There are certain things that come into your life not because they are meant to stay there, but because they are meant to lead you to the place where you’re supposed to be. It is those kind of circumstances that led to today—the day my first piece of writing got published.
Let’s backtrack. June 2016 I was actively involved with Inkshares, and at that time, a group of us banded together with the decision that we would publish an anthology of video game related short stories. We won our contest, sold over 400 pre-orders for the book, and submitted out manuscript. My contribution to the collection was something originally titled All the Answers, and it started out as just a whim of an idea that I was terrified I wouldn’t know how to execute. But as many writers can attest, sometimes when you just sit down and let go, something entirely different and all together more wonderful can take place. That’s how Continuum came to be.
As some of you who’ve been about this blog may already know, that project as a whole went under when the company set to publish us unceremoniously dropped us and cancelled our book. I was devastated. A piece that I written which had so much of my own story in it would not see the light of day. For the moment, all hope felt lost.
Then the very next day, I popped on twitter and saw this tweet from a literary magazine I followed right at the top of my feed…
One last day to submit to us so you better #getwriting
— Wizards in Space (@wzrdsinspacemag) January 14, 2017
It felt like fate.
To tell you a bit about Wizards in Space, it’s a lit mag that brands itself as being BY nerds, FOR nerds. Us fanpeoples can get so inspired by the stories we absorb, and thus many of us turn out to be storytellers ourselves. Olivia Dolphin, the founder of the mag, a writing/fangirling extraordinaire, is someone who exudes compassion and really cares about people and the stories they want to share with the world. So she created a “space” for us wizards and magical folk to tell original stories inspired by the power of fandom, which could not be more perfect. I could not in all of time and space asked or hoped or dreamed for a better or more loving place for my first published work to call home. I haven’t even held the copy of it in my hands yet, and already I just know, my story is somewhere it truly belongs.
And so friends, Continuum goes out in the world, surrounded by brother and sister stories that I PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY CANNOT wait to read. I hope you’ll consider supporting this remarkable magazine, for while I long to hear what people think of my story, I also really really really can’t stress enough how important a mag like this is for authors like me to get their start. My story is one of many pieces and art contained within this mag, and by getting one, you’re supporting every single one of us. You’re showing support to indie authors, and helping see to it that this magazine goes on to create many more issues and opportunities for said authors.
So if you’d like to read Continuum, buy a copy of Wizards in Space Issue 02 here! If you’re hankering for even more, Issue 01 is on sale again too! I’ll just be over here, where for now, all is well.
Fun note on the cover image: This image used for the cover of this post is a potential cover I designed for the short story waayyyy back after I’d just finished writing the story.
Elayna Musings 