Help me write more novels!

[synaesthetic]

Hi there!

 

Most of ya'll here know me as Aeriyn Ashley, leader of Unity in A Realm Reborn. Well, there's more to me than just being an aggro-stealing black mage, among other things. One of the things that's pretty major about me is that I'm an aspiring author and that I'm working my butt off to make a career out of it.

 

My name is Corinn and I'm a thirty year old queer trans woman living in Oakland within easy walking distance of Lake Merritt. Ever since I was a child, single-digits old, I've been writing stories. I've always loved reading science fiction and fantasy; while the other kids were roughhousing on the playgrounds during recess, I was reading thick fantasy and sci-fi novels. I wanted to write my own stories and be like the authors I loved to read. My first science-fiction story was written at the age of eleven, and ever since I've been completely hooked!

 

Nineteen years later, I've come a long way with my writing and have completed the rough draft of my first novel-length work set in an original far-future setting. Now I'm trying to further my career as an author by completing the rewrites to my novel and do what needs to be done to get it published and write more books!

 

As a queer trans woman, my stories often feature a female lead, queer characters, POC characters and transgender characters. I love writing especially about artificial intelligence and synthetic life, their struggles with their status and how society views them, either as machines that think or true people in their own right. My first full novel-length work, Binary System, explores the relationship between a queer human starfighter pilot and her artificial intelligence partner during a devastating war against an implacable enemy.

 

Writing, especially something as huge and complex as a novel, is both a labor of love and intensely difficult, time-consuming work. It requires a great deal of time spent on plotting, character design, outlining story elements, working with design and talking to all different sorts of people to figure out the best way to proceed with the story. I would never give it up for anything in the world; no matter what my situation is, I will never stop writing. 

 

However, I am currently in a financial crisis. I'm finding myself spending far less time working on furthering my career and far more time spent engaged in trying to simply survive. I am a "starving artist" in the sense that I often wonder how I'm going to afford to buy groceries, how I'm going to be able to pay my bills and make rent. Making ends meet in a post-Great Recession world is very difficult. I spent almost two years after the crash homeless, living either on the streets or in a homeless shelter. I'm no longer homeless now, but like many transgender people in America, I've always been on the edge ever since I was disowned by my family. Much of my time has been dedicated to finding regular employment, but as I am one of the millions of Americans who are long-term unemployed, I've been finding it increasingly difficult to attract the interest of potential employers.

 

To help ameliorate the immediate basic needs and to further my career as an author, I've decided to reach out to the wider community for aid. I'm trying to raise money not just to help with food, housing and basic life necessities, but also to further my career as an author of queer science fiction and fantasy.

 

Click here to help me out~