Athena Grayson

IW-1yearAbout a year ago (give or take–I’ve been working on this post a LONG time), I embarked on a journey into sci-fi romance that has led me to incredible places I never thought I’d get to visit, and more importantly, an amazing sense of hope and fun about my writing that I thought I might have left behind. When I wrote the original draft of “Huntress of the Star Empire” I did so knowing that there wasn’t really a market for it–it was too romancey to be sci-fi, too sci-fi to be romance, and not hot enough to find a place to live in the then-burgeoning sci-fi erotic romance market, and indie publishing hadn’t yet become viable. I expected to write it, then shove it in a virtual drawer and forget about it.

Fast-forward past the “Indie Revolution.” I pulled it out, dusted it off, and realized that I now not only had the means to show it the light of day, but also had the creative freedom to stop trying to muscle it into being something it wasn’t (aka, a single-title romance of about a hundred thousand words and no more). Rediscovering the manuscript was a gift to my creative muse, because I wrote it for the pure fun of it, and years later, that still came through. Finishing and releasing it was a gift to my career, because it taught me so much more about my writing process than any single manuscript has ever taught me before (surprisingly, this is a thing for a LOT of writers–most of us don’t know diddly about our writing processes until we actually sit down and think about them).

When I embarked on this crazy ride, I came from feeling rather alone and isolated. My other works are pretty quirky in nature–enough so that I don’t feel like I belong squarely in romance, or women’s fiction, or paranormals. But almost as soon as I sent the idea out to the universe (and the file out to Amazon), I found the awesome people at the Sci-Fi Romance Brigade and the SFRB on Facebook. I found Heather at The Galaxy Express, who’s been faithfully blogging about sci-fi romance for a decade (and kicking ass at it!). The fine folks at Smart Girls Love Sci-Fi, and the stellar work being done in the Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly. These people welcomed me with open arms, and made me feel like I’d finally found a home. I’m so grateful for them.

I couldn’t be happier with how season one turned out. I learned so much and really took great leaps in stride. I still don’t have all my shit together (because that would be weird, because I am who I am), but I took a big step in the right direction.

Wow. This post started out about three weeks ago, and topped out at over 2000 words. That’s not a blog post, that’s a magazine article. So I broke it out into sections. Next week, I’ll tell you my five big lessons learned from writing the Huntress series.