Ancient Origins

When I finished Blood Magic, I knew it was a valuable exercise, and I was also glad to be done with it so that I could turn my attention to longer-form writing, like Impressions.  Now, I find myself thinking about writing another short story series (although I’d do a few things differently if I did it again, like not releasing them in real time).  All because of a short story that got away from me.

Back in November, the Elegant Literature prompt was “Moonlit Mysteries, and a hook.”  After a few failed attempts to write a story about the fragments of the planet that formed Earth’s moon that are embedded in our mantle, I realized that I really wanted to write about space pirates.  Not just any space pirates, though – space pirates who kidnap an archeologist to search for ancient treasure.  After writing a first draft, I realized two things: one, that I’d a story that really wanted to be longer than the two-thousand-word limit, and two, that I’d accidentally written episode 0 of a short story series idea I had years ago.

It started from a conversation with a friend about Star Wars.  We both observed that the Star Wars galaxy is characterized by a peculiar mix of technology and minimal innovation, and we theorized therefrom that some ancient, technologically advanced civilization built the hyperspace lanes and eventually went extinct, long before the era that we see in the movies.  From there, I thought a Star Wars archeology show could be quite interesting, but of course I don’t write for Star Wars, and most Star Wars fans would probably be bored by what I wanted to write.  The basic idea wouldn’t stop rattling around in my head, though, so I did what any good writer would do – I took the core concept I liked so much, lifted it out of Star Wars, and built my own setting for it.

I wrote a few character sketches, an overall description, and that’s as far as it went at the time.  No stories, not even an outline, and the paper sat in my drawer for years.  Only when I realized where the November Elegant Literature prompt story was going did I pull it out again.  It was a story whose greatest weakness was trying to fit too much into too few words.  As an exercise for myself, I sat down and wrote the story as I wanted to tell it, without worrying about word count (or forced hook-placement).  The result was about five thousand words, and I kept thinking about what future “episodes” might look like, enough that I began writing an outline for the series.

This is not a formal announcement of a new series, and I‘m certainly not putting dates onto anything.  I have novels to write, and other short stories, and yes, it sometimes feels like I won’t have enough time to get all of the stories written that I want to tell.  Still, I think the idea is fascinating, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I start writing a few episodes.  That’s all, but someday I may just have enough written to share.