After completing my manuscript for my novella Kaja, I went through a tough few weeks writing-wise.

None of my already-started projects at that point were pulling me. I didn’t have my next plot movement for Project Wishbone, I was entirely uninterested in any high fantasy (sorry, Malthea), and Saige and I had just finished drafting our secret project. So, I was starting to panic a little. I had nothing on which to redirect all that energy from finishing Kaja, and I had a real moment where I was worried I was out of ideas.

I shouldn’t ever be worried about that, of course. Nearly every time I take a shower, I get some sort of inkling of an idea.

I amused myself for a bit with a new short story inspired by The Capital Horror’s domestic horror submission call, and I tentatively started pecking away at a short story idea I’d had months ago but never tried to start. That one wasn’t really gripping me like most of my projects in their infancy, though. There wasn’t anything giving me that spark of excitement that made me want to hide in a hole and just write for hours.

Then it happened. I went on a Muse kick.

If you’re (somehow) unfamiliar, Muse is an English rock band that’s been consistently putting out fantastic space/sci-fi inspired music for over 20 years.

I know you didn’t ask, but my top three Muse albums (in no particular order) are Simulation Theory, Drones, and The 2nd Law.

Back to writing, sorry. So, while listening to Simulation Theory in the shower a few weeks ago, I got to one of my favorite tracks, “Dig Down”. It’s one of the most inspiring and motivating songs ever created, and I still get a little emotional every time that bass starts to throb. I realized that a lot of Stephen King works give a similar message- we’re all familiar with “Stand and be true”, right? Found everywhere, from It to The Dark Tower and, of course, in The Stand. I love this phrase so much that I’ve got it tattooed on me.

Thinking about Dig Down and that phrase, my brain smacked some puzzle pieces together for me.

What if I put some characters in a life-and-death situation that required them to be exceptionally brave? That’s the classic riveting tale!

I’d been resisting the pull of a new sci-fi story for a while, thinking that I should at least finish Stasis or Project Space Cowboy before I start yet another sci-fi story. That’s when I had the grand-daddy idea:

A collection of four sci-fi novellas all about being brave and doing what needs to be done. I won’t spoil what I’ve got planned for Stasis, but it’s definitely headed that way. And Space Cowboy is all about fighting hordes of zombie cows! Now, with a brand-new idea inspired by Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Alien Clay (Project Name: Stand), and a claustrophobic survival horror story told in second-person (Project Name: Dig Down), I’ve got four space stories that show ordinary people being brave in hard circumstances!

I have absolutely no idea what I’ll call the collection yet (obviously, as none of it is fully drafted yet), but I think it’s going to be very fun and cool, and it’ll contain my best writing yet. I still think Stasis is my best writing of my (albeit short) career, and these new concepts have me crazy excited to launch myself into space and not come back for months.

Let me break down each novella for you so you know what’s going into this.

Stasis: A man awakens in space only to find everyone else on the ship is still in cryo sleep. Battling memory loss and the world’s most unhelpful Ship AI, he must rediscover who he is and why he’s here while struggling against the onset of space madness.

Space Cowboy: An independent cattle rancher must team up with a meek scientist to survive a horde of violent diseased cows on the planet Jung-3. Can they stay alive long enough to find a cure and deliver it before the planet is vaporized to contain the infection?

Stand: After efforts to make Mars habitable, humans on Earth suffer a global war that destroys modern society and sets back technological progress by centuries. After over 500 years, humanity makes it back to Mars only to discover the colonists they left there have thrived and created their own culture and society. When tensions grow between Earthlings and Martians, scientist Norrie must make her choice: stand for the oppressed, or let them be destroyed forever?

Dig Down: You are part of the first drill crew on an alien planet rich with minerals. When the operation doesn’t go as planned and throws you into a claustrophobic nightmare of alien caves populated by something hunting you, you must find it in yourself to be brave and find your way to the surface.

That’s where they stand right now, at least. Obviously those summaries are subject to change if they take off in a different direction than I intend (it happens), but that’s what I’m working with right now.

Wish me luck! I can’t wait to spend the next several months lost in space, ignoring everyone around me! Apologies for the short post, but as I said already, my head’s in the stars at the moment.

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Monthly Writing Goals Update

16,919 / 20,000 words

I mean, I literally just got done telling y’all I was on a roll.

This was actually spread out between a few different things- I wrote a piece of flash fiction, worked on the sci-fi stuff of course, then took some dips back into both Project Wishbone and Project Romantasy (yes, I am aware that I just got done saying I wasn’t currently hooked by Malthea, I wrote that sentence last week).

If you’re reading this the day this post is published, I’m currently on day 2/5 of my mini writing retreat in Marion, Montana. I think you can imagine I’m going to be doing a lot of writing here. In fact, I’m probably pounding away on my laptop as you’re reading this!

Very excited to see what that word count looks like for the end of May. I believe in me!

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