Hien Nguyen Writes

 So. Funny story. Do you recall when I said I was going to take a long mental break from my manuscript and maybe query this fall? I finished my manuscript with one major revision (mostly of major structure and the addition of some scenes) in September. I felt a bit meh  about it. Well, last week I received news that my submission to Avengers of Colour was accepted and June Hur had selected me as her mentee. I thought I was mistaken for a second after receiving the e-mail.  But, here we are. So, the "long break" plan is scrapped and I will be instead undergoing some serious revision with the aim of querying this year. It's scary and exciting. I'm grateful, for both the mentorship and the little community it's already conjured.  For now, I'm reviewing some work for my critique partners. Then, hopefully, I'll be diving deep into revisions. Wish me luck! 😬

 Hi there :) It's been a while. I've actually been working on my first complete novel manuscript. As per usual, I vacillate in how I feel about it. BUT the important thing is: the manuscript is complete. I'll be taking a mental break from the work for a while before going back to do another revision. The goal is  to query sometime in fall, but we will see how I feel. I have my next project planned, which is very exciting and hoping that will be my NaNo project this year. Shoutout to my 7th grade class for being correct. It only took 17 years but that's okay. Anyhoo, cheers!

 Hello there! I hope you have been taking care of yourself and holding community close.  The past few weeks have been sad and draining, to say the least. I found myself vacillating between a lot of emotions after the attacks in Atlanta, and obviously, couldn't find my focus. So, there aren't many writing updates for this post. I have started my spring herbs and restructured my writing/work space-both to feel less cluttered. An added benefit is my plants are in a better location (my partner also gets more of his bookshelf space back, which he is very excited about). Nurturing plants make me feel closer to the earth and its creatures, somehow.  Smol baby perilla plant, which actually gets a shoutout in an upcoming flash fiction piece. Two of them seem to be dominating, let's hope after a second division they have more root space.  Tropical corner, which gets to bathe in filtered south-facing light all day

 Hello there! Some exciting things have happened since my last post: Insignia Stories posted one of my accepted drabbles for Women in Horror Month I received an acceptance for one of the pieces of short fiction I submitted last month! The date is still TBA, but will be posted in April :) I didn't write nearly as much this last month as I had hoped, but I did take time to read more short fiction from both small presses and some of the larger speculative magazines. There's a lot of fun work out there. One of my favorite stories was "The Bahrain Underground Bazaar" by Nadia Afifi, which was published in the November/December 2020 Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It was the perfect example of speculative stories that force you to sit with the feelings it conjures for a long time afterward. I also have started taking Vietnamese lessons with an iTalki teacher. I grew up speaking the language with my parents, but like many diaspora kids, the language I speak feels ...

 Hello there!  I started off 2021 feeling more or less pumped up about my goals. Of course, the truth of existence is a little more complicated (especially during a pandemic). I haven't really written or read very much in the past several weeks.  I did manage to convince myself that playing JRPGs (Trails of Cold Steel specifically) on the Playstation was a worthy study in storytelling. This may be obvious to everybody, but I'm noticing a trend of child soldiers in a lot of games 😬  However, I did manage to: Get my ass in gear in the last week, revise and submit a piece of flash fiction to an online magazine. Shout out to my partner, the many friends, and readers on Scribophile who helped with this endeavor!  I made the expensive and mildly impulsive decision to purchase an indoor exercise bike (no, not the one that produced a horror short as an advertisement) which ended up being very productive since my days have largely been on the couch or my desk chair....

 Hello!  2020 was obviously an outrageous and rough year, so reflecting seems like a strange exercise. However, it ended up being the year I finally put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard?) and completed NaNoWriMo, and committed to being a "writer" (whatever that means).  I wrote from middle to high school and dreamt about being a writer. After I graduated, I mostly dropped creative writing. I would pick up random projects but never surpass a few thousand words. My active imagination remained, but I was resolved to fade into a boring adulthood, convinced writing would never be part of my life.  It took a while, but here we are. I've started this blog and a website to hold myself accountable (even though that feels like I'm really putting the cart before the horse, lol).  Goals for 2021 Write and submit a few short stories for publication Start research/writing for my Southeast Asian fantasy epic Take some fiction and creative writing classes Read a lot more boo...