Last night I was talking with a few friends, and somehow we got on the topic of my writing. I started explaining one of my short stories, and someone expressed interest, and I ended up spending the next 45 minutes reading UEC Falcon. Three people ended up listening to the story, and although it was hard on my voice, it was really gratifying to experience people being interested in my writing.

It was almost as gratifying as the writing of UEC Falcon.

So I've been stewing on this story idea for several weeks. I had a core idea for the
 story: There is a military spaceship with only one engineer on board. The ship normally has a crew of hundreds, but it is just the one, and he can't remember what happened. This was an idea, but alone it wasn't enough for a story. I let the idea mull over in my head for a while, and work shopped it with my Writers Group. With their help, I got a few more scenes plotted out, developed an ending, and had a general overview of the story, but I still didn't feel ready to write it. There were missing pieces, and plot elements that didn't quite fit together.

So I continued to mull it over in my head. Then, on a Thursday or Friday, I was thinking about the story as I left work to get lunch, and as I was walking, pieces started falling into place until I had the entire story laid out before me. Everything fit together, it had a beginning, a middle, and an end, And I figured out how it would fit into the larger Nakt story line.

So I went home that evening, and typed up a scene-by-scene outline. Over that weekend and the next Monday/Tuesday I wrote a first draft of the story, clocking in a just over 7,000 words. Monday was the best part. I was recovering from a fever and so stayed home from work, I didn't feel sick, but I felt very fatigued. So after resting for a bit, I sat down to write. I wrote a scene, and then another, then decided to get to the scene after the next one. Two hours later, I had written just shy of 3,000 words. This was the most I've ever written in a single day.

The writing just flowed onto the screen. It was incredibly gratifying.