Greetings and Salutations

Hello, everyone. Anna Salonen, at your service. *Bows and sweeps plumed hat off in a flamboyant arc* 

You want to know how I got here? Well, settle down and pull up a comfy virtual armchair, and I'll tell you. 

I've always wanted to be a writer, a speculative fiction writer, to be exact, but I was too sensible to go for it. It's an impossible dream, right? Stupid to even try. So I went to school, got good grades, went to University, got a job. Sure, I wrote something now and then, a bit of fan fic, a short story or two, but I never really committed. I never sent any of my stuff to anyone. It just mouldered in a computer file, lost and forgotten. But last summer something just clicked. Maybe I'd regret not trying more than failing? 

I started writing, every day if I could. Short stories, because I wanted to learn about story structure, and shorts are easier to actually finish, at least for me. I joined the Critters writers workshop and a Finnish critique group through Suomen tieteis- ja fantasiakirjoittajat (a Finnish science fiction and fantasy writers association), and even took a writing course at a local community college. I wrote, and then wrote some more. I did NaNoWriMo for the first time. I wrote and revised. I sent my stuff to magazines. I got rejected. I revised some more. I read writing blogs and writing books. I thought I noticed some improvement, maybe. I thought about starting a blog, but I kept putting it off. Maybe if I actually published something?

I thought that would never happen.

Not in a gazillion years.

I'd just write for myself. After all, I enjoyed it. Nothing wrong with that.

Well, it finally happened. I got my first acceptance letter. Worldweaver Press accepted my story for their Far Orbit: Apogee anthology. Who'd have thought?

So here we are.

You want to know what happens next?

I sure do.