character.
I’m telling this story now because I realized when a beta reader reviewed the manuscript, that there were a number of unanswered questions about the series that some readers would want to know that I now knew the answers to. And there were a couple of perfect scenes that I could elaborate in the The End of His Rope that would allow me to tell this story. So I did. Long after the manuscript was “done” I got it out again and added a thousand words. I hope you’ll be pleased with the results.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that most of the software products I use generate a preview when I paste a link into them. When sharing a microblog or social media post, these often include the whole post and/or image, which seems convenient because your interlocutor can immediately see what you’re talking about without clicking through. How handy! Or is it?
I realized recently that this behavior leaks information back to the originating website. I discovered a particularly egregious form when I copied the text of an article and, when I pasted it, found that the site had pre-pended an offensive warning about sharing the article with a link up top — probably as a tripwire so they could collect information about people doing exactly that.
I had noticed that this was already a risk if you didn’t carefully edit the URL BEFORE pasting, to remove session information that often appears after the question mark in a URL. Otherwise, it follows the link before you can edit.
But I think now I’m just going to turn this behavior off. If I can.
Back in August, I was interviewed for the Small Publishing in a Big Universe Podcast. To be honest, I can’t remember it all that well: I remember babbling incoherently for a long time and then the interviewer finally said, “OK, OK. Got it. Put a sock in it. You can stop talking now. Sheesh! We had enough half an hour ago!” *
It was a wonderful experience, to be honest. It was fun to have a chance to chat about my writing experience and to reflect on my first year as a published author.
But now, after having been edited, the podcast is ready for you to enjoy in all its glory. (And for me, because, as I say, I have absolutely no recollection of what I said. :-))
In October, I got the opportunity to be on the other side of the microphone when I interviewed Francesca Forrest. It was a blast to talk to another author about their writing. Her interview should be ready early next year.
* Note: Some people’s individual recollections regarding these events may differ.
Below are my publications that were (or will be) released in 2022.
Brewer, S.D. [in press]. The End of His Rope. Part Five of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California.
Brewer, S.D. [in press]. The Right Motivation in Corporate Catharsis: The Work From Home Edition, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California.
Brewer, S.D. [in press]. Something Else to Do in Modern Magic. Knight Writing Press, Parker, Colorado.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Imaginary Friends in The Future’s So Bright, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. pages 290-297.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Better Angels and the Very Scary Halloween. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy Boos-Day, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. Available at: [truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-sto...](https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-stop-boos-day/very-scary-halloween/)
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Who’s Afraid of Whom. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy Boos-Day, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. Available at: [truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-sto...](https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-stop-boos-day/whos-afraid-of-whom/)
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Crossing the Streams. Part Four of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 42pp.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Better Angels. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 25pp.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. Storm Clouds Gather. Part Three of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 36pp.
Brewer, S.D. 2022. For the Favor of a Lady. Part Two of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 42pp.
For years, I was aware of the Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA) although the eligibility for membership looked pretty far out of reach. But this spring, they changed the rules and I became eligible to join, which I did as soon as possible.
When I joined SFWA, one of the things I discovered was the SFWA Writing Date. Each week, late Sunday afternoon, folks could get together via Zoom to socialize for a few minutes, then write for 45 minutes, socialize again, and then write again. It was nice to have an excuse to meet some writer friends and get some work done.
In August, there was a call looking for people to “host” the writing date. Each week, there were a couple of SFWA people to handle the tech stuff, but then there would an author that was the formal host: they would smile, run a little icebreaker, and generally try to make people feel good that they’d attended. So I put my name forward. And I got picked! There were only a couple of dates that I thought could work for me, but I got the Sunday before the Thanksgiving week.
I got an email the week before that included directions for how I could have a “porthole”. I had seen that the staff running the writing date had little “windows” that looked out into a moving starfield or nebula or something. When I tried to do it on my computer, I discovered that the Zoom client for linux doesn’t offer the capability to have a video background. But I was planning to use OBS Studio anyway and it *does* have the capability so it wasn’t hard to set it up. I cut out a couple of pieces of florescent orange card stock and taped them up over the window in the cover of For the Favor of a Lady. It worked great.
For the icebreaker, I decided to riff on the classic by Barbara Walters. She would always open with the question, “What kind of tree would you like to be and where would you grow?” I’ve used this for years with my writing class. But for this audience, I mixed it up a little by asking, “What kind of FICTIONAL tree would you like to be, preferably from speculative fiction?”
People really got into it! I was really pleased at the response. I was a bit surprised at the ones nobody guessed, but also at some of the ones that I hadn’t been aware of.
After that, the writing was almost anti-climactic. I wrote about 1400 words in the two blocks of time. I’m starting a new story that I will, hopefully, be able to wrap up before the end of the Thanksgiving break.
The End of His Rope is Part Five of Revin’s Heart and is scheduled to be released by Water Dragon Publishing on Dec 23 — Just in time for the holidays!
It’s been a busy fall for me as a writer. In mid-August, Better Angels came out. And then Crossing the Streams came out in September. Next, I have a story, Imaginary Friends coming out in the Future’s So Bright anthology by mid-October. In November, I have a story, Something Else to Do, scheduled to appear in the Modern Magic anthology. I’m still hopeful that the next part of Revin’s Heart, The End of his Rope, will be out in November — perhaps in time for Rhode Island Comic Con, where I’ll be helping run a vendor table for my publisher Water Dragon Publishing. Finally, look for an exciting surprise at the Truck Stop for Halloween! And next year is getting off to a busy start too!
In January, I’ll be a participant at Arisia. And in February, I’ll be at Boskone. At both, we plan to have a table for Water Dragon so, in addition to participating on panels, I’ll be trying to sell books too. But, as I discovered at Chicon, it’s something I enjoy.
Wrigley and Equitable Buildings from Chicago’s Riverwalk
Attending conferences and conventions is nothing new to me, but when I signed up as a participant of Chicon8, my self-described “semi-benevolent” editor, Steven Radecki rubbed his hands saying, “I can’t wait to read the blog post you’re going to write after your first Worldcon.” Here ya go.
I’m a new author. At least, with respect to speculative fiction in English. I’ve written scientific publications, self-published books of haiku in Esperanto, and even won awards for haibun and speculative fiction in Esperanto. But getting my work published for the English market in speculative fiction is new. My first work, Revin’s Heart, a steampunky fantasy adventure with airships and pirates and a trans protagonist, was serialized by Water Dragon Publishing as seven novelettes and the fourth, Crossing the Streams, will be coming out soon. But I digress.
I signed up to participate in Worldcon and filled out an interest survey in Planorama—the online tool they used to identify panelists and moderators. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but when I looked at my proposed schedule, they had put me in eight (8) separate program elements: I was the moderator of three panels, a participant in two, I had a “table talk” and a “reading”, plus I volunteered to help a fellow Water Dragon author run a workshop in manuscript formatting. I was floored. My first Worldcon? Eight things? What a debut!
As the convention approached, the attending authors lamented that our publisher wasn’t planning to have a dealer table at the convention to allow us to sell and sign books. So, wily devil that he is, our editor indicated that had a super-secret long-range plan to have the Small Publishing in a Big Universe podcast set up a “Marketplace” table where small-press and indie authors could, for a nominal fee, get space to display two or three books, and, for agreeing to help staff the table, arrange times to meet with readers and sign books. He had been planning to do this next year. But faced with multiple authors jumping up and down with excitement, did the eight months of work in three weeks to pull it off for us to do it this year.
Being unsure about expectations, I contacted the panels for which I was moderator very early to introduce myself and to ask for names (and pronunciations), brief biographies to use to introduce people, and ideas for questions or topics that they would like the opportunity to discuss. This was perhaps atypical (neither of the moderators of the panels I was in contacted me much before Worldcon and one only shortly before the panel.) But I was happy to be over-prepared, rather than trying to do it cold.
One thing that can’t be exaggerated is how terrifying it was to head to my first public event after the pandemic. I had not flown since the pandemic. So literally every step felt like a new and dangerous thing. I had decided to purchase first class tickets (which was not as much more expensive than I had feared), but it made flying almost like flying used to be: instead of having to deal with robots to check in, I got to talk to a person! They accepted my baggage (at least in O’Hare) without my having to drag it to some distant location to leave with the airport security-theatre fascists. My trip through security had a much shorter line than typical. My seat was wide enough for my seat. And right at the front, where I thought I was less likely to be exposed to plague-rats. They brought me beer for free — even before flight! And I got to get off the airplane first. And, finally, since I was carrying the majority of the books for the marketplace table, I could carry a whole suitcase with 45lbs of books for free (since you don’t have to pay extra for the first two checked bags).
Arriving at the hotel, I hooked up with Philip Brewer and we went down immediately to the registration table and got credentialed. Then we began exploring the vast space where events were scheduled. Since I was on the program for eight different things (plus the vendor table) my head was swimming trying to figure out where stuff was and how to get there. It was like one of those mechanical aptitude tests where you have to rotate things to figure out how they fit together. There were escalators going this way and that way, two different buildings on different sides of the street with both a tunnel and a skywalk connecting them.
We went to the Dealer Room and met the awesome and amazing Angela Jones-Parker who accepted the profuse thanks my publisher had asked me to express and promptly handed over Dealer ribbons to us to place immediately below my Airship Pirate ribbon. We found our table and coordinated with the legendary Vanessa MacLaren-Wray regarding the following morning: I said I would bring down the books and then rush back upstairs to meet my first panel.
The first full day of the convention, I moderated a virtual panel, a face-to-face panel, and then helped run a workshop. I’m not new to running meetings, but I wasn’t certain about expectations and norms for the Worldcon community. As soon as I had known who my panelists were, I reached out to them via email to coordinate and learn how to pronounce their names, to get a brief bio to introduce them, and to ask whether there were particular questions or topics they wanted to be sure to include. (The moderators of the panels I was on did not do that, but those panels turned out fine, as I’ll describe later.) The panelists were all very gentle with me and made the experience a genuine pleasure. The topic were all of intense interest to me and I learned a lot — but also felt like I had useful things to contribute.
The second day, I only had one face-to-face panel to moderate, but it was one I was most concerned about due to the topic area: “LGBTQIA+ Characters Done Right”. As someone who only recently came out as bisexual — and is aware that some parts of “the community” view bisexuals with suspicion — I was a bit worried. I’m relatively confident about the work I’m writing, but I’m still experiencing some imposter syndrome about it. And I was concerned, given the current tenor in the country, that we might even end up with hecklers. Finally, one of our panelists was a no-show and so there were only three of us trying to carry the whole panel. Happily, our other Water Dragon author in attendance, Jay Hartlove sat in the front row, maintained eye-contact with me, and would smile broadly, which helped sustain me while I struggled with the difficult subject. Once again, I felt like I learned a vast amount from my panelists who were very supportive and helpful.
On Saturday, I also only had a single scheduled event — my “table talk”. But earlier in the day, I attended the one panel discussion I wasn’t scheduled for: We Are Not a Metaphor: LGBTQIA+ Representation.” This overlapped quite a bit with the panel I had moderated, but brought a bunch interesting and different viewpoints. In the afternoon, Phil had wanted to introduce me to two of his Clarion instructors who were in attendance and we went to a biergarten on the Riverwalk. Finally, I attended my table talk but found no-one had signed up for it. I was getting ready to sit alone for 10 or 15 minutes to make sure no-one was planning to come without having signed up, but met Vanessa and her husband coming out of a nearby event and they sat with me to chat and keep me company while I waited.
There were some people doing cosplay the whole time which added greatly to the character of the convention. It was wonderful spending time in the Dealer Room because nearly everyone wandered by our table at some point. As the Masquerade Ball approached, the costumes got more elaborate. I liked the Tom Baker Dr. Who costume. And a guy dressed in a Gandalf costume was particularly convincing. An author wore a spectacular mermaid costume that had iridescent scales and was revealing in all the wrong places. I was so tired by 8pm, that I nearly skipped the Masquerade Ball, but managed to drag myself down there and was glad I did. But I was also glad to get back to my room and sleep because I was exhausted.
On my last full day, I had three events again: I served as a panelist on two panels and then participated in a joint reading for the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy. One moderator had reached out a couple of days before Worldcon to touch base. The other reached out the morning of, but with good news: there was no need to meet in the dreaded Green Room which was on the other side of the planet from the room. In both cases, I was worried that I would struggle to find things to say or contribute, but I needn’t have worried. I think I was able to offer some useful and amusing bits without making anyone angry or upset. And the reading was a blast: I enjoyed reading from Better Angels and getting to see Vanessa perform reading Coke Machine in character was a joy.
It was amazing to attend the Hugo Award Ceremony. I was particularly pleased to see my former colleague (and neighbor) Suzanne Palmer receive the Hugo for best novelette. Hearing the eloquent acceptance speeches that authors write is always a pleasure.
