Two scenes and about 900 words into the short story I #amWriting after spending yesterday writing. the contest accepts up to 5,000 words but I expect the story to top out at 2~3K, knock on wood. I've drafted 5K-word shorts in a day before, but I'm fine with taking a little more time on this one. I'm grateful to have started at all because this one has been in development for so long and I'm still hesitant--I think it might be my first actual #scienceFiction short, for all it kicks some widespread SF tropes and especially space travel to pieces--but the January 2 deadline is spurring me on to make the push and get out this ONE story in 2025.

This is the contest I'm submitting to, btw, on the prompt "The return of..." running Oct. 24, 2025 - Jan. 2, 2026: https://onthepremises.com/current-contest/ I've rarely come up with the right stories for OTP prompts and never had any luck the few times I submitted there, but this prompt happened to coincide with a thing I've had simmering for a while and the time constraint is a good motivation to get it drafted at last.

I expect to finish drafting the most pivotal and description-heavy scene today, the one I'm most resistant to starting because it's the least planned out. Once I do get that scene draft down I expect to draft the remaining three-ish scenes in pretty short order and get the whole first draft today, tomorrow at the latest. And that will truly be the wrap for creative writing in 2025, a year without a lot to show for in words but where I made a lot of developments and plans. #LjWrites