The Debutante Who Didn’t Deb.

This week, my fellow debutantes are all talking about what they’re doing next. I’m still waiting for my release week. In fact, I might be the first woman in the history of the Ball to not actually debut during her Deb year.

It’s the pandemic’s fault, really. Between printing closures and hundreds of books from earlier in the year that needed to shift their own print dates, various plot twists have twisted and curveballs have been thrown, and to make sure printed books actually exist when the readers need them, my publisher shifted my release date. (This is going to happen to dozens of other titles from dozens of other publishers). So, instead of August 25th, I’ll be celebrating two weeks later, on September 9th, when a brand-new set of awesome Debs occupies these hallowed halls.

Welp.

I suppose it’s a reminder that in order to have a writing career, you need to be able to roll with the punches, to write for the fun of it, and the ability to laugh off things like a random pandemic (hahaha) ruining (ahahahahahahaha) literally everything.

I’m mostly kidding.

Anyway, there’s a lot of writing in my future. My next move will be to launch ARCHITECTS, launch ENGINES, and complete my next two books. I’m really excited about completing the duology and having it out there for people to read. Hopefully, I’ll get to go back to Ash, Kate and Natalie, and the world they’ve made for themselves. I might need to write a few other books to level up before I feel comfortable writing in the new Auroran status quo, and that’s all I can say before getting into spoilers.

The next book after the duology is a far-future, spacebound science fiction novel that deals with issues of climate change and environmental conservation (with a massive Roman game of thrones, as they say, as the cherry on top. This is pretty much my excuse to have an alien Marcus Aurelius involved in a plot to save the whales. Sorry not sorry.)

The second is a near-future alternate universe novel about politics and religion, and to get any more specific would be too specific. Let’s just say that it’s as novel that’s close to my heart, and I hope I can pull it off. I’m glad I didn’t get started on it until this year, because the world of this novel is going to go through the ravages of Covid, too, and every month things get worse and my plot changes, too, in response to it. This is also a brilliant challenge, because it’s more of a literary novel than I usually write and (gasp) there are no spaceships.

Yeah, I know. I know.

So, from your neighborhood Schrodinger’s Author: keep writing the things you love, and keep going, whatever that looks like for you right now. The pandemic is upsetting the plans we thought we had and requiring us to make new ones. And that’s not always a bad thing.

Author: Karen Osborne

KAREN OSBORNE is a writer, visual storyteller and violinist. Her short fiction appears in Escape Pod, Robot Dinosaurs, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny and Fireside. She is a member of the DC/MD-based Homespun Ceilidh Band, emcees the Charm City Spec reading series, and once won a major event filmmaking award for taping a Klingon wedding. Her debut novel, Architects of Memory, is forthcoming in 2020 from Tor Books.

One Reply to “The Debutante Who Didn’t Deb.”

  1. Oh, man. I empathize. The same thing happened to me back when I was a Deb in 2012 — I was supposed to debut in July, but my release was pushed to early September. Tor was my publisher, too. Anyway, it all worked out for me, and I’m sure it will for you, too. Your book sounds amazing! I’m looking forward to reading it. 🙂

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