Sometimes when your writing things get away from you. A story that you were trying to take in one direction ends up going in an entirely different direction. At that point, you have two, no three options. You can follow to see where the story leads or you can go back and try to figure out where it jumped the tracks and have another go at it or you can do both.
I had a story in mind when I started writing Against the Cold of Deepest Space. It ended up going somewhere I wasn’t expecting it to go. I ended up liking where it went quite a bit. Enough so that I think I’ll keep following it to see where it ends up.
On the other hand, there is the poor dear that I started out to write. I think I’ll just have to go back and start over on that idea. It was a good idea but it will have to wait until I resolve the story that I did end up writing or at least started to write.
While I’m beating this poor horse long after it has given up the last breath, I’ll just say that when you are writing a story by the seat of your pants as I obviously often do, it is liberating. You don’t have to worry about things like consistency and all the parts of the story that you haven’t figured out yet. That’s what makes it so terribly difficult when you decide that you like what you’ve written and want to flesh it out some. You all of a sudden have to ask difficult questions.
Questions like, given the level of technology that you are describing, would what they are doing make economic sense? Or, what kind of engines are they using, how much fuel would it take for them to get where they are going to and back, and why would they need a crew of twenty or even one? Wouldn’t it make more sense to send a robotic resupply mission? Then you wouldn’t have to expend air, food, heat and fuel for the extra mass that you were carrying.
I think there are good answers to those questions and I am pursuing them as quickly as I can. Maybe I will have time to crank out that other story that I started. Maybe it is even in the same fictional world as the story that I began to write. You’ll be the first to know after I figure it out.
Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the people you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.