"There's a storm raging," she says, "and you and I are hanging on for dear life aboard this old pirate ship."

In an effort to write a short story worthy of submission to last year’s Clarion workshop, I ended up going over their limit of 6,000 words and writing a novelette. As I was writing it, I knew it was going to be long. But the story had its hooks in me, and I was reluctant to leave off in favor of a shorter story idea.

And I’m glad. It’s one of the first stories I’ve ever written that could be classified as true science fiction, and I enjoyed every minute of writing it. It’s basically a what-if story based on the potential of nanotechnology and how far perhaps we humans might take it.

Since writing it, I had gotten feedback from a good friend and fellow writer; however, I didn’t really know how to address some very important points she had brought up. Somehow, the story worked its way off of my desk and into a manila folder beneath other manila folders. Fat Cat suspects it’s where my stories go to molder, but I like to call this the ripening process.

After so many months away from it, reading it again is like a first encounter. I’m seeing things I hadn’t noticed before. I’m appreciating bits I had forgotten about. Solutions are revealing themselves to me in spangled AHA! moments.

So this is what I’m working on. I hope to have a final revision completed by the end of the week, and then it’s off to my workshop and a couple of readers for feedback. Then I’ll take it down to the post office and send it out into the bright, cold world to find its destiny.

The picture above was downloaded from deviantART.com. The artist is George Grie.

Not only is it a beautiful piece, it’s an astonishingly perfect rendition of a scene from the story where Chris, my brave, brave protagonist, has plunged himself into travels unexpected…which are really the best travels one can have.