What Stage of Career Am I At?
Journal transcript and reflection on character, publishing, and writing.
Writing Skins is a reader supporter author newsletter that shares excerpts from Aigner Loren Wilson’s writing journal. Aigner is an award nominated and winning author, editor, and critic.
Whether you’re a fan of speculative fiction, books, or a fellow writer, Writing Skins offers a vulnerable, funny, and interesting look at the writing life, craft, and storytelling.
Transcript of journal entry 7/9/23: one-page, scene description
One-Page
It's later in the day. 2:17 PM to be exact and I'm on a trail—well, I'm on a bench on a trail. I'm out at Tumwater Falls doing my daily mile in a half. It's lively here due to the sun being out and few clouds in the sky. The temp is nearing or passed 80 degrees and flowers are in bloom.
It's summer and I'm half way through the year. A year that's been something new and exciting. Like the Ignyte nom and how I've been writing my stories and tackling my work. There's a new blood here, new life and skill in my craft that I think will continue to propel me to my writing goals and dreams.
The other day I did a short fiction AMA. These AMAs have taught me that while people value my knowledge and experience, no one reads my stories or cares about my characters. There weren't any questions about my fictional worlds, just my processes.
Scene Description
Rushing water, frozen from its catch of salmon flowing through the concrete patchwork of the falls. Strollers weighed down by babies, leashes tugged at by small and large dogs alike. The medium ones are absent, probably home with their masters, enjoying the shade and maybe a cool whisp of air conditioning over their paws. What a romantic day to stroll with your partner hand and hand, hair caught in your eye from one of the other walkers, strolling by you in a hurry to get their next IPhone picture or Instagramable moment. Some even play PokeDuck on their phones, capturing unreal monsters to showoff later in a fall of a chat room. I am not alone here at the bench, but share the shade with several families and pairs—maybe couples breaking up or getting engaged, telling their lover, ‘I lost the baby, but I don't want to lose you.’ This is a park but we are the world.
Reflection
Not gonna lie, it feels weird doing a reflection after not having done one since November. I can’t really remember the point of these. I mean, I can. I do them so I can look back on a journal entry and think about it in the present, offering other writers a glimpse inside my writing closet.
Simple. But it still feels odd.
My time has been so focused here on getting to the end of Twilight Children. And I did! I’ll post more about that experience in another newsletter and give people the chance to ask any questions about the process that they want.
But now, I’m getting back to the regular programming of the newsletter, including these reflections.
I think maybe some of the strangeness around this reflecting is that I’m doing it on an entry almost two years old. To think I’ve been in the career for two years. It feels still like I’m just getting started, like I’m an early career writer and editor. When I speak to others, though, that isn’t always how I am perceived due to my accomplishments and having started seriously working at writing as a career for almost 10 years now.
Taymour Soomro, my current second term grad teacher, said that he was only a few steps above where I was now when we first met. I laughed. He, in my mind, is much further along than I am. Then I think about what I’ve done and accomplished and I don’t know, maybe I’m entering the middle of my career now or the end of the beginning of my career.
I always thought I’d enter the middle of my career after publishing two or three books and gaining a loyal following of readers and publishers who want to work with me. I guess I do have that just not to the degree that I imagined. With the completion of Twilight Children, I’ve self published five titles/books. Two collections, one novella, and two interactive fiction novellas.
It makes me think about the line from the entry above about people valuing my knowledge:
“These AMAs have taught me that while people value my knowledge and experience, no one reads my stories or cares about my characters. There weren't any questions about my fictional worlds, just my processes.”
Since then I had a story get nominated for best novelette and had a lot of people talk about that book, but not how it came to be or the characters. To Carve Home in Your Bones, for me, has a lot of care for the characters and the world and the theme, but no one seemed to care about them just the story and style.
I have been working over the past two years on writing stories with more care and tenderness in a way that makes people think about my characters in my stories more and care about them in a way that sticks with them. As my teacher has said to me over and over, rely less on my pyrotechnics (style/control of words) and lean into my ability to showcase characters just as they are.
With the newest stories I’ve written, the readers of them have connected more with the characters and had emotional moments shared with them. They’ve stood up for them during critique sections. It’s been a struggle to learn and fail and try and fail again and to feel like I’m entering a space where my characters, not my technique is developing.
I think that’s one of those things I’m not sure I’d have been able to learn on my own. Or been able to pinpoint and name as an issue holding my prose back.
I’m in the process of editing a novel that I just finished drafting back in February. The point in the editing I’m at, I’m simply reading through the draft. There are many moments I see where I am straying far from the character I am trying to create on the page and know that during my edits, I’m going to have to find the same groove and understanding with those characters that has helped me connect with my characters in the past couple of stories I’ve written.
Now, that I’m out of my serialization cave and can see the light again, how are you? How’s the new year been treating you and your projects?