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About the author |
Hi, I'm a former middle school teacher and computer programmer who enjoys writing educational games. Above is a picture of me with the Graph Mole from my (x,y) coordinate graphing game.
I tried my hand at making songs but found that my ability to write lyrics exceeds my ability to compose a tune and greatly exceeds my ability to sing. So I gave up on making songs and now am writing instead. :)
My first writing attempt is Bittersweet Apple, a sci-fi short story. I tried to copy the conventions from "The Science Fiction Century by David G. Hartwell".
It's a nice piece of old school sci-fi, but I quickly discovered that there is no market for 1940's style sci-fi anymore.
So I re-educated myself by reading modern sci-fi short stories like those in the Writers of the Future anthology and F&SF magazine. Newly armed,
I started what I thought was another 2500 word short story. Turns out it's a novel and I'm about halfway though now at 40,000 words :).
I sent in the first 7000 words of my novel as a "short story" for the Writers of the Future contest and got an honorable mention for the second quarter of 2018! That is so cool. I guess I have finally figured out how to write like it is 2018, :). (Awesome contest BTW - if you are a new sci-fi or fantasy author you should totally enter.)
UPDATE: I got another honorable mention in the Writers of the Future contest in Q4 2019! Both honorable mentions are for short stories based on my novel in progress. Writers of the Future sent me this cool webpage logo for my Q4 2019 honorable mention.
I've written two-thirds of of my novel and realized the first third was good but the second third was meh. But I have diagnosed where the middle went astray and how to fix it thanks to David Farland's online courses. So now I know what to do again. The courses are well worth a look if you are learning to write!
-Sulan Dun
author@funbasedlearning.com