I've been not very active since last month, but Shrink has been: Free Moon
The thousand-word story is a difficult format, hard to start and finish a story without it simply being an idea, or a feeling. Getting both in that straitjacket is a challenge.
So, after more than three years, I've finally put The Princess's Bit to bed. It's now complete. It ended up becoming my second-longest story, but the biggest problem was that I lost my drive to write for over a year. Part of that was losing my long-time job, and part of it was a medical issue, but most of it was just... me.
It's a pretty solid Firefly/Babylon 5/Star Wars sort of space-adventure thing, with some decent worldbuilding. If you're looking for hard SF, it's more like slightly punky balsa-wood, but if you're looking for space pirates and the wild galactic frontier, with a plucky, kind of OP, slightly crazy heroine with somewhat dubious ethical tendencies, well... it was a nice change of pace from the other things I'd been reading.
There was a group of SF writers who tried to get 'princess science fiction' off the ground a couple years ago as part of a new 'movement', AFAIK it didn't go anywhere, but this feels kind of like that. Especially since Flurry Heart is basically Han Solo as a princess gone slightly bad and more than a little cracked. Because her Chewbacca is a very, very old (and, as far as we know, totally inanimate) plushy named Whammy, which she tends to carry around on her shoulder and talk to as if he's a person, like that Irish guy from Braveheart & his asides to 'God'.
About Whammy, see this bit from the most recent chapter:
It was a dream, just the dream, she assured herself as a tiny sob escaped her lips.
Soon, her eyes fell upon a familiar form sitting on her bed.
“Whammy?” Flurry gasped, reaching out and drawing the plushie to her chest. “How did you get here?”
She gave him a deep hug, tears of relief running down her cheeks.
“What do you mean, you have always been here? I’m not in the mood for games, Whammy,” she said, raising him to her eye level and giving him an annoyed scowl.
The plushie simply sat balanced on her hoof, his googly eyes coming to a rest.
“It’s good to see you too,” she said, letting out a sigh. “But where are we?”
Nope. (One of life's best stories)
so flurry in time is really good? If so, glad you recommended it, because it looks unremarkable on its face
5409001
It's a pretty solid Firefly/Babylon 5/Star Wars sort of space-adventure thing, with some decent worldbuilding. If you're looking for hard SF, it's more like slightly punky balsa-wood, but if you're looking for space pirates and the wild galactic frontier, with a plucky, kind of OP, slightly crazy heroine with somewhat dubious ethical tendencies, well... it was a nice change of pace from the other things I'd been reading.
There was a group of SF writers who tried to get 'princess science fiction' off the ground a couple years ago as part of a new 'movement', AFAIK it didn't go anywhere, but this feels kind of like that. Especially since Flurry Heart is basically Han Solo as a princess gone slightly bad and more than a little cracked. Because her Chewbacca is a very, very old (and, as far as we know, totally inanimate) plushy named Whammy, which she tends to carry around on her shoulder and talk to as if he's a person, like that Irish guy from Braveheart & his asides to 'God'.
About Whammy, see this bit from the most recent chapter: