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Reading Update: 01/23/20

Published by Simeon on January 23, 2020

This year, I’ve decided, is to be space opera-themed. Which is mostly code for “finally started The Expanse, several years after everyone else”, but I have other titles in mind as well. After finishing Leviathan Wakes in one (very long transatlantic flight) sitting, I started Caliban’s War, which is about as much word count as I can take from any one author (ok, in this case two) before needing a change of pace.

Meanwhile, this is the eclectic pile I am currently thinking of as “to read soon”. My obsession with Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series is boundless, and I have been waiting for Come Tumbling Down for months. Before and After the Book Deal is on the list because of a recommendation from Jane Friedman, whose book The Business of Being a Writer was transformative to my understanding of the field. Fangirl caught my attention with the meta aspects of spawning an in-world fantasy series, as well as, yunno, everyone raving about Rainbow Rowell.

Adam SIlvera’s Infinity Son is on the pile, courtesy of my need for more gay male SFF. Not to diss other queer fiction (I think about half of the books I read in 2019 were written by and featuring various types of queer women), but for some reason it seems gay male stories written by gay male authors are pretty sparse in the speculative genres. And Killing Gravity just sounds. So. Effin. Awesome! I don’t know what a “voidwitch” is yet, but I desperately want to be one!

What Is This, And What Is It For?

Published by Simeon on January 23, 2020

I have wanted to be a writer ever since I was five. It is the first “adult” thing I remember wanting to do, actually. I probably still have my first attempts scrawled on a notebook in semi-literate Bulgarian, tucked away in a closet somewhere. It was based on the original Robotech anime, if I am not mistaken.

Wanting to write was a driving instinct, almost a knowledge that this was what I would be doing sooner or later. Life took me other places (because life is often like that), but I never stopped writing. It wasn’t fiction, though I still dabbled from time to time, but I had to express myself, share my opinions on everything. Because they were so important, you understand! Reviewing literature, cinema, or television, barfing political opinions and social commentary left and right. I even translated fantasy novels from English in a legit capacity.

History can tell whether I ever wrote anything worth reading, if it cares enough to check. But no one can say I didn’t write.

Some 25 years after that embarrassing Robotech fanfic, I am now into my third year of “trying to do the writing thing for real this time”. The external voices that said becoming a professional writer was unrealistic and childish have been replaced by my own inner insecurities. And those I know how to work with. I have written one whole entire novel that got hard trunked the moment its second draft was done, and am currently buffering on the second draft of my second novel. This one might be for real. Or maybe I got some more practicing to do before braving the real world. But I am doing the thing. Five-year old me would be super proud.

I have been reading books on writing — the craft and the business — and listened to all the podcasts. I have, if not actual experience, then at least a theoretic grasp of the world of doing this with any degree of professional success. So now all that’s left is to keep writing.

But while this is going on, I figured that I wanted to have an outlet for, well, freestyling. I don’t presume to be at a stage where I have any meaningful advice for other people who want to become writers, and I am certainly not going to claim any deep knowledge in any other field. But this thing that I am trying to do, it comes with a whole lot of thoughts, and a whole lot of feelings, and — sweet, merciful baby Cthulhu — yes, also opinions! So maybe I have something to say that will resonate with others, and maybe externalizing my internal monologue will help me figure shit out myself.

So yes, hi. I am Simeon. Welcome to my blog. It will be part review site, part random thoughts, part travelogue as I am navigating this endeavor, and life in general.

Thanks for stopping by.