I had to leave midway through Monday in order to be back in time to teach the following day. It was sad to say goodbye to Jay and Vanessa. Vanessa indicating she was pleased to meet Phil, the imaginary person I had talked about who I “pretended to speak Esperanto to.” She said who she really wanted to meet was my wife, to see this mythical woman who could supposedly put up with me. It’s nice to have friends, though with friends like that…
It was an amazing opportunity to debut for a new author like me and I’m endlessly grateful to the Chicon organizers. I got an opportunity to share my books in the Dealer Room (I made a decent number of sales and got to sign copies for people). I got to meet a lot of people and was introduced to people in a whole variety of contexts. (I even ran into a colleague from Comparative Literature at UMass who had no idea I was published author in speculative fiction — that was fun.) In trying to describe the experience to others, the best analogy I’ve come up with my doctoral defense. It was stressful and terrifying and overwhelming and intense, but an unforgettable experience that I hope augurs well for my ongoing success as an author.
When I drew up plans to attend Chicon8 the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, my editor/publisher Steven Radecki, suggested that I might want to get some badge ribbons to promote Revin’s Heart (my steampunky fantasy adventure story with a trans protagonist that’s been serialized by Water Dragon Publishing). They had done a number of ribbons previously and he sent me a link to a site that would let you submit a design to have them manufactured. He even had a great idea for a ribbon: Airship Pirate.
I’m by no means a professional graphic designer, but I’ve done a fair amount work in this area (for example, self-publishing four books of haiku with artwork, covers, etc). And I teach students to make scientific figures and posters, which is functionally the same. But I was excited to fire up Inkscape and see what I could put together.
My first decision was that I wanted to see if I could use the trans-flag as a background. The site that Water Dragon had used previously couldn’t do that, but I had found a gay gaming company that had figured out how to do it. I asked them and they pointed me to PCNametag. We went back and forth a few times to sort out possibilities (e.g. full color yes, gold foil no.)
I ran a dozen different possible arrangements by Steve : just the words looked stark and not very interesting, so I added a dirigible, but then what should go in the dirigible? We went back and forth trying to come up with an idea. He suggested a rainbow, then I hit on the idea of using the new pride flag. We were getting close.
It was a delight to get the proof back and see that it looked like it was going to be perfect. And then to order them and receive them and they did look wonderful. But then the waiting began, because I didn’t want to reveal them until we were actually here on the ground. It was hard.
When I registered and got my badge, the first thing, I did was to put on my airship pirate ribbon as my very first. After we had successfully registered, Phil and I stopped at the bar and had a beer. While we were there, a drunk guy at the bar introduced himself saying he had a private pilot license, but had never flown in an airship and was curious about how to pilot one.
“It says, ‘airship PIRATE,'” I said. He was bemused to discover I was a writer, not an airship pilot.
When I headed to the Dealer Room, I got Dealer and Program Participant ribbons. And a Cometary Life Form ribbon.
I put a stack of the ribbons near my books and, when people approached the table, I used the ribbon as an essential part of my patter: “Would you like to be an Airship Pirate?” It frequently allowed me to initiate a conversation about my books.
The ribbons were insanely popular. Some people just collect as many ribbons as they can. (Some people end up with ribbons that reach the ground and then come all the way back up. One woman was making a skirt of ribbons.) But a lot of people were just tickled to become an airship pirate. And I think some people recognized the trans flag background and were glad for a visible symbol of their allyship.
Not everyone wants to be an airship pirate, however. Some people just said, “No!” Some quite abruptly. One woman seemed incensed and said, angrily, “I’m in too many groups already!” And she tore off some other ribbon she already had on her badge. It made me want to ask, “Who hurt you?”
But, frequently, it let me break the ice, describe my books, and make a sale. The ribbons were insanely successful from that perspective.
Beyond that, however, there was one thing I had not considered. As I walked around Worldcon, I would see people, here, there, and everywhere, wearing my ribbon. The ribbon that I had designed, gotten printed, and handed out from our dealer table. It was just unbelievably satisfying.
I’ve already gone through almost my entire stock of 100. Now, I’ll need to order 500 for Rhode Island Comic Con, Arisia, and Boskone coming up.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that most of the software products I use generate a preview when I paste a link into them. When sharing a microblog or social media post, these often include the whole post and/or image, which seems convenient because your interlocutor can immediately see what you’re talking about without clicking through. How handy! Or is it?
