Eight hundred words in three weeks? That’s… not gonna cut it for novel-writing.

Good thing those new words are in a new project, then. Specifically, I’m writing a sci-fi short story.

My reasoning is simple: I figure I should probably focus on a shorter project I can actually complete in the next few months, since there’s no way I can make meaningful progress on Book the Second while also juggling queries, my day job and a baby. I figure I can finish a first draft of the story by the end of November, then blitz the editing in time for Christmas.

As to the story itself – unlike my first novel, which is straight up commercial fiction, this is definitely more of a literary work. It’s about space colonization, and it really hits how I feel about the way space exploration is currently managed. So it’s something that I want to write both because I think it’s a good story, and because it’s something I think needs to be said.

Hopefully, it’ll get read by someone at some point, too.