{"id":9516,"date":"2014-08-28T09:08:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-28T15:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=9516"},"modified":"2014-08-28T09:08:54","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T15:08:54","slug":"short-blitz-7-starchild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/short-blitz-7-starchild\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Blitz #7: Starchild"},"content":{"rendered":"

Title:<\/strong> Starchild
\nGenre:<\/strong> Space Opera
\nWord Count:<\/strong> 3,000
\nWriting Time:<\/strong> about two weeks<\/p>\n

I haven’t trimmed or polished this story yet, but I’m calling it at 3,000 words. If I were stricter about following Heinlein’s rules, I would only give it a proofreading pass, but with shorts I’ve heard that it’s best to cut out as many unnecessary words as possible, so I’ll give it a solid pass before sending it out.<\/p>\n

Unlike all of my other short stories so far, this one takes place in the same universe as my novels and novellas. Specifically, it takes place in the Star Wanderers<\/strong> universe, at an unspecified system deep in the Outworld frontier. It’s about a girl in the strictly regimented society of an isolated space colony, who decides to be the first from their outpost to win the heart of a star wanderer. More generally, it’s about the cycle of life on a frontier space station and the inevitable loss of innocence from contact with the outside.<\/p>\n

The idea came to me while I was on vacation, so I didn’t do much with it for the first week. I dabbled with it while I was out at the Cape, writing a little here and there, but it wasn’t until I was on the train headed back that I dedicated some serious time and effort to it.<\/p>\n

My sister lives in Iowa, at almost the exact midway point between Massachusetts and Utah, so I decided to stop by and pay her a visit along the way. I finished the story this afternoon at her house, and I plan to print it out and submit it to F&SF while I still have access to their printer. What can I say … I’m cheap. :p<\/p>\n

I don’t think this will be the last short story that I write in the Star Wanderers<\/strong> universe. If I could write a few good ones that get picked up by a major magazine like Asimov’s or Clarkesworld, that would be a great way to bring in more readers. I figure a story in the same universe as my other books will be much better at that than a generic short story, and since self-publishing is my bread and butter, the more I can get my short stories to serve that, the better.<\/p>\n

In any case, now that thing one is done, I can focus all of my attention on Sons of the Starfarers.<\/strong> If all goes well, Book III: Strangers in Flight<\/strong> will be published in the next couple of weeks, and Book IV: Friends in Command
\n<\/strong>will be finished (at least the rough draft) by mid-October. This was a nice project to work on during vacation, but now that it’s finished, it’s time to get back to work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title: Starchild Genre: Space Opera Word Count: 3,000 Writing Time: about two weeks I haven’t trimmed or polished this story yet, but I’m calling it at 3,000 words. If I were stricter about following Heinlein’s rules, I would only give it a proofreading pass, but with shorts I’ve heard that it’s best to cut out… Continue reading Short Blitz #7: Starchild<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[957,170,855,857,908,1],"tags":[133,887,290],"class_list":["post-9516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ssf-iv","category-short-stories","category-ssf","category-sw","category-ssf-iii","category-uncategorized","tag-family","tag-operation-short-blitz","tag-vacations","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-2tu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9516"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9518,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions\/9518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}