Hugos & Linghun's First Birthday

Somehow, I'd managed to finish writing a book in the month of February, and I've concluded that my books are almost always half the size of their final word count during the first draft. The first novel I'd written back last June began as 45K words before growing steadily to 86K and ending up 83K words. A PALACE NEAR THE WIND (forthcoming 2025 with Titan Books) began at 25K words and ended at 46K before being cut down to 39K. And the book I'd just finished is standing at about 47K, though I project it's end length being closer to 65-70K.

I'm beginning work on my second novel of the year, but with almost 40K worth of notes/outline to sift through, it's looking to be quite the difficult thing to wrangle. I've discovered that I tend to oscillate between the more experimental and difficult to write projects and the more straight forward, single-pov, linear projects to give my brain a break. Maybe I'll make this book a novella to save myself the mental stress of length. We shall see! The current goal is to finish the first draft of 2024 project #2 by the end of May, earlier if possible, and have 2024 project #1 edited and winged by to my agent by the end of April.

But all the writing chaos aside, I've been extremely fortunate to be nominated for my very first Hugo this year with I AM AI in the Best Novelette category. What a wild time it is to be named Ai and to have something with AI in the title about a character named Ai posing as AI. I've also the honour of being nominated for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

When I started this writing journey, I would have never imagined of any of this happening, and to have the one thing I'd pursued whole heartedly out of my own passion and joy, removed from the acknowledgement I desperately vied for and never gotten when I was younger when it came to academics and sports, become one of my family's, and more specifically my father's, greatest prides.

I'm honestly speechless. But I suppose what this has taught me is to pursue my passions rather than trying to please others, because in the end, it is my life and not theirs to live, and I'm glad I took this path, regardless of how rocky and unstable the climb might be and how far the fall. We shall keep looking up rather than down, even if we slip and come across boulders.

But there is one other thing I wanted to celebrate on this specific day, which is the publication of LINGHUN, my very first novella. I can't believe it's already been a year, and what an absolutely wild year it has been. I feel like I've been saying this a lot, but I am utterly amazed at how quickly time has passed and how much has happened within such a short span. LINGHUN came out on 4/4 of last year, and I'm celebrating it's first birthday in 2024 as well as my 4th year on this writing journey. It's funny, because in Chinese, 4 is an unlucky number because the pronunciation (though not exactly in terms of tone) also sounds like the word for "death". Yet, it has been my lucky number so far, and I often find when I'm working on my projects through the night that when I finally look up at the time, it always happens to be exactly 4:44 whether it is AM or PM.

Anywho, enough emotional rambling for me. Below are some smol updates for this month, and my final shout in hopes that Locus Magazine will meet their funding goal (this is the last day of their funding drive) and receive support for all their hard work.

​Support Locus Magazine Here!​

​And you can also watch my reading of the opening for I AM AI here.​

On other news, as award deadlines loom, this is my shout for y'all to go forth and vote for all your favourite things on the Nebula and Stoker ballots, as well as nominate for Locus and Aurora Awards.

Out today is also my story "Where the Grass is Always Whiter" about immigration and belonging, inspired by my family's move from Chinatown, Downtown Toronto to Scarborough, Ontario after arriving in Canada, in Interzone Issue #298.

And from Science Fiction World Translations is the Chinese translation of "Premium Platinum Plan" (first published in OBSOLESCENCE), translated by 崔龚荣秀, with amazing art by 摇开.

For those who are looking for something to brighten your day, here are Owl and Phantom at your service: